Joy-Ann Reid

MSNBC continues to do its best to protect the Obama administration from any accusations of wrongdoing in the Benghazi fiasco. On Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, the host went so far as to ask whether it is even legitimate to call Benghazi a scandal.

Witt was setting up her pre-taped “Office Politics” interview with Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of The Grio and frequent MSNBC contributor, when she announced that she "asked Joy-Ann about the fallout from the Benghazi attacks and if it's legitimate to call that mess a scandal.” [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

You just knew this was bound to happen. Some on the left are trying to blame George W. Bush for Obama's IRS fiasco.  Take for example Mediaite's resident Obama apologist Tommy Christopher, who wrote a much ado about nothing post on May 16 insinuating that this egregious abuse of government power stems from former Bush appointed IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman – and that credit for clearing this whole thing up will go to Obama. 

Christopher penned this piece using Martin Bashir’s May 16 broadcast, which featured Joy Reid of the Grio and Republican strategist Ron Christie.  During the exchange, Christie was forced to admit the Shulman was a Bush appointee, but so what? This scandal happened under Obama. The IRS executed this plan in 2010, and Shulman –and his successor Steve Miller– knew about it since the spring of 2012.  There is no doubt the agency lied about their knowledge of their employees’ malfeasance, and it happened under the Obama administration. Nevertheless, Christopher dutifully wove his spin, concluding:

NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday brought aboard another lefty whose far-left views are usually only heard on MSNBC, but Joy-Ann Reid, Managing Editor of TheGrio.com, the NBC News site aimed at African-Americans, perfectly reflected the true liberal view of how to boost the economy. It’s not a “balanced” approach of budget cuts and tax hikes. She urged higher taxes and more spending.

“When you look at the economy and the fact that it isn’t growing more strongly, we’ve been trying to force ourselves to do austerity,” Reid ludicrously asserted in the midst of ever-increasing federal spending. She fretted the inability “to do a robust agenda from Washington that does smart spending and smart tax increases,” regretting that “without being able to do sane policy in Washington,” you can’t expect Obama to fix the economy.

NBC truly showed what its priorities are on Sunday's Meet the Press.

The outing of NBA player Jason Collins and the topic of same-sex marriage got a full 8 1/2 minutes while the murder trial of abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell received a whopping 2 1/2 minutes (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC’s gun control push has its limits, apparently, as anchor Thomas Roberts today distinguished himself by actually doing a journalist's job: presenting both sides of a political debate. 

On his April 2 MSNBC Live program, Roberts actually played video of Mark Mattioli, whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, speaking out in support of the National Rife Association's call for trained armed guards in schools across America.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Once again, MSNBC shows it has no sense of decency when it comes to its political contributors making extreme statements on its network.  The latest example comes from contributor Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of TheGrio.com, who asserted that attendees of the annual CPAC conference sympathized with pro-segregationist comments made by one extreme individual attending the three-day conference. 

At issue is video that has emerged from a CPAC panel discussion called “Trump the Race Card” hosted by K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans.  After Smith commented that, “[Frederick] Douglass escaped from slavery. He writes a letter to his former slave master and says, I forgive you for all things you did for me,” an attendee of the panel named Scott Terry then interjected, “For giving him shelter and food?”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

In what has become a daily occurrence on MSNBC, liberal hosts and pundits on the network continue to attack the GOP for their scrutiny of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s post-Benghazi spin for the White House on September 16 editions of the network Sunday interview programs. 

Appearing on Wednesday’sMSNBC Live, network contributors Joy-Ann Reid of TheGrio.com and Ari Melber of The Nation appeared on anchor Thomas Roberts's program to continue casting aspersions on Sen. John McCain and other Republicans who have dared to criticize Susan Rice as unfit for a promotion to Secretary of State. Melber and Reid threw in charges of racism and sexism and a conspiracy theory about electing Scott Brown to the Senate.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

As more information comes to light regarding the attacks on our embassy in Benghazi, now seems like a perfect time to examine how an objective journalist deals with the Obama administration's evolving view of the attack as opposed to how an Obama-boosting one does. Viewers of the 10 a.m. hour of MSNBC programming got to see such a sharp contrast this morning.

Speaking with fill-in host Richard Lui on Jansing & Co., Joy-Ann Reid of TheGrio.com and Ron Fournier of National Journal were brought on to discuss the recent revelations that former CIA Director Petraeus knew within 24-hours that the attack on our embassy was an act of terrorism.  Hearing the responses from Ms. Reid and Mr. Fournier could not offer a better contrast between Reid's bias and Fournier's dissatisfaction with swallowing whole the media's storyline.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

As if she half-expected conformity, the Grio's managing editor Joy-Ann Reid expressed doubt on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner that conservatives will ever be enlightened enough to move enough towards the center to win an election.

