Mika Brzezinski

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough marvelously mocked the Occupy Wall Street movement Monday by joking about how the destruction of private property during this weekend's riots in Rome will actually create jobs.

"That will help with the construction industry in Italy," kidded Scarborough as pictures of the riots played on the screen. "You have to rebuild Rome because people burned it down" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There was a rather surprising moment on MSNBC's Morning Joe Friday.

When mega-rich guest Donny Deutsch said there's "more hate involved" in the Tea Party than the Occupy Wall Street movement, he was immediately jumped on by hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for the absurdity (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the media's obsession with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's weight has become totally absurd.

On Friday's "Morning Joe," during a discussion about obesity prompted by a pathetic column by the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson entitled "Christie's Hefty Burden," MSNBC's Al Sharpton joked, "So what I think we should do is put Governor Christie in jail for 90 days" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For the second time this month, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has taken on the extreme liberal bias of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.

On Thursday's "Morning Joe," after Mika Brzezinski read part of Dionne's pathetic "Why Conservatives Hate Warren Buffett," her co-host replied, "I like E.J., but he changes every couple of years depending on who’s in the White House" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If Ken Burns ever decides to stop making documentaries, he could always go into comedy . . .On today's Morning Joe, Burns claimed he was non-political, despite repeatedly attempting to draw parallels between Prohibition, the subject of his current film, and themes in current conservatism, particularly immigration. At the same time, Burns ignored the modern-day prohibitionist sitting right across the table from him--Mika Brzezinski--the neo-Carrie Nation who would ban everything from cigarettes to soft drinks, transfats to fast food. Video after the jump.

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Newsweek featured an in-depth look at Fox News and chairman Roger Ailes in its most recent installment.

When this subject came up on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Tuesday, after the guests predictably carped and whined about FNC's conservative leanings, host Joe Scarborough observed, "People are shocked and stunned at the blurred lines when Roger Ailes and Fox does it, not so shocked and stunned when Democratic establishment figures have been doing it over the past three decades" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The folks at MSNBC as well as parent NBC should sit up and take notice of something Joe Scarborough said on Monday's "Morning Joe."

"There are not enough people that are either Republican in the mainstream media or talk to people on the telephone at least one a month...who actually understand what the Republican Party is" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Mika Brzezinski gave quite a cold shoulder to author Ron Suskind Tuesday whose new book "Confidence Men" paints an unflattering picture of the Obama White House.

Doing her best Clarence Darrow, Brzezinski grilled her "Morning Joe" guest leading Joe Scarborough to smartly observe, "She didn't cross-examine Ron when he wrote books about Bush like this" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Even Chuck Todd thinks President Obama's new tax plan is a joke.

When asked on MSNBC Monday if the White House believes "tax reform in the context of the Super Committee is a realistic goal," NBC's chief White House correspondent broke out laughing followed by the entire "Morning Joe" panel (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Is there no double-standard depths to which the liberal media won't sink when it comes to provocative political speech? No—judging by the pitiful performance of two MSMers on today's Morning Joe in defending James "Take 'Em Out" Hoffa.  

Newsweek editor Tina Brown brayed that we must not "sanitize" political speech or take the "juice" out of it--all the while condemning Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck for some of their remarks.  And the preposterous Mike Barnicle somehow defended Hoffa on the basis of the "context" of his remarks. Say what?  Hoffa was introducing the President of the United States!  And don't miss Barnicle logic-defyingly defending the double-standard when it comes to Sarah Palin on the basis that everyone knows the MSM will attack her. Video after the jump.

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" spent a good deal of time Tuesday discussing Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr.'s disgraceful Labor Day comments about the Tea Party and his political rivals.

After playing a clip of Hoffa's remarks as well as President Obama calling for civility months ago, Scarborough pointed out, "There seems to be a rule here which is don’t say really mean things that coarsen the debate, could encourage violence, unless you’re a Democrat...If you support [Obama], you can say, 'We’re going to take people out'" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

For the second time in as many days, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough took issue with a Washington Post Obama-apologist for blaming all that ails the nation on the Republican Party.

What made Friday's "Morning Joe" more delicious was the Post's Eugene Robinson was present this time, and after predictably defending the current White House resident while pointing fingers at the GOP was marvelously asked by the host, "Isn't there also though a larger context that the United States citizens may have just elected a president that was not ready to run the most complex economy in the world?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I sure hope Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne as well as other unapologetic Obama-loving media members were watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Thursday.

After Mika Brzezinski read a snippet of Dionne's "Obama's Paradox Problem" wherein he basically blamed all that ails the nation on GOP obstruction, Joe Scarborough accurately noted, "the President owned – OWNED! – Washington, D.C., in 2009 and 2010" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Joe Scarborough on Tuesday told his "Morning Joe" co-host an inconvenient truth that she and most of her colleagues in the media just can't handle.

