Free Republic

Nicolle Wallace, Republican strategist, talks with Rachel Maddow about the challenge the Republican Party faces appealing to moderate Americans when certain candidates' anti-gay or anti-immigrant views get so much attention.

When it comes to fake news stories, if anyone's an expert it's Dan Rather . . . The disgraced former CBS News anchor has a new twist on the vast right-wing conspiracy. Instead of plotting against poor innocents like Bill and Hillary, those conspiratorial conservatives are now creating phony feuds among themselves! On Rachel Maddow's show tonight, Rather declared himself "suspicious" about the battle between Donald Trump and Fox News, suggesting that Trump and Roger Ailes might have "gotten together and planned out" the feud for their mutual benefit. View the video here.

CLEVELAND, Ohio: A Wall Street Journal report suggests that despite critics’ opinions predicting GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s poll numbers would fall, two early – though unscientific – polls predict that may be wrong. “Time Magazine found that Mr. Trump took 47% of nearly 55,000 votes. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) of Florida was in second place with just 10%. The Drudge Report’s poll found more than half of nearly 362,000 voters favored Mr. Trump, well above everyone else,” the Wall Street Journal noted. After Frank Luntz’s made his opinion on Trump’s performance suggesting “tonight his act wore thin,” conservative talk radio...

America is in deep trouble. And it’s all Sean Hannity’s fault. So says newly minted GOP presidential candidate and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Said Senator Graham in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, as reported here in the Washington Examiner. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, thinks he knows why the country is increasingly divided on ideological lines, and it has a lot to do with MSNBC and Fox News. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, Graham said the current media environment makes it difficult for lawmakers to accomplish anything. He envisioned what...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took his presidential campaign to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce this week, where he raised a provocative point about, of all things, panhandling. Benjy Sarlin reported: “If you look at the values that resonate in our community, they are faith, family, patriotism, hard work,” he told host Javier Palomarez, the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “Some years ago I was having lunch with a Hispanic entrepreneur in Austin and he asked me a question: He said, ‘When was the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?’ It’s a great question…. I’m not sure I’ve...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was in Iowa yesterday, where the presidential hopeful reflected on the possibility of a Supreme Court ruling endorsing marriage equality. The far-right senator told his audience, “The first thing and I think the most important thing every one of us can do, is pray. Lift up in prayer.” But as the Dallas Morning News noted, that’s not all Cruz said. He reiterated his vow to press for a constitutional amendment that would clarify the power of state legislatures to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. If the high court does legalize...

CNN and FOX News have stepped up their game. CNN has gone full infotainment under Jeff Zucker and is eating MSNBC’s lunch. Meanwhile MSNBC has the same cast of social justice warriors with occasional interruptions from idiots like Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews offering the same predigested pablum that MSNBC’s younger audience gets in mock form from the Daily Show.The collapse is hitting fast and hard. MSNBC’s demo ratings, the 25-54 adult audience, has fallen anywhere from 39% to 45% (I’ve seen three numbers quoted across Variety, Deadline and Mediaite, 39%, 40% and 45%). For Q1 2015, MSNBC’s weekday primetime...

As he returns to run the NBC News Group, Andy Lack faces one of the same puzzles he tried to solve a decade and a half ago: how to make MSNBC work. While he was gone, MSNBC changed from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens. Now that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack’s mandate as chairman will be figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its mission. The current picture is seriously ugly. Through early March, Chris Hayes’ viewership at 8 p.m. on weekdays was down 23 percent from...

Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren thinks MSNBC's liberal host Rachel Maddow would be a fine fit to replace Brian Williams as anchor of NBC's "Nightly News." "How about a woman?" wrote Van Susteren on her Gretawire blog Wednesday. "My suggestion: Rachel Maddow. Whether you agree with her or not, she will stir things up and provoke a debate. She is also the right price — she is already on the payroll!" Van Susteren's suggestion comes in light of news that Brian Williams has been suspended for six months as anchor and managing editor of NBC's "Nightly News." Van Susteren...

That MSNBC routinely, almost compulsively, mischaracterizes what conservatives say is nothing new. It's what makes the network so adorable. But in a recent trend, anchor Rachel Maddow has been upping the ante, altering quotes we just heard her play on tape. On Monday night, for example, Rachel ran a news clip from President Reagan's 1983 Martin Luther King Day signing ceremony: "Chris Wallace, NBC Reporter (by miraculous coincidence, currently a Fox News anchor): 'There was an air of celebration in the Rose Garden and an underlying tension. White House officials wrestled for days how to usher in a holiday the...

