Thomas Roberts

Leave it to MSNBC to attempt to guilt socially conservative African-American Christians into acting against their religious convictions on same-sex marriage in the name of civil rights and "tolerance." Anchor Thomas Roberts, who is openly gay, conducted a softball interview with an African-American Baptist pastor from the Tar Heel State who opposes Amendment 1, the pro-traditional marriage ballot initiative going before North Carolina voters on May 8.

"For African-American churchgoers, this creates quite a quandary... while some religious leaders are urging their congregations to stick with tradition, some high profile ministers are speaking out against it to promote tolerance," Roberts noted in his introduction of Dr. Ricky Woods. With his first question to Woods, Roberts described the disagreement among African-American Christians as pitting those in favor of "social justice" against backers of "tradition" and "moral values" (emphasis mine):

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday mocked the liberal, pro-abortion bias of MSNBC, educating anchor Thomas Roberts about the so-called "war on women." After Priebus denied such an attack on females existed, Roberts dismissed, "But Chairman, how can you say that it's a fiction if you stand on the record on what the Republican Party has said and done? "

Priebus highlighted the pro-Obama spin of MSNBC, taking it right to the network: "If you believe that all women are pro-abortion, maybe in your own world, maybe there's a war on women." An indignant Roberts huffed, "I think he term is pro-choice." Continuing to call out MSNBC, Priebus attacked, "...You and I are never going to be on same page because I happen to believe that life begins at conception and you don't." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Apparently the problem for President Obama is that he is just cares too much about America.  That, or he's similar to Jimmy Carter, the last president who caused liberals to wonder if the presidency was "too much." In an interview with Newsweek’s Allison Samuels, MSNBC Live host Thomas Roberts sympathetically asserted, “...President Obama [was] elected to repair the economy, get us out of two wars...repair equality divides in this country and also heal a racial divide. Is it just too much to ask from one president?"

Roberts ridiculously claimed that, as the first African-American president, Obama is “damned if you do, dammed if you don't” and we expect just too much for a "historical" president. Allison Samuels appeared on Roberts’ show to promote an article discussing Obama’s impact on race relations in the country.  The Newsweek journalist insisted that as a black president, many Americans were expecting miracles from him that just weren’t realistic of him.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Sarah Palin will be walking into the proverbial lion’s den when she guest hosts Tuesday’s Today show, as the NBC morning program’s hosts, reporters and guests have repeatedly trashed the one-time Vice Presidential candidate. While the former Alaska governor was treated to jovial jabs from the cast when she called into Monday’s Today show, she’s been subjected to much harsher attacks over the past four years.

On the show Palin has been blamed for the shooting of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, denounced as a political liability for the GOP, been called a “Nazi” by journalist/stalker Joe McGinnis, and has seen herself and family become the object of rampant speculation and crude mockery. (videos after the jump)

The following are some of the worst instances of Palin bashing that were aired on NBC’s Today show:

Openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts wore his bias on his sleeve on Wednesday during a segment in which a conservative guest, Maggie Gallagher, failed to show up to defend the National Organization for Marriage in a segment entitled "Anti-Equality Agenda Exposed." "Documents expose ugly anti-LGBT marriage plot," blared the on-screen graphic. Roberts groused about Gallagher's no-show, showing viewers her empty chair in the Seattle studio. "As you can see, she is missing in action, although we did confirm an hour ago that she was supposed to be in that studio. I would say, 'Hi, Maggie,' but you're not there," Roberts snarked.

Closing that interview, Roberts again showed the empty chair and complained that "Maggie Gallagher... decided not to show up for this interview." But today, in a debate segment on the same issue, Roberts informed us, Gallagher's no-show was a simple booking error. Roberts acknowledged the mix-up but  failed to stipulate it was MSNBC's error, not Gallagher's. What's more, Roberts failed to apologize for trying to shame Gallagher two days earlier on the presumption that it was she who backed out. [MP3 audio here; video embedded below page break]

"Where Are the Statesmen?" asked the onscreen graphic as MSNBC's Thomas Roberts interviewed a son of the late Ronald Reagan about the state of the Republican Party in light of the presidential primary season thus far. Of course, MSNBC chose to bring on the Gipper's liberal namesake Ron Reagan rather than Michael Reagan, a solid conservative who has endorsed Newt Gingrich. Roberts opened the segment by asking Reagan, "why is Gingrich... still in this race? Does he really find himself to be a viable contender to go up against President Obama?"

Nowhere during the segment, of course, did either Roberts or Reagan fully disclose Reagan's political leanings, leaving less-informed MSNBC watchers with the natural presumption that the former radio show host and son of a conservative president might himself be a right-leaning Republican.