"A president that cannot control 45 backbenchers in the opposing Party in the House of Representatives is too weak to be President of the United States. It is that simple" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) set off a liberal firestorm when he called Standard and Poor's U.S. credit rating change the "Tea Party Downgrade."

On Monday's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough told "terminally stupid ideologues" that "really don't understand" anything because they're "so dogmatic [they] can't think for [themselves]" to "stop using the Tea Party as a piñata" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Joe Scarborough on Wednesday railed about House Republicans that opposed Monday's debt ceiling agreement.

Although he agreed the final package "when it comes to actual debt savings [was] a real nothing-burger," the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" said GOPers that voted "No" are "going to have to understand if they’re going to stay in the majority they’re going to have act more responsibly than that" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Tuesday mourned the "absolutely dreadful" behavior of journalists and politicians who have compared Tea Party Republicans to "terrorists," among other things. But as NewsBusters previously reported, the "Morning Joe" co-host repeatedly ignored such transgressions when they occurred on his own show.

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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Friday took some well-deserved shots at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

After "Morning Joe's" Mika Brzezinski read bits of Krugman's most recent rant against "Republican extremism," her co-host responded, "If you’re a blogger, and you’re still living in your mom’s basement, and you got Cheetos all over the keyboard, you type in your underwear...you look at Paul Krugman and you think, 'He is my hero'” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Tuesday that as a result of how the debt ceiling negotiations are going, the Tea Party freshmen in Congress "may just have proved to be the most cunning and rational of all players in Washington, D.C."

The host of "Morning Joe" told former Democrat Congressman Harold Ford this comes despite media depicting them as radical, reckless extremists (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski asked the co-host of "Morning Joe" Monday if Republicans holding the line on the debt ceiling are "so stuck to their little contract and the Tea Party that they cannot even think outside the box for the good of the country."

Somewhat less surprising, Joe Scarborough gave a pretty good answer (video follows with transcript and commentary):

This week’s Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly newsletter documenting the most outrageous quotes in the liberal media, showcases the media’s slanted coverage of the debt ceiling debate. Over the past two weeks, network reporters touted Barack Obama as “the debt slayer,” impugned the “cut, cap and balance” option as “just wasting time,” smeared Republicans as “hostage-takers” and said they were guilty of “terrorism,” and insisted that “meaningful reform” was impossible without hiking taxes.

At one point, the tax debate lurched to outright Marxism, with one “news” anchor wondering: “Why do you think the top 2 percent of America has a chokehold on the other 98 percent?”

Here are highlights from this week’s edition; full text and several videos are posted at www.MRC.org:

MSNBC once again repeated the liberal line that returning to the higher pre-Bush tax rates is somehow not raising taxes. "If you just go back to normal tax standards, it's not a break of the [no tax hike] pledge that many of them signed" said Mika Brzezinski on Thursday's Morning Joe.

"You know, in Journalism 101, if you're going to ask a question of someone like the president, what you do is, you take, respectfully, you take the opposition's best argument and you play devil's advocate," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the July 14 edition of "Hannity."

But instead of taking that approach -- which, Bozell noted, the famous liberal reporter Sam Donaldson took both with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton -- the media have been actively working with Obama to forward the Democratic narrative regarding the debt ceiling negotiations.

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Joe Scarborough took Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski to task Thursday over the ongoing debt negotiations. "[Republicans] already have given specifics on the Paul Ryan Medicare plan which was political suicide for a lot of Republicans. They took that hard vote. What hard vote have Democrats made on the debt over the past year? Name one. Name one vote" said Scarborough.

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Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh doesn't like to comment about MSNBC because he fears it will help their dismal ratings.

However, he made an exception on Thursday's program saying amongst other things, "That whole network is a loony bin filled with people who are overflowing with uncontrollable rage, anger, unhappiness, and misery, by design" (video courtesy Right Scoop follows with transcript and commentary):

Jay Carney admits calling MSNBC yesterday to complain about Mark Halperin's crack [that we were first to report] that the President, at his Wednesday press conference, acted like a "d--k."  Did the White House press secretary take the opportunity of his call to pressure the show to bring on more pro-Obama flacks?

The question arises because on today's show, Mika Brzezinski revealed that "we're getting hit a lot lately for not bringing on people who speak on behalf of the White House and really stick up for the President."

The following post was based on a misunderstanding of the conversation described. Please see our retraction here.

Tuesday's Morning Joe treated the conviction of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich as a relatively minor affair, and gave it little to no coverage save a brief discussion about the supposed injustice of the process. "It's any other day and that's any other news story," said Mika Brzezinski, who appeared annoyed at being asked to cover the story at all. Later, she insisted "We're not going to waste the first block on this."