Jeffrey Meyer's blog

With the election over and President Obama handily winning reelection -- including in photo ID states like Michigan and Florida -- you'd think MSNBC would go silent about voter ID laws, which clearly did not disenfranchise millions of seniors, students, or black voters nor did it turn the election in favor of Romney.

But no, the network will still flog the issue for the forseeable future. Witness Tuesday’s Now with Alex Wagner, which featured a discussion of the Supreme Court’s decision to review Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.   [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Pseudo-conservative and liberal media darling Joe Scarborough is known for his whacky theories but on Thursday’s Morning Joe he posited a new one that puts the icing on the cake.

Speaking with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, the MSNBC host said that if the GOP had selected former Utah Governor Jon Hunstman, the Republican Party would have done much better against President Obama.   [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Unlike the liberal media who are engaging in a full-scale blackout of the scandal in Libya, Friday’s Fox & Friends engaged in a vigorous debate over the attack on our Embassy in Benghazi. 

Fox News Channel liberal contributor Geraldo Rivera engaged in a full-out shouting match with conservative-leaning co-hosts Steve Doocy and Eric Bolling.  During the back-and-forth, Geraldo’s main argument was thus: [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Over the past several months, MSNBC has been on a tirade criticizing attempts by mostly Republican state legislatures to ensure voting integrity by requiring a photo ID in order to vote. 

As NewsBusters has documented, one of the leaders of the anti-ID movement is none other than the host of the 6 p.m. Eastern program Politics Nation, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who on numerous occasions has suggested that such laws are thinly-veiled, racially animated attempts to depress minorities of their right to vote.  [See video below break.]

It appears as though MSNBC has gone into overdrive covering up for the Obama administration over the terrorist attack on our consulate in Libya.  Following emails uncovered by CBS News late Tuesday evening showing the White House knew within two hours that the attack was terrorist related, MSNBC has run a grand total of two stories on these shocking developments. 

Unlike yesterday, NBC's Today did provide a news brief on the emails Thursday morning as well as a story during Wednesday night’s Nightly News, but their sister cable network MSNBC has only covered the story once today, on The Daily Rundown at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

**UPDATE** At 2:30 p.m. EDT, MSNBC mentioned the damaging emails for the first time, coupling it with breaking news of an arrest in the attack on our Libyan consulate.   

Following in the footsteps of its sister broadcast network, MSNBC has continued to ignore the shocking revelation that the White House knew on September 11 that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was under a well-coordinated terrorist attack. 

As NewsBusters’ Matthew Balan noted, NBC's Today was the only broadcast network morning show this to ignore the story altogether, with MSNBC following suit by remaining silent as well throughout the day.  In contrast, both Fox News and CNN have run numerous stories Wednesday morning.

With less than two weeks before the November election, it appears as though the media have found their newest manufactured controversy to smear Mitt Romney and other Republicans running for elected office.

Following comments made by  Richard Mourdock, Republican candidate for Senate in Indiana, NBC News’ Luke Russert disgustingly tried to twist Mourdock’s comments and tie them to the Romney campaign.  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes is no stranger to making extreme and outrageous statements on his weekend show Up with Chris Hayes, but he forgot to filter his leftism for mainstream American consumption on Friday when he appeared on the noontime Now with Alex Wagner program.

The Ivy League-educated Hayes ridiculously compared the environmentalists' fight against global warming to the struggle of 19th century abolitionists to end slavery:  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

In a bit of light-hearted segment on Thursday’s O’Reilly Factor, FNC’s Megyn Kelly described a recent run-in she had with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. 

Kelly described her encounter the following way:

When he saw me in the airport, he had no idea who I was. So I said it is Megyn Kelly with Fox News. And then he said, oh I didn't recognize you with your stringy hair.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.] 

Unlike his former colleague Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein has once again shown he is no longer a serious journalist but instead a Republican-bashing liberal pundit.  Bernstein, who has consistently bashed the Republican Party as “extremist” has now turned to calling them anti-women.

Appearing on Thursday’s Jansing and Co., Bernstein was highly critical of Mitt Romney’s comments about hiring female members of his cabinet while he was Governor of Massachusetts.  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

The View has a long reputation for its liberal slant, but when one of its own calls out the liberal bias among celebrities, hysteria ensues. 

Such was the case on Wednesday when the lone conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck spoke out against the overwhelming liberal presence that dominates Hollywood.   [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

It is one thing to trash Jim Lehrer’s moderating behind his back.  It’s even worse when you then bring him on your show to praise his performance after you trash him.  No one does this better than Morning Joe’s Scarborough who did a complete 180 on his analysis of Lehrer’s moderating skills. 

