Recently, Gretchen Carlson actually claimed that Fox & Friends is "fair & balanced." But she was referring to the asses on the curvy couch and not the content of the programming which is just about as far from "fair & balanced" as you can get, so I guess she's not lying. While one can understand not having two opposing views in a segment, one would think that a "fair & balanced" programming format would include an opposing view at some point in time - or at least some rebuttal from the "fair & balanced" pals who routinely seem to be in agreement with their right wing guests. In their "trouble with textbooks" series, the only guest was a right wing professor. In their "trouble with schools," an anti-union, anti-public school partisan is the featured speaker. And recently, in reporting on the Fox abetted "outrage" over the opposition of the Catholic bishops to the contraceptive mandate in health care reform, they have had five segments, including one in which a bishop, spoke against the policy. Well, the bishop is back in town for more "fair & balanced" promotion of the Catholic position so that Catholic viewers will know who not to vote for, wink, wink!

Just a few months after Monica Crowley announced to Fox News viewers that Americans are sick of attack politics, she cheered on Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer for “getting up in the president’s grill.” Not only that, Crowley was so eager to attack President Obama last night as she guest-hosted on Hannity, she threw truth, facts and fairness and balance out the window.

Leave it to Sean Hannity to pick up and run with a racially-tinged attack on President Obama. The same guy who relentlessly promoted Donald Trump’s birther conspiracy theory, who has repeatedly tried to paint President Obama as some kind of black radical, who openly supported Glenn Beck’s infamous accusation that Obama is a black racist and the guy who formerly palled around with a white supremacist – that Sean Hannity made a point of amplifying and promoting Newt Gingrich’s “food stamp president” attack.

Did you notice that many Republicans didn’t seem to be wearing flag pins during the State of the Union address? Most notably missing was John Boehner’s. Addicting info has a nice still shot that shows it either blends in with his suit or it’s clearly missing. Note that on Fox News’ article, they used a picture that shows the area covered by his hand. This brings up an interesting point- given Fox News’ past obsession with the flag pin, how big a deal would this be if Boehner was a Democrat? Let’s review.

Predictably, Fox News’ attacks on Nancy Pelosi for supposedly having secret information about why Newt Gingrich will not be president (when it’s pretty much a no brainer to most of us) continued on prime time last night.  On The Record devoted an entire segment to the attack issue with Fox News’ Democratic contributor, Joe Trippi. Sadly, Trippi ignored the possibility that when Pelosi said she “knew” Gingrich would not be president, she was stating the obvious and he joined with host Greta Van Susteren, saying that if Pelosi had damaging information she ought to come right out with it. Yet Trippi somehow ignored the blatant Fox News hypocrisy going on under his nose: Nobody seems to care about the secret information Donald Trump has from that big Hawaii investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate (about which he crowed his investigators “cannot believe what they’re finding”).

Can anybody explain to me why Fox News keeps promoting Donald Trump’s phony presidential candidacy? It can’t be any clearer that he won’t run and even if he did, it’s almost certain he wouldn’t win. Yet Fox News trots him out day after day, ignoring Trump’s glaring lack of credibility, in order to promote his phony presidential candidacy. The only reason I can think of for Trump’s popularity on Fox News is that he attacks President Obama in colorful ways. Whatever the motive, such matters as truth and honesty have taken a back seat. In this latest excuse to pretend Trump might run, Greta Van Susteren gushed over a comment made by Trump’s daughter saying she hopes he runs because he’d be “phenomenal” and Trump’s teasing/self-aggrandizing response, “Maybe I should listen.”

Fox News’ former White House correspondent and Fox & Friends weekend host, Greg Kelly, currently the host of Fox Television’s Good Day New York – and the son of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly – has been accused of rape and is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. (H/T Mediaite)

Fox News reporter Ed Henry followed quickly in Newt Gingrich’s footsteps by linking President Obama with radical community organizer Saul Alinsky - and then went Gingrich one further by speculating on White House interior decor. The inflammatory question was then picked up and amplified by Fox Nation.

Austan Goolsbee, formerly on the President's Council of Economic Advisors, appeared on Your World yesterday to discuss Warren Buffet's secretary sitting with the First Lady at the State of the Union address.

With sorrow I announce the death of Nancy Anton, an original and founding member of the News Hounds. For most of the time I knew her, starting in early 2004, she suffered from serious health problems. Those problems prevented her from participating in the blog several years ago. But she was an important force in the blog whose presence was felt long after she retired from it.