On Wednesday’s edition of MSNBC Live, Thomas Roberts continued the hysteria that fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton created by claiming there is a concerted assault on minority voters across the country.  In an ‘interview’ with thegrio.com’s Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the two expressed fear that voting rights, particularly racial minorities like African-Americans, aren’t being protected by Congress.

Hutchinson used a National Urban League study to prop up his crazy assertions that voting rights are under attack.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.] 

Ron Reagan Jr. took exception to Rush Limbaugh criticizing Mitt Romney’s comment that he wasn’t willing to say “incendiary things” to fire up the base, as the MSNBC contributor lectured: “Rush ought to know about incendiary rhetoric...he’s the one who is race baiting all the time on the radio.” Invited on MSNBC’s Wednesday morning programming to discuss the GOP primary race, Reagan took the shot at the conservative talk radio host after MSNBC host Thomas Roberts played a clip from Limbaugh’s radio show. (video after the jump)

MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts forecasted the future on Wednesday, declaring that the U.S. Supreme Court "is expected to affirm that [California] decision" overturning Prop 8.

Roberts, who is openly gay, didn't explain how he had such inside knowledge, but made sure to use liberal language about the ruling, saying that the judge decided "the denial of marriage equality to gays and lesbians violates the U.S. Constitution."

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts isn't even trying anymore to be an objective journalist.

Yesterday's passage of a right-to-work bill in Indiana was a measure "stripping the state of union rights," Roberts insisted during the 11 a.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC programming. "That makes Indiana not just the 23rd union-busting state, but the first new right-to-work state in ten years," the anchor noted as he introduced right-to-work opponent Indiana State Senator Vi Simpson (D).

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, who on Wednesday linked Mitt Romney to the Ku Klux Klan, on Thursday wondered if Barack Obama is headed for a "landslide" reelection. Teasing an interview, Roberts hyped, "I'm going to talk with a columnist who says the President could be headed for a landslide."

A MSNBC graphic hoped, "Heading for a Landslide?" Of course, this is the same anchor who smeared, "Plus, what Mitt Romney has in common with the KKK." With liberal slams like this, Roberts is certainly doing his part to make sure Obama obtains such an overwhelming victory.

Twenty four hours after linking Mitt Romney to the Ku Klux Klan, MSNBC's Thomas Roberts apologized for his "appalling" smear. The News Live host on Thursday waited until the show was 50 minutes over and then conceded, "During yesterday's 11am, we reported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK in the 1920s." [Video of the original comments and the apology can be found below. MP3 audio here.]

He continued, "It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this and showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize to the Romney campaign." On Wednesday's show, Roberts slimed, "Plus, what Mitt Romney has in common with the KKK. Details on a rare Romney campaign blunder ahead."

Q. How do you know when MSNBC has sunk to unimaginable depths of Dem-partisan hackery? A. When even Al Sharpton renounces it.  

On his MSNBC show this evening, Sharpton said the network was right to apologize for the smear MSNBC host Thomas Roberts perpetrated against Mitt Romney earlier in the day, when Roberts suggested Romney had borrowed a campaign slogan from the Ku Klux Klan. Video after the jump.

All this week MSNBC is giving Politics Nation host Al Sharpton a platform to attack voter ID laws as a move to "Block the Vote" and keep black voters from the polls.

To help drive more viewers to tune in, the network is having daytime news anchors run segments critical of such voter ID laws. Today during the 11 a.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC programming, anchor Thomas Roberts interviewed former NAACP chairman Julian Bond, who insisted that voter ID laws were "racist in intent" [MP3 audio here; video available here]:

Acting again as a video press release service for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), MSNBC today has repeatedly highlighted the DNC's complaints about new voter ID laws on several programs today.

In the 10 a.m. hour, Jansing & Co. anchor Chris Jansing gave a platform to the DNC's "director of voter protection" Will Crossley to plug he party's new website, protectingthevote.com. The segment was entitled onscreen, "War on Voters?" Jansing failed to bring on either a Republican Party official for a rebuttal nor a state secretary of state to defend voter ID measures.

GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich's complaint about free-loading Occupy Wall Street protesters needing to "get a job" and "take a bath" before doing so was denounced this morning by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts as "toxic language."

"I know he's trying, that is Newt Gingrich, trying to appeal to conservatives, but could this kind of toxic language end up ultimately backfiring?" Roberts asked guest David Goodfriend, a Democratic strategist [video posted after page break]

Yearning to join the wealthiest one percent of Americans? You may already have -- and not even know it.

Hard to believe such a thing is possible but MSNBC morning anchor Thomas Roberts ran a segment Wednesday about that one percent so reviled by Occupy squatters co-opting public property for their private use around the nation. (video clip after page break)

A religious exemption in anti-bullying legislation that's meant to prevent students and teachers from being punished for simply expressing their religious beliefs about homosexuality is a "license to bully" in the eyes of MSNBC.

Openly-gay anchor Thomas Roberts brought on Michigan state senator Gretchen Whitmer (D) to bash the Republican-controlled state senate for passing SB 0137, "Matt's Safe School Law," on to the state house of representatives containing a clause that holds that the law "does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian."

“There are several battles that are playing out across this country” today, MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts noted as he opened the 11 a.m. Eastern hour of live coverage on what the network is calling this year's "Super Tuesday."

Roberts quickly established that he and his network were in the trenches with liberals on every one of those "battles":

Appearing on the 11 a.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC Live today, Nation magazine columnist and MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris-Perry cynically invoked the legacy of Jim Crow laws to blast a proposed constitutional amendment in Mississippi that would extend due process protections to unborn children.

For the second day in a row, an MSNBC anchor raised a liberal Democrat's claim that South Carolina's new voter ID law would be "electoral genocide" that disenfranchises thousands of black voters in the Palmetto State.

Daytime anchor Thomas Roberts made note of the alarmist statement by South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian in an interview about the photo ID law in the 11 a.m. Eastern hour with Tulane professor and Nation magazine contributor Melissa Harris-Perry.

Neither Roberts nor Harris-Perry objected to the Harpootlian's rhetoric, although in a tweet a short time later Harris-Perry conceded that "genocide is too strong a term." [video follows page break]

Preaching that homosexuality is a sin is "bullying" and akin to "child molestation" and must be stopped, argued Mitchell Gold of Faith in America on today's "MSNBC Live" hosted by Thomas Roberts.

For his part, openly gay host Roberts failed to question Gold's assertion or to hold out that Gold's view may at best border on anti-religious bigotry (emphasis mine; video courtesy of MRCTV's Bob Parks follows page break):

The lengths MSNBC will go to deflect blame from President Obama for anything bad that can be tied to his administration is simply amazing.

On Friday, a liberal green jobs activist was brought on "MSNBC Live" to falsely accuse former President George W. Bush of making that ill-advised loan to failed solar company Solyndra (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts is aggressively using his daily soapbox for gay activism. On Friday morning, Roberts was outraged with the rest of the left that the Republican candidates did not denounce the boos after openly gay soldier Thomas Hill asked on video if the Republicans would "circumvent the progress that has been made" for gays if elected. [Audio available here.]

No one seems to question why Fox News and Megyn Kelly would pluck this question out of thousands of submissions and throw it directly at Rick Santorum. It seems like they were wearing a bracelet asking "What Would CNN Do?" Roberts, speaking very calmly, said something very wild. These Republican candidates would like to build a time machine and go back to when women couldn't vote and slavery was cool:

A new poll is out showing a majority of Americans blame Barack Obama for the poor state of the U.S. economy.

It's no surprise, then, that MSNBC is hard at work trying to turn the public's fire on GOP-run House. [video embedded below page break]

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts implied Tuesday that members of Congress who oppose efforts to inject more government spending into the economy, as President Barack Obama proposed recently, are committing an "act of treason."

"Why don't people look at that as an act of treason?" the daytime anchor asked the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, who shrugged off the accusation.

"I don't think what happens is Mitch McConnell and John Boehner retire to their volcano lair and plot how to doom the American economy," replied the liberal blogger.

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts harangued Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage on today's "MSNBC Live". "Why do you feel [gays] are less than you and don't deserve equal rights?" asked Roberts.

[VIDEO BELOW THE FOLD]

Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, Time Magazine's Michael Scherer set out to debunk a non-existent Republican red herring on the debt ceiling debate on Friday's News Nation. "The President has been negotiating behind the scenes, has put forward a number of proposals and he's gone public with the outlines of a proposal he is willing to accept," said Scherer.

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:

Following the media's relentless coverage of the Bachmann clinic and their semi-humorous insinuations that Marcus Bachmann might be gay, MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, who is himself openly gay, told viewers today the Republican presidential contender would try to wipe out gays and lesbians.

"But you will replace [Obama] with a person who would extinguish you," Roberts protested Friday morning to Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, a gay conservative organization opposing Obama's reelection.

[VIDEO BELOW THE FOLD. MP3 audio here.]