Chris Jansing

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.

Friday’s NBC Nightly News once again promoted the left-wing/anti-capitalist protests which Brian Williams non-ideologically described as “a protest against economic and social inequality” that “has now spawned organized marches in 45 states.”

Reporter Chris Jansing featured a man whose “frustration brought him to lower Manhattan” and he pronounced: “I think it's our Arab Spring.” Jansing next trumpeted how “‘Occupy Wall Street’ is drawing historical comparisons,” a quest for historic impact the networks never sought for the Tea Party. Her expert, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, whom she failed to note is co-editor of the far-left quarterly, Dissent.

Guest hosting for Chris Matthews on Tuesday, MSNBC's Chris Jansing derided Rick Perry, wondering if the Republican presidential candidate is "too far off even for the GOP?"

Jansing, who normally hosts supposedly straight news coverage for the cable network, attempted to generate controversy over statements Perry made on civil rights. A MSNBC graphic for the segment, mocked, "I have a scheme."

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Imagine that one of the FBI's most wanted mobsters had a brother who for decades had been a Republican power broker in a deep red state like say Texas. On top of that, that Republican party boss may have helped his brother flee justice. Imagine that that mob boss was arrested last night after 16 years on the lam.

MSNBC would most certainly report not just the capture but the political connections of the mobster's brother, right?

Only the party boss was former Massachusetts Senate President Billy Bulger (D) and the mobster was South Boston's James "Whitey" Bulger.

 

On June 9, unarmed Gaston County, North Carolina man James Verone held up a bank demanding the sum of $1. After getting the cash from a teller, he patiently waited in the bank for cops to arrive.

Twelve days later, MSNBC has picked up on the story as an example of the desperate straits that unemployed, uninsured persons will go for health care.

Yet neither anchor Chris Jansing in the 10 a.m. Eastern hour nor Tamron Hall in the 2:00 p.m. hour mentioned that there are low-or-no-charge health clinics in Verone's backyard.

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As news broke of Dr. Jack's Kevorkian death on Friday, MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing invited on defense attorney and friend Geoffrey Fieger to praise the convicted criminal known as 'Dr. Death': "Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be looked at as a hero, a true hero, and as a martyr for what they did to him for nine years. Putting him in prison..." [Audio available here]

Jansing began the interview by wondering about Kevorkian's legacy: "Was he a dying patient's savior or a cold-blooded killer?" As soon as she introduced Fieger, he immediately argued: "I doubt very many people will ever remember him as a cold-blooded killer. Obviously there's some on the fringe, but I think most of us would recognize his, not only his greatness and his kindness and his beneficence and his importance."

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Would liberal journalist Karen Hunter have whitewashed President Bush's low approval ratings during his time in office? On MSNBC Wednesday, the ever-classy Hunter curtly dismissed President Obama's lowest approval rating to date, growling that "polls are for strippers."

MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing highlighted a new Quinnipiac poll recording Obama's approval rating at 42 percent, an all-time low for the president. She brought on Hunter, who was listed as an MSNBC contributor, along with another more conservative guest to discuss the ratings.

Hunter argued that the populace can be quite fickle in its rating of Obama's accomplishments. "If people do their homework," Hunter noted, they would recognize the magnitude of the president's accomplishments in office, which she believed to have been the most since FDR.

Jansing backed Hunter up.

(Video after the jump.)
 

Journalist Karen Hunter belittled Pastor Stephen Broden over his provocative pro-life billboard on MSNBC's "Jansing & Co." Thursday, calling the ad "racial," "sexist," and "completely offensive." Host Chris Jansing didn't do much moderating over the segment, essentially giving Hunter a pass for her statements and further pressing Broden on the billboard.

Pastor Broden is a board member of pro-life group Life Always that sponsored a billboard in New York City claiming that "The Most Dangerous Place for an African-American Is In the Womb." From the start of the interview, Jansing pressed Broden to admit that the ad may be offensive to minority communities.

"Can you understand why some people say this ad offends communities of color?" Jansing asked. She later turned to Hunter, who is a journalist and has co-authored multiple best-selling books with African-American celebrities. Jansing threw her a softball, simply asking her if she thought it racist, sexist, and/or offensive.
 

MSNBC's Chris Jansing, referencing a report by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on "active U.S. hate groups," asked Wednesday if the rise of radical right-wing groups coincided with the motives behind Jared Loughner's assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

When asked about the "hate groups" report, guest Mark Potok of the SPLC immediately pointed to the rise of "radical right-wing groups" and attributed the rise to "resentment over the changing racial demographics," "frustration over the lagging economy," and "mainstreaming of conspiracy theories."

"The economy since the fall of 2008, of course, has really played into this in terms of unemployment, anger with the bailouts, and so on," added Potok. "It's really ginned-up anti-government feeling, in many ways."
 

 

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."

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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."

Appearing on MSNBC, Monday, to promote his new special on Barack Obama, Chris Matthews attacked "older white people" for still holding bigoted feelings against the first African American President.

Lavishing praise on younger Americans, he added, "And I think that's a generalization and I'll stick with it. I think younger people do not see race as an obstacle." He then touted the "non-judgmental" attitude of Obama voters, fawning, "In fact, they say [race is] irrelevant and don't even notice it, whereas older people notice it all the time."

If "older white people" are focused on race, Matthews could certainly be one of them. On January 27, 2010, after Obama's State of the Union address, he oddly alerted, "You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour...I was watching, I said, 'Wait a minute. He's an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people, and there he is, President of the United States, and we've completely forgotten that tonight.'"

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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 featured the liberal Jonathan Capehart on Wednesday to attack a newly released Sarah Palin video as "anti-Semitic." The Washington Post editorial page writer berated Palin for complaining about the media's attempts to link conservative speech to last week's shooting in Arizona.

In the video, the former Alaska governor rejected this as a "blood libel." Capehart smeared, "...That phrasing, that phrase is incredibly anti-Semitic. And no one is calling Sarah Palin an anti-Semite but for her to use that language a lot of people think she has dug a deep hole even deeper."

However, the National Review's Jim Geraghty pointed to an October 30, 2008 Ann Coulter column: Capehart's Washington Post colleague Eugene Robinson complained about "...The blood libel against black men concerning the defilement of the flower of Caucasian womanhood." Was Mr. Robinson using anti-Semitic language? Should he have been "more careful," as Capehart instructed Palin to be?

(See video below. MP3 audio here.)

"Is it time to rethink the Second Amendment?" MSNBC anchor Richard Lui asked viewers of the January 11 "Jansing & Co." on the way to commercial break around 10:15 a.m. EST.

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Lui was teasing an upcoming segment in which MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing would interview House Intelligence Committee chairman and former FBI agent Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) about what measures Congress could or should take to explore greater security measures for congressmen and/or gun control legislation.

"Every recent gun control law has passed after a high-profile shooting," Jansing noted before starting her interview with Rogers later that hour.

MSNBC's Chris Jansing dismissed as "complicated" a new House rule in the 112th Congress that requires every piece of legislation being considered to have a statement laying out where in the Constitution the Congress has the authority to legislate on that particular matter.

"How complicated though, are we about to see things if the Republicans say you have to have a constitutional reason for every bill that goes before them," Jansing asked historian Michael Beschloss shortly after 10:30 a.m. EST on her January 6 "Jansing & Co." program.

Video follows page break. Click here for MP3 audio.

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?"

In the segment before she interviewed him, MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing labeled Rep. Steve King (R) of Iowa "one of the most radical right-wingers in Congress." Nothing was said of the comment in the interview, and her questions proceeded as normal.

