Other MSNBC

I'm going to sit back and let our readers run with this one.  On his MSNBC show tonight, Cenk Uygur said that "the Republican vision of Jesus" is "to tell the poor and needy to pound sand."

Uygur offered his twisted theological take in commenting on a GOP proposal to trim allocations to a certain welfare program.

View video after the jump.

Imagine a Republican president giving a speech on tough economic times in which he claimed that the plight of Americans who are hurting is what is on his mind every day as he walks to the Oval Office. Imagine that same Republican president, in that same speech, bragging that he has "a better plane" and "a bigger entourage" than when he was a candidate.  Now imagine the howls from the MSM about such president's vainglory and insensitivity.  

President Obama gave just such a speech today.  Speaking at a plant in North Carolina about the tough economic times, PBO claimed that "what drives me every day as I walk down to the Oval Office" is the need to provide jobs and economic security for Americans.

But Obama opened his speech by bragging that "I have a better plane" than when he visited the same plant three years ago as a presidential candidate.  Later, in explaining that he had brought the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness with him to North Carolina, Obama boasted "I travel with a bigger entourage" than he did as a candidate.

View video after the jump.

It takes a former CNN "correspondent" to make Tim Pawlenty sound scary . . .

It's kind of fun to watch former MSM "reporters" turn into totally-out, liberal partisans once they leave their "reporting" gigs.  Take Bob Franken. For years a big-time national correspondent for CNN, the network let him go in 2007.  Franken is now free to let his liberal freak flag fly. 

Witness Bob on MSNBC this evening.  Commenting on Tim Pawlenty's tax-cut proposal, Franken fulminated that the former Minnesota governor is planning nothing less than to lead [cue spooky music] an "oligarchy."   Franken also took a scatalogical shot at "trickle-down" economics.

View video after the jump.

The MSM and their liberal politician friends revel in proclaiming their admiration for average Americans.  But scratch a liberal, and find condescending contempt for the people they pretend to glorify.

Take Larry O'Donnell. On his MSNBC show this evening, discussing President Obama's problems in convincing voters that the economy is on the road to recovery, O'Donnell denigrated most Americans.  Declared O'Donnell: the majority of voters "don't really know anything about the economy."

  View video after the jump.  

Kind of disappointing--nothing about Republicans head-butting widows or knocking the crutches from the arms of the disabled.  Even so, let's give Damon Silvers credit: the union boss did claim that Republicans "literally deny clothing to foster kids to give rich people tax cuts."

AFL-CIO honcho Damon Silvers made the hysterically hyperbolic claim on Cenk Uygur's MSNBC show this evening.

View video after the jump.

Republicans have responded with widespread opprobrium to President Obama's speech on the Middle East.  Mitt Romney epitomized GOP reaction in saying PBO had "thrown Israel under the bus."

Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised, but at MSNBC, Obama  was actually criticized last night . . . for not being hard enough on Israel.  Cenk Uygur said "the president's speech was too much leaning towards Israel."

Uygur also disagreed with Obama's disapproval of any attempt by the Palestinians to stage an end-run on a negotiated peace by going to the UN to have their state established.  And for good measure, Cenk accused Israel of the "oppression" of the Palestinians.

View video after the jump.

What does it take to make a lefty MSMer go all Chuck Norris?  A war-on-terrorism success during a Dem presidency, of course.

On his MSNBC show tonight, Cenk Uygur, of all people, regretted that more Americans aren't chanting "USA, USA!"

View video after the break.

Even at MSNBC, which gets crushed of course by Fox News in every prime-time slot, Cenk Uygur manages to come in dead last in ratings among his liberal peers.  

So when Cenk claims that he doesn't want to cover Donald Trump but is forced to do so by The Donald's popularity, the baloney-meter starts screaming. Uygur opened his show last evening with a long segment on Trump, all the while apologizing to his audience for doing so. 

View video after the jump.

One more sign the Age of Civility is over: an MSNBC host urging Dems to be more "vicious" toward Republicans. Oh, and to engage in more "name-calling."

Apparently writing off any career ambitions of succeeding to the Miss Manners slot, Cenk Uygur issued his recommendations last night in the course of disagreeing with a Dem congressman who was insufficiently coarse for Cenk's taste.

View video after the jump.

Kicking off the March 30 edition of "Last Word," MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell unleashed a torrent of insults aimed at Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

"House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is the most stunningly ignorant member in the history of the Congress," bellowed O'Donnell. "That's right. Eric Cantor revealed today in a press conference that he does not know how a bill becomes a law. Seriously. He doesn't."