On the morning after the first presidential debate, Scarborough claimed that “Jim Lehrer got rolled over” as moderator on October 3rd.  Fast forward to Monday’s Morning Joe when Lehrer appeared in person and Scarborough had suddenly wiped his hands clean of any such criticism.  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Given the recent death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya, one would expect the three news networks to investigate the grotesque failures by the federal government to protect our embassies overseas. 

Unlike NBC’s Today, ABC and CBS’s Friday morning shows both covered recent State Department emails showing they denied a request by officials in Libya for increased security in May leading up to the terrorist attack on our Libyan Embassy last month. 

Following in the shoes of fellow NBC News employee Brian Williams, John Heilemann has entered the world of crude humor.  Appearing on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner on Monday, Heilemann was brought on to discuss the political dynamics of Wednesday’s first presidential debate.

The segment itself was fairly tame for MSNBC standards until Heilemann compared the current election to the 1996 election between President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole.  In Heilemann’s strange mind the only way Dole could have won that year was:  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Appearing on MSNBC’s Jansing and Co., Vanity Fair contributing editor Carl Berstein joined the ranks of his fellow liberal journalists who are slamming the Romney campaign and the entire Republican Party as radical.  Naturally, anchor Chris Jansing failed to challenge the premise or balance out the segment with someone who would. Bernstein insisted that polls showing President Obama with a lead over Governor Romney show that:

There's a fundamental problem and that is the Republican Party. That their polls reflect the fact that the real issue in this campaign has become the Republican Party in Washington.

Throughout the segment, Bernstein argued that Romney has been taken captive by a radical party with what he says has a radical message that Romney is saddled with and can’t get out of.  Bernstein continued his anti- Republican rant by claiming that:  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

President Obama headed up to New York City to record yesterday an interview with the ladies of ABC's The View. Today he gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly but has steadfastly refused to meet with any foreign leaders while in the Big Apple, especially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Given this, you'd think -- that the Today show might ask NBC News political director Chuck Todd about the controversy.  Well, you’d be wrong.   [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Saturday Night Live trashed Mitt Romney and gave President Obama a pass on their September 20 election special.  SNL, which is known for its unabashed liberalism, took to the air Thursday night to smear Romney as a racist politician.  In total, SNL spent over 6 minutes smearing Governor Romney but just 13 seconds gently poking fun at the president indirectly.

The show opened with a skit depicting the hosts of FNC's Fox and Friends and proceeded to show four fake scenes of Romney.  [Video below break.  MP3 audio here.] 

Not content to keep his trashing of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party confined to his Morning Joe program on MSNBC, Republican congressman-turned-political commentator Joe Scarborough took his show on the road to Burbank, California, last night, slamming Republicans on The Tonight Show.

Appearing on the September 19 program, Scarborough started off the interview by stating the obvious, he is not a Republican, but a conservative -- well at least the sort of "conservative" that MSNBC can stomach to sign to a multi-million dollar contract.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

**UPDATE** On Wednesday morning, Chuck Todd played the audio of Obama's speech from 1998 on his show The Daily Rundown, 4 hours before appearing on Andrea Mitchell Reports who refused to play the clip for "authenticity" reasons. 

It took less than 12 hours after it was published online at the website of leftist magazine Mother Jones for a video secretly recorded at a Mitt Romney fundraiser in May to appear all over NBC and MSNBC.  The heavily-edited video, obtained by the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, has been a staple of MSNBC coverage the past two days.

Fast forward to Wednesday when audio of  then-State Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) speaking at Loyola University talking about his support for wealth redistribution.  MSNBC refused to play the audio on air.  On her show Wednesday, Andrea Mitchell claimed that the network's reason was:  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Stick a fork in Romney, he's done! The election's over! According to hard-left MSNBC contributors anyway. It's just a matter of time before Chris Matthews demands a prime slot on the president's inaugural ball dance card.

Speaking on Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch ridiculously proclaimed the race over and asked regarding the first presidential debate, “What do you think's going to happen October 3rd that we haven't seen already?”  The segment focused on a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which found President Obama with a 5-point lead in their poll. Of course, the most recent AP/Gallup poll has the race within 1 point, but that doesn't seem to faze Deutsch.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Continuing with its obsession over voter ID laws, MSNBC once again treated viewers to a one-sided segment to trash Republican efforts to maintain voter integrity.  Speaking with MSNBC’s Richard Lui on Wednesday, Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis (D-GA) slammed GOP voting efforts as racist, suggesting the success in numerous states in passing these laws showed Americans have forgotten the lessons of the civil rights movement.

Lewis, who was brutally beaten in Selma, Alabama, as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is essentially put forward as an infallible expert on voting issues in the eyes of MSNBC.  Lui offered up a softball interview, pulling at the heartstrings of his audience by saying:  [video below page break]

It appears that even quasi-conservative Joe Scarborough won’t put up with the ridiculous statements that appear on his network anymore.  Such was the case during an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday’s Morning Joe that centered on the mob attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the deadly attack by Islamists on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

McCain was asked by Scarborough whether or not Governor Romney should have waited several days to hold a press conference on Libya and Egypt, prompting the Senator to comment that he wasn't about to give Romney tactical campaign adivce and that "the fact is the United States in the Middle East is weak" under Obama and that Romney had to address "the big picture."  [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

Over the years, comedian Wanda Sykes -- a staunch liberal Democrat and outspoken advocate of gay marriage -- has been no friend to Republicans. So it should come as no surprise that Ms. Sykes would appear on NBC’s Today on September 6 to promote her special on the LOGO television network entitled, ‘NewNowNext Vote.’  LOGO promotes itself as a cable channel devoted to gays and lesbians.

Appearing on Today, Sykes, who is lesbian, expressed her support for gay rights, but during the promotion of her special, decided to attack Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, calling them the Eddie Haskell and Forrest Gump of politics.  Eddie Haskell, a character from the 1950's sitcom Leave It to Beaver, is often considered to be the archetype for those who are insincere.  [See video below break.]  

Apparently the mainstream media have a conservative bias towards Congressman Paul Ryan.  Such is the ludicrous assertion held by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking on CBS This Morning following the first night of the Democratic National Convention. 

First, Schumer claimed that Ryan, “creates this halo for himself that he’s a budget reducer” then goes on to claim that, “the mainstream media, maybe not the two of you [Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell], but the mainstream media, not just the hard right, gave Ryan this halo. Undeserved.”  Lastly, Schumer argued that, “The halo came from the mainstream media who needed a hard right guy to say here’s the real compromiser.”  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]   

Once again MSNBC desperately looked for a way to inject race into Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.  Following his convention speech, Ed Schultz felt that Governor Romney’s comments on American exceptionalism was a "line to the birthers tonight."

Schultz’s specific critique came after Mr. Romney said, "when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American."

Ridiculously, Schultz claimed that there was no other way to interpret Romney’s comments other than from a birther, dog whistle mentality.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Following Condoleezza Rice’s inspirational convention speech, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews decided to hurl a ridiculous question about birtherism to the former Secretary of State. 

Continuing with the racist narrative on MSNBC, Mr. Matthews decided to ignore the crux of Ms. Rice’s speech and instead drag up an issue that numerous Republicans have disavowed since the beginning. 

For months, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has been on a near-daily if not daily tirade accusing the Republican Party of using dog-whistle racist tactics to defeat President Obama.  Since the start of the Republican National Convention, Matthews has amped up his racial hyperbole to 11 by overtly claiming the Republican Party wants to return to a time when slavery was legal.

Matthews’ insulting comments came roughly 12 hours after former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at the GOP convention.  Appearing on The Daily Rundown, Matthews tried to paint Ms. Rice as an outlier in a party hostile to minorities.   [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

It’s clear that liberal media bias is not limited to English speaking news outlets.  Such is the case with Univision, the largest Spanish-language television network in the United States, as they took to their Facebook page to trash Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). 

Translated to English, Univision Noticias commented that:

Beyond ideology, Rubio is a mediocre politician and contradictory (sic) to the values he claims to represent.  Jeb Bush is more Latino and talented then him.

On the occasions where MSNBC's Morning Joe actually starts to have an intelligent political debate, you can count on liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski to toss in a crude partisan comment.

The discussion this morning centered on Mitt Romney’s recent Medicare ads and whether or not they would be effective in the crucial battleground state of Florida. While the discussion offered a good punch counter-punch discussion between host Joe Scarborough and panelists John Heilemann and Sam Stein, Mika appeared particularly upset that too much time was spent discussing an Obama Super PAC ad implying that Mitt Romney was responsible for the death of a former employee’s wife instead of a Romney ad criticizing President Obama for gutting Medicare.   [Video coming soon.  MP3 audio here.]