Following a debate on the extension of unemployment benefits, Jansing remarked that "up next we're going to talk to one of the most radical right-wingers in Congress and talk about what he plans to do when the GOP takes control of the House." In the next segment, she interviewed Rep. King.

Jansing asked King about the DREAM Act, tax cuts, and compromising with Democrats. She pressed King on immigration and the DREAM Act, using an clip of an illegal immigrant student who said she wants "to give back to the country that saw us grow."
 

Former ABC reporter Jami Floyd on Friday appeared on MSNBC and slammed Sarah Palin as an "extraordinary ass." The journalist's attack didn't register much of a shock with Jansing and Co. host Chris Jansing. She simply wondered if the profanity was "allowed" in the morning hours. 

After ex-Republican Governor Frank Keating touted Palin as extraordinary talent, Floyd, who also worked for the Clinton White House, blurted, "I say she's an extraordinary ass, frankly."

The reporter then justified her insult, asserting, "We're all grown ups. I think the grown ups are watching. The kiddies are in school."

Video available after the break.
 

MSNBC's "Jansing & Co." zoomed in on rifts developing within the Republican House majority Friday morning – but ignored a growing spat between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats who don't want her to continue as the party's leader in the House.

With the headline "GOP Civil War?" anchor Chris Jansing explored the conflict between upstart Tea Party Republicans and the establishment. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a two-term congresswoman and Tea Party leader, seeks the party's fourth-most senior position in the House. Standing in her way is establishment-backed candidate Rep. Jeb Hensarling.

Jansing used the case to underline the differences between the Tea Party and the establishment GOP, and wondered how the relationship between the two sides will evolve. "There are already splits within the Republican Party, and they include things like health care. ...There are a whole series of issues on which they disagree, Michele Bachmann being just part of it."

Former GOP congresswoman Susan Molinari dismissed the differences as "much ado about nothing." "This is the way politics works," Molinari stated. "In any political party, there's going to be some disagreements around the edges of major pieces of legislation."
 

MSNBC's "Jansing & Co." ran the headline "Sore Losers?" during the 11 a.m. EDT hour, featuring concession speeches of three GOP candidates in the election. The anchor, Chris Jansing, asked "Where's the civility?" but made no specific mention of Democrat "sore losers."

"Whatever happened to the gracious concession speech, and whatever happened to that phone call to your opponent?" Jansing complained. "Is civility dead?"

In its lambasting of Republicans, perhaps MSNBC forgot about Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who arrogantly ripped Republicans for dirty tactics and proclaimed the Boston Herald "irrelevant" – after his victory. Or maybe they overlooked President Obama as he recently labeled conservatives and Republicans "the enemy" on Hispanic radio.

"This is not just the Republicans in the clips that you just showed, but it's Democrats as well, including President Obama himself, who have shown a lack of civility at times in the debate," retorted GOP strategist Alex Conant.
 

Ex-CBS broadcaster Dan Rather on Tuesday appeared on MSNBC and lamented the fact that Republicans have turned Nancy Pelosi into a "villain" and "demonized" her. The famous broadcaster also implied that sexism was involved, gesturing to his female co-panelists, "She is from San Francisco. She is a woman." Before being interrupted, he added, "And the three of you can figure out-"

Speaking of sexism, on the June 11, 2007 Morning Joe, Rather attacked Katie Couric, his successor at the CBS Evening News, this way: "The mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ show ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."

Rather on Tuesday opined of Speaker Pelosi: "Ideal villain. And they made a villain of her and they have demonized her from day one. And what was said earlier, what's made it easy for them is she's been so effective. " The CBS journalist couched his analysis by saying he wasn't judging the Republicans' action, suggesting, "This is the way politics are."

Video after the break.

Chris Jansing's cognitive dissonance must be excruciating.

On today's "Jansing and Co.," the MSNBC anchor initially rejected the practice of gotcha journalism in political campaign coverage, but proceeded to play gotcha with a comment made yesterday by Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell.