Diversifying the messengers beyond white men and women simply isn't good enough to Reid, who condescendingly described Black and Hispanic Republicans as "window dressing" and "decoration": [video below, MP3 audio here ]

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving nothing but devastation behind in its wake and with just days until the election. So it's not that surprising that MSNBC is spinning New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's gratitude to the president for, well, doing his job as some sort of campaign gold for Team Obama. 

Take Tuesday night's edition of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, as guest contributors Joy-Ann Reid of The Grio and Steve Kornacki of MSNBC's The Cycle were brought on to comment on the compilation footage of a weary Christie, speaking warmly of the president. Without hesitation, they scoffed at the idea Gov. Romney could win the election now;  politicizing a tragedy in the process. [video & transcript below]

For months, the Obama-loving media have been carping and whining about all the money going to conservative Super PACs in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling back in 2010.

Yet as you can see from the following segment on MSNBC's Martin Bashir show Thursday, the press are giddy over the prospect the president will raise up to $15 million at actor George Clooney's campaign event later this evening (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Via Real Clear Politics: It's clear that MSNBC host Martin Bashir enjoys making fun of Republican candidates who have sick family members. First, he jabbed Rick Santorum for caring for his daughter, complaining about Santorum's small amount of donations to charity. Last week, he took a jab at Ann Romney, claiming that Mitt Romney is exploiting her health issues to gain votes. [Audio here. Video below the jump.]

Maybe it's time for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire.

On Friday's Hardball, the 66-year-old host actually said that people's view of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case is impacted by "so much history ever since the first slave arrived in the United States" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On the April 5 episode of his show, liberal MSNBC host and self-proclaimed ‘journalist’ Bashir excused the bounty placed on George Zimmerman by the New Black Panthers because there are only "five or six of them."  This comment came in a segment with TheGrio.com’s Joy-Ann Reid wherein the two mocked conservatives’ objections to the media coverage of the Trayvon Martin case. 

Bashir claimed that, "the one thing conservatives do seem to enjoy about this story is that it lets them talk about how it’s the president they say who’s taken political advantage. Even as they beat the war drum over their favorite target, the New Black Panthers, all five or six of them, I guess."  [Video embedded below.  Click here for MP3 audio.]

Once again, MSNBC has continued to prop up Rev. Al Sharpton’s racist conspiracies that state legislatures led by the GOP are deliberately suppressing minority voters through new voter ID laws.

On Friday’s episode of Jansing & Co., radio host and MSNBC substitute host Michael Smerconish led a left-wing attack on the GOP.  The panelists including Pennsylvania AFL-CIO chief Richard Bloomingdale asserted that a person's signature is sufficient identification to vote in the United States. Indeed, both Smerconish and Bloomingdale insisted they have voted that way for years in Pennsylvania with no problems.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.] 

Update (17:05 EST): Williams tweets in protest: "Not once did I say GOP voters are racists" and has asked that I correct this post accordingly. I stand by my assertion given the context wherein Williams was describing why he believes Palmetto State Republicans, despite their reticence about Romney's Mormonism, could vote for Romney, whom they consider most likely to beat Obama in the November presidential election. At any rate, you can judge for yourself by watching the video below the page break.

Correction: Williams is a former lobbyist, having quit his lobbying work recently to work on Dylan Ratigan's "Get Money Out" campaign, a drive to amend the Constitution to overturn the implications of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. Williams is senior strategist for and co-founder of United Republic.

What better way is there, really, for MSNBC to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day than by leveling charges that Republican voters in general and Republican candidates in particular are racist? That's what Now with Alex Wagner panelists Jimmy Williams and Joy-Ann Reid charged respectively on today's program. [MP3 audio available here]

On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez noted how MSNBC's Tamron Hall moderated the recent Congressional Black Caucus town hall where Rep. Andre Carson smeared the Tea Party by accusing them of wanting to bring back Jim Crow laws and endorsing the lynching of blacks. Former Obama aide turned NBC employee Joy-Ann Reid also attended the CBC event, but omitted Rep. Carson's attack from her report.

During the August 22 town hall in Miami, Carson, a leader within the liberal Congressional Black Caucus from Indiana, actually apologized to Hall in the midst of his inflammatory remarks against the Tea Party:

MSNBC contributor Joy-Ann Reid on Tuesday defended a controversial Michele Bachmann Newsweek cover, justifying that the Republican presidential candidate deserved it because she occasionally has the "crazy-eyes look."

Martin Bashir Guest host Jonathan Capehart didn't identify that Reid, the managing editor of TheGrio.com, is also a former press aide to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.