[Video embedded after the page break.]

Q. When did liberals rip those 'Dissent Is Patriotic' bumper stickers off their Priuses?

A. January 20, 2009

Latest evidence: on his MSNBC show this evening, Cenk Uygur suggested that opposition to President Obama's Libya policy is "unpatriotic." For good measure, Dem congressman Gary Ackerman stated that opposing the president is "cheering for the wrong team."

View video after the jump.

For the second day in a row, MSNBC worked up a biased segment with Rock the Vote president Heather Smith about a "war on voting" -- see screen capture below page break-- by Republican legislators in numerous states where the GOP controls both state legislative chambers, such as New Hampshire.

Today "NewsNation" host Tamron Hall picked up the torch from colleague Thomas Roberts, who conducted a softball interview with Smith on March 8.

Hall even parroted some of his script from the day before:

Wouldn't blame you for doubting this, so fantastical is the proposition.  But Cenk Uygur has claimed that given the chance, unborn babies would oppose restrictions on their mothers' right to abort them.

Cenk made his grotesque suggestion in the course of discussing an Ohio bill that would forbid abortions as soon as a baby's heartbeat can be detected.  Proponents plan to let a nine-week old unborn baby symbolically testify.

View video after the jump.

James Taranto could be the best columnist around.  Every day at his Best of the Web at the Wall Street Journal online, Taranto turns out an original, often unconventional, conservative take on the news, regularly managing to leaven the message with humor.

Rush today rightly extolled Taranto's column of yesterday, in which he made the point that there is a vast, inherent difference between private and public sector unions.  In the former case, unions are negotiating against corporate interests. In the latter, unions are, by definition, organizing against the interests of the public itself.

Surely even Cenk Uygur understands this.  So when Cenk suggests, as he did on his MSNBC show this evening, that without unions public employees would be "at the mercy" of "corporate executives," it seems fair to accuse him of . . . fraud.

Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever reported "Valentine's Day was a week ago, but MSNBC's Chris Matthews has belatedly gifted a particular former president with a mash note - strike that, a one-hour special called 'President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon,'" which airs tonight, somehow equating Clinton with Washington and Lincoln. Stuever explained:

Matthews, aided by the likes of Terry McAuliffe, Mary Steenburgen and various biographers, remarks again and again how smart Clinton is, how generous, how famous, how friendly, how productive. Perhaps this special is some sort of MSNBC covert-op to cause paralytic apoplexy over there on the right? The kind of people who still keep the Starr Report at the ready?... The not-very-sub subtext of "President of the World" is a nostalgic grieving for the glory of the Clinton years.

Interviewing Donald Trump this morning, MSNBC's Chris Jansing put on her Democratic strategist hat to press the Republican real estate mogul with liberal talking points.

After Trump, responding to Jansing's question about what he would do to fix the economy, suggested cutting taxes to spur economic growth, the host of Jansing & Co. groused: "A lot of people sitting out there, with all due respect, saying spoken like a true businessman but not about the little guy. Tax breaks for the rich, not for the middle class."

Not missing a beat, Trump retorted: "But Chris we're the highest-taxed nation in the world, as it stands right now. And that's a pretty bad statement when you think of it."

[Video embedded after the page break.]

On the February 8 edition of MSNBC's "Last Word," left-wing comedian Bill Maher disparaged Bill O'Reilly as "unpatriotic" for the way in which the veteran Fox News anchor conducted his interview with President Barack Obama on Super Bowl Sunday.

"And Bill O'Reilly, who claims he's such a patriot, how unpatriotic in my view to treat a president that way," railed Maher. "How does that look to other countries when you're interrupting and belittling? I just find it astounding."

[Video embedded after the page break.]

Somewhere in the bowels of the MSNBC newsroom, a decision was made today to devote considerable coverage to getting to the bottom of a disconcerting juvenile epidemic: car surfing.

That's right, the "fearless gamble" that is "all the rage" among American teenagers, according to NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders, is an important enough story for a national cable news network to send one of its intrepid reporters to give live reports throughout the morning and into the mid-afternoon.

While the topic of car surfing received substantial coverage on "Jansing & Co." with Chris Jansing, "News Live" with Contessa Brewer, and "News Nation" with Tamron Hall, the recent sting operation that uncovered employees at a New York City Planned Parenthood office offering advice to a man posing as a pimp who admitted to exploiting minors as sex slaves received but a scant 30-second news brief during the 10 a.m. hour of "Jansing & Co."

