Brad Wilmouth's blog

On Friday night, during MSNBC's live coverage of the police standoff with bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, host Chris Hayes seemed to still be worried about the issue of "Mirandizing" the terror suspect, as he took time to ask NBC's Pete Williams whether the authorities would be "proceeding according to the textbook" in giving him "due process."

A few days earlier on Tuesday's All In show, Hayes had fretted that any terror suspects might not be read Miranda rights as he called it a "disgrace" that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins had recommended not doing so if any suspects turned out to be noncitizens.

A bit past 8:30 p.m. on Friday, as Pete Williams filled in viewers on the standoff, Hayes brought up Miranda rights as he posed:

On Wednesday's All In show on MSNBC, host Chris Hayes devoting a segment to fretting over what he viewed as a "bizarre and perverse mismatch" at the country's willingness to act aggressively in response to deaths from terrorist acts, but the difficulty to get a response to the many gun deaths. He also described the 30,000 people who die from gun shots each year as "martyrs on the altar of the Second Amendment," as he complained of a double standard.

The MSNBC host teased the segment at about 8:11 p.m.:

On Tuesday's All In show, MSNBC's Chris Hayes reacted negatively to Senator Susan Collins because the Maine Republican recently recommended that, if any non-citizens are involved in the Boston bombing, they should not be afforded Miranda rights and should be handed to a military tribunal, as the MSNBC host asserted that he was "angered and disappointed" by her comments which he later called a "disgrace."

His reaction to Collins came as he took a moment to give attention to a report by the Constitution Project which criticized the treatment of terror suspects by the Bush administration as "torture." After complaining about various media personalities calling for the use of torture after the 9/11 attacks, he tied in the Boston bombing:

On Thursday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, host O'Donnell ranted against Republicans who have argued that the proposed new gun laws would not have prevented recent high-profile shootings, as the MSNBC host referred to such talk as "the worst, most vicious lie being told by Republicans."

Referring to nine-year-old shooting victim Christina Taylor Green, who died in the Tucson, Arizona, mass shooting that targeted former Rep. Gabby Giffords, O'Donnell absurdly claimed that she "was safe" when magazine clips of more than 10 rounds used to be illegal, and asserted that "cowardly lawmakers' indifference to her right to life" was the reason she was killed. O'Donnell:

On Wednesday's All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, host Hayes demonstrated his far left views on big government as he called for raising taxes and increasing Social Security benefits even beyond projected spending increases while guest and liberal MSNBC analyst Jonathan Alter was taking a more moderate position that Democrats should agree to restrain unsustainable growth in spending on the program.

After Alter as a guest criticized liberals who oppose changes in Social Security as wanting to "preserve it in amber," adding that "that is not possible," Hayes a bit later in the discussion injected:

On Tuesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC host O'Donnell fretted that people "suffer deprivations" in the United States because the U.S. is the "world's biggest tax haven" with a relatively low tax burden compared to other countries. After showing his viewers a chart recounting that the U.S. ranks 31st in the percentage of the economy the government collects in taxes, O'Donnell added:

On Monday's All In show on MSNBC, host Chris Hayes praised Britain's "beloved" national health care program as possibly "one of the great hallmarks of western social democracy," as he admitted to delivering criticism from a liberal point of view of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administration.

On Saturday's Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, during a discussion of the 40th anniversary of the Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, panel member Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post asserted that it is a "real problem" that many parts of the country do not have abortion clinics.

She went on to fret that younger people are not interested enough in the issue and recommended that "feminist groups and pro-abortion groups have to find a way to engage them and educate them because they're going to be the ones that are on these grassroot levels and at the state levels..."

Appearing in his role as regular panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas -- formerly of Newsweek -- made known his view that the Second Amendment was meant to be "limited to muskets," but went on to undermine the talk of more gun laws as a "side show" as he asserted that "it's a diversion from what we really need to do, which is deal with bigger issues like debt and climate and things that politicians don't want to deal with."

At one point during the discussion of gun control, liberal columnist Mark Shields suggested taxing bullets to make them more expensive like the governnent did with cigarettes:

During the monologue of Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, host Maher joked about wanting to see Texas Governor Rick Perry trying to defend himself from a killer using prayer, as he excoriated the Republican governor for suggesting that more religion could help reduce violent tendencies in people.

As he brought up the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and opposition to the left's proposed new gun laws, Maher went after the Texas governor:

On Thursday's The Ed Show, MSNBC analyst Jonathan Alter -- formerly of Newsweek -- chastised Whole Foods CEO John Mackey for using the word "fascism" criticizing Obamacare, suggesting that he is less "enlightened" than liberal CEOs like Warren Buffett for not realizing that "The only reason that they have been able to be so successful is because they're operating in a country, this country, where they get all kinds of public services..."

Without informing viewers that Whole Foods employs a plan based on high deductibles and "personal savings accounts" to provide health care for all its full-time employees and about 90 percent of employees who work at least 30 hours a week, Alter went on to assert that libertarian-minded CEOs like Mackey "don't get" that they have "certain social responsibilities," and charged that Whole Foods has a "crunchy" and "earthtone ethic" regarding its employees.

As former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw appeared as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, he and host Stephen Colbert poked fun at former President Bill Clinton as the two discussed what a second term of President Barack Obama would likely involve.

As Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America appeared on Wednesday's Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, host Morgan complained that he never sees a "sense of humanity" from the pro-gun activist during the discussion of shooting rampages.

Morgan implicitly suggested that Pratt does not seem compassionate toward shooting victims as the CNN host asserted:

During the recent war in Gaza, NBC News used two images of which definitely one and possibly both qualify as deceptive propaganda against Israel's war effort.

The first example is the infamous image of a child who was killed by shrapnel from a rocket fired out of Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas, but which some news outlets, including CNN, attributed to an Israeli airstrike early on.

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, as Richard Engel informed viewers that the Israeli military drops leaflets in Gaza to warn civilians when airstrikes are about to happen so they can evacuate to safety, the NBC correspondent still managed to put a negative spin on the warnings that are meant to diminish civilian casualties. After recounting that frightened civilians frantically left from their homes, Engel observed:

Tuesday's CBS Evening News showed a video clip of Hamas terrorists dragging the body of a suspected informant for Israel through the streets of Gaza, and Wednesday's ABC World News showed a photograph of the dragging.

But ABC correspondent Alex Marquardt seemed to provide a bit of cover for Hamas as he inserted commentary suggesting that it is "inevitable" that some "participants" in such a war would resort to such "savagery," as if brutality were normally out of character for the terrorist group. Marquardt: (Video of ABC below)

One of the recurring myths sometimes repeated about the Gaza Strip's relationship with Hamas is that the terrorist group gained control through the electoral process. On both the Monday and Tuesday editions of the CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley devoted a brief segment to providing background information on the Gaza Strip. And, on both nights, he erroneously suggested that Hamas came to power through election. (Video below)

On Tuesday's World News, ABC correspondent Alex Marquardt again forwarded terrorist propaganda rationalizing the firing of rockets into Israel as he repeated claims -- which he attributed vaguely to "Gazans" -- that the rocket attacks represent Gazans "simply defending themselves." He then repeated without question their contention that "true peace" will not happen "until Israel stops targeting people here in the Gaza Strip, and that blockade of Gaza is lifted."

On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, as noted at HonestReporting.com, host Cooper devoted a one-minute segment to informing viewers that his show on Thursday had used footage of a Palestinian man in Gaza who was apparently faking injury for the benefit of cameras. Cooper began his retraction:

The pro-Israel group HonestReporting.com has reported on BBC footage of what appears to be a Palestinian man pretending to be injured so he can be carried away in front of cameras, as the man appears in another part of the video walking around obviously uninjured.

On Thursday's World News on ABC, as correspondent Christiane Amanpour discussed the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Amanpour seemed to presume that Israel created an unreasonable number of civilian casualties during the late 2008/early 2009 war in Gaza, even though the Israeli military concluded that the overwhelming majority of Gaza residents killed were members of the Hamas terrorist group.

After anchor Diane Sawyer asked what the role of the United States would be as an ally of Israel, the ABC correspondent responded:

On Friday's World News on ABC, correspondent Alex Marquardt relayed without question a claim by "one of the militant groups behind" the rocket attacks on Israel that they "wouldn't fire rockets if Israel wasn't killing us," even though almost 700 rockets had already been fired out of Gaza into the Jewish state between January 1 and November 5, well before Israel's recent sustained military campaign began.

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley read a brief item highlighting the view by "weather forcasters from the U.S. government" that climate change "may have intensified" Hurricane Sandy.

He did not mention the views of climate change skeptics who doubt the role of global warming.

Pelley noted "rising sea levels," "melting Arctic ice," and "record-high temperatures" as he read the item:

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, comedian Martin Short took a shot at Sarah Palin as he compared her family to the family of the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo show on TLC. After making fun of host Jimmy Kimmel for supposedly not doing preparation for his show, Short jabbed Kimmel as the "Honey Boo Boo of late night."

He soon brought up the Palin family and made a comparison. The exchange follows below:

As former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared as a guest on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, host Morgan brought up "some people" who are "blaming" the former Pennsylvania Senator for costing Mitt Romney the general election by forcing him to take "fairly right-wing, quite extreme positions," getting him into an "unholy mess." Morgan:

As NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared as a guest on Wednesday's The Late Show on CBS, host David Letterman charged that Republican political strategist Karl Rove "lied to" and tried to "frighten" the electorate in 2012, referring to the former George W. Bush strategist as a "tubby little weasel." Letterman:

At about 1:26 a.m. during MSNBC's live coverage of election night, co-anchor Chris Matthews obsessed over critics of President Obama who "practically frisked" President Obama and told him, "get out of your car, show me your birth certificate, who are you?"

Even as he rejoiced that racism had not cost Obama reelection, Matthews made his comments on the subject after co-host Rachel Maddow noted polls showing Obama had received a lower percentage of white voters than four years ago. Matthews:

Shortly after 1:00 a.m. during MSNBC's election night coverage, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell ridiculously claimed that Democrats are more tolerant of Mormonism than Republicans and blamed the "Bible-thumping side of the Republican party," which he asserted is "where anti-Mormon feeling resides," for political analysts discussing Mitt Romney's Mormon religious beliefs, in spite of polls showing Republicans more inclined to accept a Mormon President than Democrats. O'Donnell: