Tag: MSNBC

Liberals: The Hypocrisy and Deceit Continue

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Did you hear the one about the rich-as-King Midas Liberal comedians who continue to crack unfunny jokes about how rich Mitt Romney is?

The hottest trend among comedic talk show hosts in recent months has revolved around bashing Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, his personal wealth, and his ranking in the “one percent.”

But have these famous television “comedians” forgotten that they too are far from belonging to the “99 percent” when it comes to monetary earnings?

“Mitt Romney just barely won the Republican primary in Ohio by one percent. Then Romney made the mistake of saying, ‘ladies and gentleman, tonight is a victory for the one percent!” Conan O’Brien, who is received a $45 million exit deal from NBC in 2010 and has an estimated net worth of $75 million, exclaimed.

Jay Leno, who reportedly makes $32 million a year from his “Tonight Show” gig alone, and is reported to have a net worth of around $150 million, frequently incorporate Romney-related rich jokes into his late night program.

“CNBC is reporting that America lost 129,000 millionaires last year. Or as Mitt Romney calls them, ‘an endangered species we have to protect,” Leno said, and on another occasion stated: “Mitt Romney says he understands the middle class, and that he knows it’s not easy keeping a roof over your family’s heads – as well as vacation roots in San Diego, New Hampshire, and Park City, Utah.”

The Daily Caller pointed out that Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, who also has a prominent place on the rich Romney-jibing bandwagon and exploded over his “almost $57,000 a day” income level, makes more than 300 times the median American salary, owns three luxury homes and has been known not to pay his taxes occasion.

“How in the world do you, Mitt Romney, justify making more in one day than the median American family makes in a year – while paying the same tax rate as the guy who scans shoes at the airport?” Stewart gasped.

The political publication went on to highlight that his net worth stands at an assumed $80 million, bringing he and his wife Tracey to an estimated $41,000 a day and observed that he is well on his way to being more affluent than the GOP nominee when he reaches his age.

Fellow Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert has also unleashed plenty of zingers over the past few months – drawing attention to the candidate’s controversial joke about his father closing a Michigan factory.

“It’s like he’s on the Blue Collar tour, if the comedy was about losing blue collar jobs,” Colbert , who’s own net worth has been listed at $45 million, retorted.

David Letterman, who is reported to have earned $45 million with an overall net worth upwards of $400 million relishes Romney’s riches for ratings too, having made such jokes as “last month Mitt Romney raised $76 million. He found it in an old sport-coat pocket.”

Jimmy Fallon, worth about $16 million, also mocked: “A new survey found that Mitt Romney is ahead of Obama among those who make $36,000-$90,000. Or as Romney put it, ‘And they said I can’t connect with the poor.’’

Then there HBO commentator Bill Maher, who told his audience: “Mitt Romney was sitting down with some unemployed workers the other day. Mitt is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, and he said, ‘Hey, I’m unemployed too.’ That is the famous Mormon sense of humor. A little tip Mitt, your people are only funny when the ‘South Park’ guys write your jokes.” Mind you, Maher’s monetary value is approximately $23 million.

If you haven’t been treated to all of this so-called hilarity, then you probably haven’t heard about MSNBC’s latest round of selective editing, either:

During an afternoon broadcast of “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” video of the GOP presidential candidate seemed to show a politician out of touch as he discussed ordering a hoagie at Wawa.

The video clip went viral after the blogsite SooperMexican.com pointed out in a post that it appeared doctored.

“It’s amazing,” Romney said, as the Pennsylvania crowd appeared to laugh. Then viewers saw Romney say, “You have a touchtone keypad, and you touch that, touch this, go pay the cashier, there’s your sandwich.”

What viewers didn’t see or hear was nearly three minutes of Romney discussing the nightmare of paperwork faced by an optometrist he’d talked to in trying to get the post office to change his address. He expressed mock amazement at Wawa’s efficiency to underscore how the private sector often runs circles around the clumsy bureaucracy.

“We went to Wawas and it was instructive to me, because I saw the difference between the private sector and the governmental sector. People who work in government are good people and I respect what they do, but you see, the challenge with government is that it doesn’t have competition,” Romney said in a portion edited out of the segment.

But Mitchell invoked an old perceived campaign stumble by George Bush, who supposedly marveled at a supermarket scanner at a grocers’ convention during his failed 1992 re-election bid. Even though Bush was actually impressed not by an ordinary scanner, but by a then state-of-the-art device that could weigh food and read damaged bar codes, the anecdote was reported by The New York Times and offered as evidence that Bush was out of touch with everyday Americans.

