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Sometimes you just want to shake the TV and say "enough with the cutesy facial expressions, already: spit it out, Mika!" Morning Joe mavens will know what I mean: Mika Brzezinski has the annoying habit of letting a series of sighs, raised eyebrows and facial tics substitute for a clear articulation of her position on a given issue. There was a prime example of the phenomenon on today's show, when after rolling a clip of Bibi Netanyahu criticizing the prospective Iran deal, Mika announced that she would "reserve" comment, satisfying herself yet again with dramatic pauses, grimaces, etc. [see example...

CONNECTICUT TO BOYCOTT INDIANA OVER RFRA, FORGETS IT HAS ITS OWN By Emily Zanotti on 3.30.15 Presient Obama isn't the only person who has selective memory when it comes to voting for and passing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This morning, the governor of Connecticut, Dan Malloy, announced that he would be the first governor in the union to sign an executive order limiting state-sponsored travel to Indiana because of Indiana's ostensibly "discriminatory practices."

Mike Pence is a bigot, according to one of his fellow governors. “When you see a bigot you have to call him on it,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Story Continued Below Malloy, the incoming chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, on Monday signed an executive order banning state-funded travel to Indiana in response to a "religious freedom" law signed last week by Pence. Critics say the law, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians; Pence insists it’s meant only to protect religious communities from government encroachment...

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that." View the video here.

Upon Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) announcement that he’s running for the presidency, Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski said that though she didn’t agree with a single thing Cruz believed, at least the GOP’s new crop of candidates was a vast improvement over the “clown car” of 2012. Here occasional guest Donny Deutsch disagreed: “He’s Sarah Palin,” Deutsch argued Monday morning. “He’s theater. That’s what Sarah Palin was. We love the show, okay. But when it comes time for the grown-up voting…” “Please don’t make me explain why he’s not Sarah Palin,” Brzezinski said. “I would get killed.” “I’m not saying...

Warning: readers are advised to hide the sharp objects before viewing the clip of Morning Joe's review of the Middle East today. The picture painted is one of the utter failure of US foreign policy, leaving a devastated, deadly region in its woeful wake. We open with President Obama's "mission accomplished" moment from last year in which he called US policy in Yemen "successful." Cut to Jim Miklaszewski saying that the White House had to order US special forces out of the country, leaving us with absolutely no leverage. Then to Iraq, where two experts say Iraq as a country...

Imagine you're David Brock, James Carville or Lanny Davis. Stop: no! Can't do that to our Newsbusters readers. Let's just picture someone in the Hillary camp—even Herself. He/she's settled in front of the tube this morning, Grande, two-pump Vanilla, Non-Fat, Extra Hot Latte in hand, and tuned to fave: Morning Joe. Suddenly, from an array of people, you hear these phrases: "in jail for five to ten years"; "Clinton fatigue especially among Democratic primary voters"; "perjury charges"; "I'm still not certain she's going to be a candidate"; and "more and more people in the inside [saying] they don't think --...

Imagine the audacity of a freshman senator presuming to speak out forcefully on foreign affairs! What? You thought we were alluding to Barack Obama, who after less than a year in the Senate and with no discernible foreign policy credentials began a campaign to become Commander-in-Chief? No, no, no! We were talking about Tom Cotton, of course! On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski castigated Cotton as a "toddler" and a "fool" for writing that letter to Iran. For good measure, Al Hunt said that America has its "crazies" just like Iran has its "crazies." Did Hunt just equate Republican senators...

NBC is once again under fire from Iraq War veterans — this time for a correspondent’s claims that sniper Chris Kyle was “racist.” More than 20 retired generals and admirals penned a letter to Comcast, which owns NBC, following a Jan. 29 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” with Middle East reporter Ayman Mohyeldin, according to a report in the Washington Examiner. “Some of what people have described as his racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these, you know, killing sprees in Iraq on assignment,” Mohyeldin said of Kyle, whose career was recently the...

MSNBC is not known for its showcasing conservative voices. When conservatives are invited, they are ruthlessly grilled and struggle to get a word in edgewise. With this in mind, it was surprising to see Andrew McCarthy of National Review on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Even more surprising was his comments on Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Willie Geist got to the heart of the discussion by asking McCarthy what his stake was in Clinton email controversy, “Is this about security? Is it about accountability and transparency?” In response McCarthy affirmed, “I'm a national security guy. I’ve been worried about Benghazi...