"I'm not a big fan of trying to do a gotcha," prefaced Jansing, directing the remark at retired Army General Wesley Clark. "I've said that before on this program. But does it bother you at all when someone can't name a current member of the Senate on the Democratic side?"

Clark, who ran for president in 2004 as a Democrat, refuted Jansing's gotcha question: "Well, first of all I think that's a little bit of a stretch in this case. She wasn't asked to name a current member, she was asked to name someone she'd like to work with. So I think that's a little bit of a stretch."

The media are in a full-scale hyperventilation following Tuesday's separation of church and state comments by Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell.

As an Investor's Business Daily editorial points out, O'Donnell was right when questioned about this issue during a debate with Democrat candidate Chris Coons, and all the nattering nabobs of negativism filling the airwaves are wrong:

MSNBC on Tuesday continued its attempt to dismiss Republican candidates as extremist, hitting Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and others as "mean girls" who are unqualified for office. Jansing appeared shocked that the Delaware candidate pointed out the phrase "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution. She then read from the First Amendment, but failed to find the words.

After playing a clip of O'Donnell from this morning's debate, Jansing sputtered, "I thought she had to be kidding." She then pulled out her "handy, dandy" pocket Constitution and quoted, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech.' Amendment number one. I don't even know where to go with that." [MP3 audio here. Click on the article for video.]

What Jansing was thinking of is the Establishment Clause. O'Donnell's point was that restricting the creation of the official religion isn't the same thing as walling off faith from public life. Despite the indignant tone of Jansing, "separation of church and state" isn't in the text.

Sometimes the bias is extremely clear: A MSNBC graphic on Monday mocked GOP senatorial candidates with the headline, "American Freakshow [sic] Angle, Paul, O'Donnell: New Faces in Politics." American Freak Show is also the title of guest Willie Geist's new book on politics, but all the apparent "freaks" discussed in the piece were Republicans.

Geist complained to Jansing and Co. host Chris Jansing, "The frustration about this is, you have to hand in a book so early that all these people have come out of nowhere. They sprout up like weeds. Christine O'Donnell, Rand Paul, Linda McMahon." [MP3 audio here. Click on article for video.]

Reporting that an elderly woman fainted at a West Virginia campaign appearance by former President Clinton, MSNBC ran the provocative headline "He's Still Got It," on its 10 a.m. EDT news hour. We'll leave it to the reader to guess what exactly MSNBC was getting at.

President Clinton was giving a stump speech Monday for West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, the state's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

"One audience member was just a little overwhelmed,"  MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing remarked, as a video clip then showed Clinton pausing his speech to recognize an elderly woman in the front who had fainted. "Maybe if you're a Democrat, you'll think this is awesome," Jansing commented.

The woman had received medical attention and was being escorted away by a doctor and two security guards. "And I'm going to save her reputation. It was the sun and not me that made her faint," Clinton joked as she was escorted from the premises.

While the mainstream media have been in a frenzy to denounce Christine O'Donnell as a kook for her socially conservative statements on abstinence from the 1990s, the cable news networks had a perfect opportunity this afternoon to let her speak for herself.

Collectively they gave her less than five minutes.

The Republican Delaware Senate nominee gave a speech at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. this afternoon from about 3:25 to 3:45 p.m. EDT. Of the three major cable news networks, Fox News showed none of the speech while MSNBC's Chris Jansing gave viewers just under a minute of O'Donnell audio before interviewing Time magazine's Jay Newton-Small about concerns some GOP operatives have about O'Donnell being a weaker matchup against the Democratic nominee than Rep. Mike Castle (R) would have been.

Only CNN's Rick Sanchez gave O'Donnell a substantial chunk of time: 3 minutes and 33 seconds. When Sanchez cut away from O'Donnell, he noted that she's "getting her first taste of the national spotlight" since clinching the nomination and promised that CNN would "continue to follow as the midterms in November draws near."