On MSNBC's "Jansing & Co." today, anchor Chris Jansing and liberal columnist Karen Hunter took turns ripping apart Sarah Palin's call for civility in an Internet video posted yesterday morning in the wake of the Tucson shooting.

The morning after President Barack Obama delivered a well-received speech at a memorial service for the victims of a rampage that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) critically injured, Jansing recited a quote from Joan Walsh, editor of the left-wing Salon.com, to criticize Palin.

"You know, Mark, times of tragedy are times when we judge our leaders," remarked Jansing. "And Joan Walsh writes on Salon.com, about Sarah Palin, 'Having watched her atrocious, tone-deaf, all-about-me video: Sarah Palin will never be president of the United States.'"

Calling out Jansing's liberal spin, conservative columnist Mark Tapscott deftly quipped, "I would never expect Joan Walsh to have anything positive to say about anything Sarah Palin does or says."

MSNBC's Chris Jansing thinks that Republicans outraising Democrats in the 2010 midterms is a problem that government needs to fix.

On the December 13 "Jansing & Co.," the daytime anchor fretted, "Do you think it's getting out of hand?" She sardonically added, "Is the sky the limit here?"

Jim Gilmore, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, fired back in support of participatory democracy: "I've always believed that you ought to be able to participate financially in a political campaign without all these limits. The limits are making it very difficult to level the playing field."

The former Virginia governor added that he supports disclosure requirements, but not limits on spending.

Jansing, determined to lambast the Republican fundraising machine, exploited Gilmore's nuanced position to reiterate her argument: "So the Republican groups like the ones who were founded by Karl Rove, those folks should have disclosed where that money was coming from?"

MSNBC's prime-time "town hall" on immigration reform yesterday exemplified one of the more unseemly elements of media bias: brazen political advocacy disguised as an "honest conversation."

Attempting to pass itself off as a forum for voices on all sides of the immigration issue to elevate the dialogue, "Beyond Borderlines" featured droves of liberal guests who dismissed, admonished, and overwhelmed only token conservative opposition.

From the outset of the program, conservative guests were disadvantaged and drowned out. The "conversation," which touched on a wide-range of issues related to immigration reform, was steered by hosts Lawrence O'Donnell, who is a self-described socialist, and Maria Teresa Kumar, who is executive director of Voto Latino, a liberal immigration reform group.

Mike Cutler, one of the few guests who offered a contrasting perspective on the issue, was repeatedly attacked by Kumar, who oscillated between the conflicting roles of questioner and answerer, and the other panelists.

Lawrence "Crazy Larry" O'Donnell was back to his former self during MSNBC's Election Night coverage Tuesday. During the 9 p.m. EDT hour the MSNBC anchor claimed that if Rand Paul holds to his "principles" and filibusters an attempt to raise the debt ceiling, it would destroy the United States' credit rating and possibly spark a worldwide depression. O'Donnell also pressed House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on the matter.

After Cantor refused to give O'Donnell a direct answer to his oddball question, the frustrated MSNBC host ranted that he didn't want to see Cantor on MSNBC again.

In the beginning segment, O'Donnell was giving commentary after live coverage of Rand Paul's victory speech. Paul, he noted, will soon be pressed to vote on raising the debt ceiling, something which O'Donnell asserted is vital to the health of the U.S. economy.  
 

Just days after MSNBC President Phil Griffin claimed his cable network does not use air-time to support Democratic candidates and liberal causes, evening host Lawrence O'Donnell yielded over two minutes of his eponymous program to feature MoveOn.org's latest anti-Republican advertisement in its entirety.

O'Donnell introduced the partisan attack ad as a get-out-the-vote push: "Sometimes you have to take unusual steps to get out the vote. MoveOn.org, with the help of actors Olivia Wilde from 'House' and Romany Malco from 'Weeds,' has produced a warning from the future to show you what could happen if Republicans win this election because you didn't vote."

After playing the entire ad uninterrupted, which urged voters to "STOP THE REPUBLICAN TAKEOVER!!" and predicted that if the GOP takes back control of Congress in November because liberals don't go to the polls, Republicans will merge with "the big corporations that fund them to create RepubliCorp," the MSNBC host immediately cut to a commercial break.