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have wondered out loud whether Michael Schmidt, the New York Times reporter who broke the story about Hillary using private email during her time as Secretary of State, might be fearing "retribution" from Hillary's camp. When Joe and Mika interviewed New York Times Schmidt on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough had to work to get Schmidt to say something that was in his own article: that while Colin Powell also used private email as Secretary of State, there were no rules prohibiting that at the time. Later, Joe and Mika later remarked that they were "taken...

MNSBC's Morning Joe reported this morning that President Bill Clinton hosted an Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, in his election against Benjamin Netanyahu. President Obama is refusing to meet with Netanyahu next week because, he says, it's too close to Israel's election day. "It's not unprecedented," the MSNBC host said of an American president hosting an Israel prime minister during his reelection campaign. "In 1996, the Clinton administration hosted Shimon Peres for a U.S. visit while he was in the midst of an election against Benjamin Netanyahu." "Democratic presidents have always loathed Benjamin Netanyahu," said the other MSNBC host, Joe...

Who said: "I've always believed the decline of the middle class could be tied to the decline of unions. And when you have 7%, 8% of the work force in unions, when you have CEO pay going up to record heights, you're going to have a hollowing out of the middle class." Was it a. Elizabeth Warren; b. Robert Reich; or c. Ed Schultz? Correct answer: d. None of the above. It was Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough prefaced his lament over the decline of unions by saying "It's been well-documented on Twitter: I'm a right-wing Republican stooge."...

Something striking on today's Morning Joe. On the one hand, there was complete consensus that—as a matter of politics—Rudy Giuliani made a huge mistake in claiming that President Obama doesn't love America. Panelists called his comments "stupid," "crazy," "tone deaf," even "racist." But remarkably, there was one thing that no one said: that as a matter of substance Rudy was wrong. No one made the case that President Obama really does love America in the way most Americans do.

Mike Lupica ought to stick to sports. When he wanders into politics he says silly stuff, as on today's Morning Joe. With HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell being interviewed about Obamacare, Lupica unctuously wondered out loud: "how did something that was this noble an idea become something over time that the other party uses against this president constantly? And is there a way, over the last two years of his presidency, for him to throw some sort of Hail Mary pass and make this look like the triumph he thought it was going to be?" View the video here.

There are still 10 months to go in 2015, but Mike Barnicle is a strong frontrunner for Clumsiest Comment of the Year. In a Morning Joe segment today on ISIS outrages, and shortly after mentioning the atrocity in which ISIS burned dozens of people to death in Iraq, Barnicle said that the complexity of dealing with ISIS makes "you want to set your hair on fire."

Joe Scarborough opened today's Morning Joe with a protracted and impassioned plea for America—and in particular President Obama—to call out radical Islam by name. Mika Brzezinski was dubious, citing unspecified "difficult times" in the past when presidents used the wrong language. But taking Mika's misgivings a giant step further, Mike Barnicle flatly declared that we can't call radical Islam by name because "we're the Crusaders." View the video here.

On Joe Scarborough’s MSNBC show this past week Yale-educated Howard Dean added a new word to the lexicon of Democratic condescension, “unknowledgeable.” “Scott Walker, were he to become president, would be the first president in many generations that did not have a college degree,” said Dean of the Wisconsin governor. “And that's a problem.” Scarborough countered later in the conversation, “Well, nobody is accusing Scott Walker of being dumb because he didn't graduate from college except you.”

Joe Scarborough is shocked by the outpouring of "sheer hatred, snarkiness and snideness" directed at Brian Williams. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough drew a contrast between himself, who as an opinion person has to expect much criticism, and Williams, who he claimed reported the news in a "straight" way. But as Newsbusters and our parent MRC has carefully documented, Williams has been anything but a "straight" reporter of the news. Like so many of his MSM brethren, Williams had a distinctly liberal slant. View the video here.

Rand Paul to reporter: "Calm down a bit here, Kelly. Let me answer the question." Joe Scarborough to guest: 'Let me finish my sentence and then you can be a condescending liberal Emmanuel." The two responses sound similar, don't they? Two guys getting frustrated by their interlocutors' interruptions. The irony is that Joe Scarborough devoted a segment on today's Morning Joe to rapping Rand Paul for "shushing" that reporter, whereas a bit later in the show, Scarborough himself shut down a guest with such similar language. View the video here.