“msnbc” on The Daily Caller

In one of the most comically sanctimonious rants in the history of MSNBC Wednesday night, host Lawrence O’Donnell attacked me and the other panelists for poking fun of restaurateur Mario Batali during the Fox News Channel show “Red Eye.” Batali has been protesting potential cuts in the federal government’s food stamp program by subsisting, along with his family, on the equivalent of a food stamp budget for one week. (more)

It’s probably not the endorsement that incumbent Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch needs right now, as the Republican is locked up in a primary challenge from Dan Liljenquist. But Saturday on Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show, former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the co-author of “Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing As We Know It,” pleaded with Utah voters to keep their senior senator. (more)

The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney probably won’t be getting a call from any of MSNBC’s “NewsNation” bookers about an appearance any time soon. (more)

A Democratic lawmaker may have violated prohibitions against soliciting campaign contributions on government property while appearing on MSNBC on Monday night. (more)

On his Monday MSNBC program, just a week after condemning former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to hell based on the Book of Mormon, afternoon host Martin Bashir cited a column from The New York Times’ Timothy Egan to suggest that Romney isn’t fit for the White House because he does not drink. (more)

Holy fire and brimstone, Batman. (more)

On March 30, an MSNBC news anchor accused the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) of “race-baiting” for (among other charges) writing in a 2009 in-house document, “We … need to … interrupt the attempt to equate gay with black, and sexual orientation with race; we need to make traditional sexual morality intellectually respectable again in elite culture.” (more)

If you’ve ever tuned into to MSNBC weekdays between 11 a.m. and noon ET, you are likely to have seen at least one segment focused on a LGBT issue moderated by host Thomas Roberts. But sometimes, Roberts and company might be trying a little too hard to push these issues to the forefront. (more)

When MSNBC discarded Keith Olbermann, al-Qaida mourned. (more)

In a reversal of a collective decade-long ratings slide, viewership at all three broadcast news divisions grew in 2011. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual State of the Media report, evening news viewership across ABC, CBS and NBC increased by nearly 1 million viewers to 22.5 million for an aggregate gain of 4.5 percent. And while evening newscast audiences are much grayer than those watching the networks’ entertainment programs, all three newscasts – ABC World News, NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News – added viewers in news’ target demographic of 25-54-year-olds. In the morning, where the broadcast news divisions pull in the lions share of their ad revenue, viewership was up 5.4 percent across ABC, CBS and NBC to 13.1 million viewers. (more)

U.S. labor unions paid MSNBC “Ed Show” host Ed Schultz roughly $200,000 in 2011, and roughly $337,000 over the last seven years, according to Department of Labor documents. (more)

For all of MSNBC’s efforts to promote public policy on education, the graphics department at that network might be proof there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area. (more)

MSNBC once heralded itself as “the place for politics,” but on Super Tuesday in the heat the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, it was a place where viewers were treated to the antics of left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. (more)

New York Times columnist Charles Blow tried it last week and it failed miserably, using his Twitter feed as a platform to attack former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and having to apologize for the tweet later. (more)

This is the second installment in Jack Hunter’s new Daily Caller video commentary series, “The Deal with Jack Hunter.” In this week’s installment, Jack argues that by firing Pat Buchanan, MSNBC, Media Matters and the Color of Change have undermined free speech. (more)

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Former MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan said in an interview with The Daily Caller that he regrets the cable network took him off the air “but it’s over and you move on.” (more)

On his Friday show, “Hardball” host Chris Matthews offered an unexpected tribute to Pat Buchanan, who he had worked with at MSNBC for the last 10 years. Although on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Buchanan, Matthews echoed the sentiments of MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, telling his viewers that he would miss the conservative commentator. (more)

On Friday’s “Sean Hannity” radio program, now-former MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan elaborated on his departure from the network he had been with for a decade. According to Buchanan, it wasn’t that he was looking to leave MSNBC, but had his hand forced. (more)

In an essay for The American Conservative posted on Thursday, now-former MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan announced that his days at the cable news network “had come to an end,” and criticized two organizations he said were making the push for his departure: Color of Change and the embattled left-wing media watchdog Media Matters. (more)