Representatives for the Romney campaign declined to comment, but officials from the Romney camp had reached out to the Peacock Network, which promised they would correct the issue.

At the opening of Tuesday’s show, Mitchell addressed criticism over the misleading edits.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about a conversation you and I had yesterday, Mitchell said to MSNBC contributor Chris Cillizza, “We ran clips of Mitt Romney in Cornwall, Pa., talking about his trip to a Wawa.”

“The RNC and the campaign both reached out to us saying that Romney had more to say about that visit, about federal bureaucracy and innovation in the private sector,” she added before playing the unedited clip from the rally.

Lauren Skowronski, a spokeswoman for NBC, which owns MSNBC, denied that any deceptive editing took place.

“MSNBC did not edit anything out of order or out of sequence and at no time did we intend to deceive our viewers,” Skowronski said.

Remember, these are the same paragons of Broadcast Jounalism ethics who pulled off the following, per Breitbart.com:

In August of 2009, NBC’s Contessa Brewer (who still has the same job) used deceptive editing so that that MSNBC viewers wouldn’t know that the man carrying firearms to a Tea Party was a black man. This allowed Brewer to then host a segment about how racist the Tea Party is towards President Obama and how this racism might just lead to the unthinkable–the assassination of our President.

How effective is their Liberal Propaganda?

Well, now, just as then, when caught, I’m sure that both of their viewers were satisfied with their explanation.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Recall…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

Obama’s minions in the DNC and the Main Street Media are on the verge of seppuku (hari kari) this morning because

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The Good Guys won.  

Republican Scott Walker is still the Governor of Wisconsin.

Walker led Barrett in the official count 53 percent to 46 percent with 99 percent of the 3,424 precincts reporting. Walker’s lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, also was projected to survive her recall election.

The recall effort began when the first-term governor and Republicans in the state legislature rolled back what they considered excesses in the collective bargaining agreements of public-employee unions — an effort to cut Wisconsin’s estimated $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Wisconsin went for President Obama in 2008, but the recall results give Republicans hope that their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, can win there in November.

“Governor Walker has demonstrated over the past year what sound fiscal policies can do to turn an economy around, and I believe that in November voters across the country will demonstrate that they want the same in Washington,” Romney said.

Republicans see Walker’s win as evidence voters across the country want their elected officials to keep government living within its means. They said this paves the way for Romney to become the first Republican candidate to carry Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The outcome Tuesday is also a blow to the labor movement, which poured considerable resources into the failed effort to oust Walker.

Of course, Obama and his Administration were neck-deep in their investment in the Recall attempt, while feverishly attempting to distance themselves publicly.

And now, the ‘Rats appear to be ready to desert Obama’s sinking Ship of State:

“Certainly,” Democratic operative Paul Begala said about Obama owing it to Democrats to come out and support Walker challenger Tom Barrett (D-Wis.). “Of course. And he owed it to Tom Barrett. Barrett is the mayor of Milwaukee. He came out in the primaries, endorsed then-Sen. Obama against Sen. Clinton.”

“He also owes it to himself and to everybody else he’s going to have to deal with. This was a mistake, I have to say. The President should have been out there. I don’t it would have made the difference, okay, let me be clear about that. But, it’s kind of like Thanksgiving at your in-laws. If you go, it doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be fun, but if you don’t go, there is hell to pay. And that’s the situation the president is in,” Begala said.

Ed Schultz of MSNBC reacted to the political massacre in Wisconsin by doing a little “poor loser wish casting” last night:

Ed Schultz, an ardent supporter of unions and the recall of Gov. Scott Walker, reacts to the Wisconsin electorate voting to keep Walker as governor.

“In many respects it’s to be expected, considering how much money was thrown at this race. You know, NBC is calling it for Walker. Okay, I think it’s awful close and there’s a lot of absentee ballots yet that are still out and it’s going to be very, very close down to the wire” MSNBC’s Schultz said.

“Certainly it is not the end and it’s going to be an opportunity for the progressive movement to regroup nationally and understand exactly what they are up against,” a teary-eyed Schultz lamented.

“And this sets the template for the Republicans and tells the right-wing in this country that if they can outfund their opponent they have a real good shot as winning,” Schultz, an enthurasatic supporter of President Barack Obama in 2008 said toward the end of the segment.

Ed Schultz concluded the segment by making a wild assertion. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the MSNBC host said.

“So it’s going to be really a fight for the Democrats here in November, no question about it,” Schultz said.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin put it succintly (and rubbed it in rather well):

“I think that the Democrats there understand that the president’s no-show represents the fact that Obama’s goose is cooked,” former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) said on FOX News shortly after Scott Walker was declared winner of the recall election.