You won’t likely see MSNBC host Rachel Maddow filling in for Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News.” While Maddow is usually described as the “host” of a cable news show, she is rarely called a “news anchor.” Her own NBC bio describes her as a “host”–and never even uses the word “journalist.” So it’s worth noting that a new MSNBC promo flips the script, describing Maddow as a “news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate.” Conservative critics immediately jumped on the promo, noting that previous “Lean Forward” promos for MSNBC included hosts like Maddow talking about...

Appearing on MSNBC after President Obama’s speech announcing executive amnesty, Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez told host Rachel Maddow that Republican disbelieved Obama’s border claims because they wanted to use “xenophobia” and “bigotry” against Mexicans. MADDOW: The first thing the President announced tonight in his three part plan was yet further resources to the border, yet more resources in terms of stopping people from crossing in the first place, catching them when they do, and sending them back. [Republican operative Steve Schmidt] said no Republican in the country believes that is true. That’s obviously a fake assertion. What’s behind the refusal...

ANDREA MITCHELL: A lot of Democrats are saying that the president did not show enough loyalty. A lot of women in the administration are very angry tonight, and I'm saying this at a very high level. Angry because they feel that she was not treated with respect, she was not given the support she needed and she was left to twist in the wind. RACHEL MADDOW: They're angry, with whom though? MITCHELL: Angry with the White House. And with the boss, with the president, for not be willing to fight this out. That he's backed down in the face of...

This started as a top ten list.Let's face it, with President Obama's awful approval ratings and the unfortunate consequences of Obamacare felt like a sting around the country, Democrats were already vulnerable in this year's midterm elections. These gaffes certainly won't help. Let's take a look at some of the worst mistakes Dems have made on the campaign trail so far:1.) That awful/insensitive/shameful and now infamous ad from the Wendy Davis (D-TX) gubernatorial campaign. 2.) Those colorful campaign memos from Michelle Nunn’s (D-GA) campaign, in which her own campaign referred to her as a “lightweight.” 3.) Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) saying he was...

[snip] As the hearing continued, the White House announced that President Obama would meet with the nurse in the Oval Office for a photo-op. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest additionally mocked Chairman Darrell Issa for his pronunciation of the word "Ebola" and dismissed the hearing. "I didn't see much of it," Earnest said to reporters during the White House Press briefing. "It does seem that most of the criticism was registered by somebody who struggled to pronounce the name of the virus at the hearing." Earlier in the hearing, Issa was pronouncing the word "Ebola" like "Eboli."

Let she who is without geography sin cast the first globe! On her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow mercilessly mocked Darrell Issa for confusing Guinea with Guyana. The Republican congressman made his mistake during a discussion of the country in which the latest Ebola outbreak began. Issa said it was "Guyana," a South American country, whereas in fact it was Guinea, a West African one. Fair enough. Issa should have gotten his countries straight. But of all the hosts in the MSNBC lineup, Rachel Maddow should have been the last to have the chutzpah to highlight Issa's blooper. For...

Another embarrassing mistake by Rachel Maddow. This time Rachel has revealed her unfamiliarity with some simple world geography. On her MSNBC show this evening, discussing President Obama's impending trip to one of the Baltic states--Estonia--Maddow told anecdotes of "the last time a US President visited the Balkans." Whoops! Maddow waxed on about how the last time an American president visited the "Balkans," it was George W., visiting Albania. Rachel recounted the story of how W's wrist-watch disappeared when he waded into a crowd of Albanian well-wishers. With malicious glee, Maddow mentioned that in honor of his visit, the Albanians erected...

Looks like it's not just in Iraq where civil war is breaking out. Seems that it could also be happening at MSNBC, with Iraq ironically being the flashpoint. Two nights ago, Rachel Maddow condemned TV shows that book original Iraq war hawks like Paul Bremer. Maddow specifically called out her very own MSNBC for having given Bremer air time. And just where had Bremer appeared on the Lean Forward network? Morning Joe. So you have to imagine that Joe Scarborough might well have had Maddow in mind when on today's show he said "I don't know why some people are...

... what will the new narrative from the MSM be? Before the first GOP primaries this year, we heard from the MSM the long-held narrative: A.) "There is a huge war within the GOP. The GOP needs to do something with these "extremists" (Tea Party)!" Then when Boehner and some others won their primaries, the MSM narrative quickly shifted (as in goal-posts): B.) "The GOP has absorbed the Tea Party!" Now with Eric Cantor losing to David Brat (and that was a huge loss), the MSM won't go back on their narrative, even though they logically would have to admit...

On Friday evening, Rachel Maddow tore into several Republican lawmakers who skipped private briefings on the Bowe Bergdahl swap to hold press conferences or make TV appearances lamenting the lack of information on the administration’s actions. Maddow noted that on Wednesday, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) left a private Senate briefing on Bergdahl early to hold a press conference demanding more information. “I learned nothing in this briefing,” he told reporters.