Instead of analyzing the attack ad on its merits, O'Donnell gave MoveOn.org free ad time.

What do Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a domestic terrorist who was developing a nuclear weapon, and Tea Party activists concerned about lavish government spending have in common? Nothing, unless you're a newly-minted cable news anchor with a liberal agenda.

Interviewing a Time magazine writer who conducted an in-depth investigation into right-wing militias, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on the September 30 "Last Word" tried to draw a parallel between the reported resurgence of extreme militia groups and the rise of the Tea Party.

"The surge in recruits to what could be the training ground of our next Timothy McVeigh parallels the rise of the Tea Party and includes at least one man who had serious plans to kill the president by going nuclear," warned O'Donnell, before enlisting the help of Barton Gellman, author of "Locked and Loaded: The Secret World of Extreme Militias," to connect the dots.

"What's the answer to the Tea Party racist question?"

Galloping into the 10 p.m. Eastern timeslot as the white knight of truth, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, host of "The Last Word," challenged left-wing writer Matt Taibbi on September 29 to answer this incisive question.

Eager to discuss the subject of his latest conservative hit-piece, Taibbi imparted the sort of thoughtful analysis viewers should expect from a Rolling Stone political reporter: "My answer is it's not so much about hating black people for these people, I think it's more about believing in this preposterous fantasy that white people are some kind of oppressed minority in the age of Obama."

After belittling the Tea Party for its "incredibly stupid" worldview, Taibbi pointed to the grassroots movement's "collective narcissistic" behavior as the source of its alleged stupidity. A seemingly entranced O'Donnell concurred with Taibbi's diagnosis, then invited the correspondent to press on:

Liberal MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow will host an April 19 special on Timothy McVeigh's 1995 act of terrorism and how it "puts into perspective the threat posed by anti-government extremism."

In an ad for the program, Maddow lectured, "It doesn't have to lead to violence, but it can and it has. We ignore this, our own very recent history of anti-government violence and the dangers of domestic terrorism, at our peril."

In a previous commercial for the special, an announcer questioned, "15 years later, can McVeigh's words help us understand today's anti-government extremists?" Will the left-wing host attempt to connect tea partiers and conservative activists to violence?

It was the MSM version of "win one for the Gipper."  A manifestly moved Andrea Mitchell told a Dem congressman that with Pres. Obama having put so much on the line for health care reform, "you've got to get this for him."

Mitchell, ostensibly a "correspondent," her voice brimming with emotion, made her heart-felt plea to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) during her 1 PM MNSBC show today.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Bottom line, what happens if you don't get health care for this president is, this is really all-or-nothing for the sense of his power, his legacy, he's invested so much in this, in this first year. You've got to get this for him.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday used the very loaded term of "denier" to deride global warming skeptics. Talking to liberal host Rachel Maddow, she referenced Sarah Palin’s opposition to the Copenhagen climate conference and chided, "Her Facebook entry says, you know, ‘Mr. President, boycott Copenhagen.’ How do you rationalize the deniers and the impact that they are having?" [Audio available here.]

"Deniers" is a word that climate skeptics find quite offensive, as many liberals equate not believing in man-made global warming to denying that the Holocaust occurred. (In March 2006, CBS reporter Scott Pelley famously compared, "If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?")

A dismissive Maddow moved beyond dictionary-approved words while insulting Republicans. She asserted that conservatives will either accept reality or respond, "'We don't believe the problem is real' and become a denialist [sic] about it." A denialist?

Liberals like to style themselves as being above ageism, lookism, sexism and judgementalism when it comes to sexual predilections.  But in one fell show, Ed Schultz managed to indulge in all of the above.

On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz mocked:

• 85-year old Phyllis Schlafly for her looks;
• Dick Morris for the way he got his kicks; and
• Liz Cheney as her "daddy's little girl."

Video after the break.

If a regular fan of MSNBC primetime were to chime into a water cooler conversation with the words, "Terror plot? I haven't heard of any terror plot?" such an MSNBC devotee couldn't be blamed for not knowing about one of the big news stories of the past two weeks.

While the arrest of terror suspect Najibullah Zazi -- who admitted to training with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and is believed to have been planning to target New York City -- featured prominently on every broadcast network evening newscast in the past couple of weeks as well as some evening shows on CNN and FNC, there was barely a mention during MSNBC's primetime schedule of the terror plot described by NBC Nightly news anchor Brian Williams as "one of the more serious terror plots since 9/11."