“Jay Carney — I can’t wait to see how he spins all this and ignores it, and President Obama himself. They’re going to really try to distance themselves from this despite the fact that they, leading their lapdogs in the leftist media, made this a front page story for how many months? Months and months,” Palin opined.

The victorious Governor Scott Walker summed his victory up by saying:

Tonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions,” Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) said after he beat a recall attempt.

Walker said that while “bringing our state together will take some time, no doubt about it,” he believes “there is more that unites us than divides us.

Is this overwhelming victory by Gov. Walker and the good people of Wisconsin, a harbinger of what will happen in our country’s National Elections on November 6, 2012?

I pray that it is.

Memorial Day 2012: Honor Them All

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

Today is a day of solemn remembrance, during which we honor our fallen heroes.  An unwatched cable news host, Chris Hayes, on an unwatchable cable news channel, MSNBC, has a problem with calling these brave men and women “heroes”:

Thinking today and observing Memorial Day, that’ll be happening tomorrow. Just talked with Lt. Col. Steve Burke [sic, actually Beck], who was a casualty officer with the Marines and had to tell people [inaudible]. Um, I, I, ah, back sorry, um, I think it’s interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words “heroes.” Um, and, ah, ah, why do I feel so comfortable [sic] about the word “hero”? I feel comfortable, ah, uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.

Maybe?  Just shuddup, you ungrateful idiot.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50’s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

For a member of the Main Stream Media to disrepect the fallen in this way, is beyond the pale and unforgivable.

But, unfortunately, not surprising, at all.

Liberals actually do believe in sacrifice…as long as they’re not the ones doing the sacrificing.

I was raised by members of the Greatest Generation.  It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad.  Not only theirs, but the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best, and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

Reverend Al Sharpton: Doing for Trayvon What He Did for Tawana?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

MSNBC Host Al Sharpton has made a living for years out of race-baiting.

Remember Tawana Brawley?

Museumofhoaxes.com tells the story:

On November 28, 1987, a 15-year-old black girl named Tawana Brawley was found lying inside a trash bag outside an apartment building located in Wappingers Falls, New York. She was covered in feces and racial insults had been scrawled on her body. When questioned by police she claimed that a group of white men, including police officers, had raped and beaten her. The black community rallied around her, and a prominent black leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, appointed himself her spokesman. Support for Brawley reached its peak on June 15, 1988 when her advisers held a meeting at the Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn that was broadcast to an audience of ten million viewers.

However, the material evidence did not back up Brawley’s claims. Her body displayed no signs of rape or assault. She was not frostbitten, even though she had supposedly been kept naked in the freezing woods for days. The feces on her body turned out to be from a neighbor’s dog, and even more damningly, a local resident of the apartment community where she was found claimed to have seen her climb into the trashbag alone and lie down of her own accord.

In October 1988 a grand jury issued a report following a seven-month investigation. It concluded that Brawley’s claims were a hoax. Many speculated that Brawley had made up a wild story in order to avoid punishment at the hand of her stepfather for having run away from home for three days. But Brawley herself insisted that she was telling the truth, a stance which she has maintained to this day. More than anything else, the episode and its bitter aftermath displayed the deep racial divisions that still haunted American society.

Now, in 2012, the Reverend Al Sharpton, MSNBC Host, is race-baiting once again.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that

If George Zimmerman is not arrested in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin soon, theRev. Al Sharpton will call for an escalation in peaceful civil disobedience and economic sanctions.

Sharpton would not say the efforts would be taken against the city of Sanford specifically, but he has been critical of the police department’s handling of the case.

The NAACP, who is sponsoring a march in Trayvon’s hometown of Sandford, Florida today, immediately tried to distance itself from Sharpton’s threat. Read this and decide for yourself if this was a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” moment:

Turner Clayton, the Seminole County chapter president of the NAACP, reacted immediately to Sharpton’s warning, saying, “We hope that the citizens of Sanford will govern themselves accordingly. We are not calling for any sanctions, against any business or anyone else. And, of course, what Rev. Sharpton does, that’s strictly the [National] Action Network. We can’t condone that part of the conversation, if that’s what he said.”

“I don’t think they can confuse that,” Clayton said. “It’s just that they will have to make a judgment as to whether they want to follow the mission of the NAACP or follow what the Rev. Sharpton said.”

Clayton said that the rallies are going to show support from the community and show the special prosecutor that “we are interested in what happened, and we’re not going to stand by and let them do something that the people of Sanford will not accept.”

Saturday’s rally will begin with a march from the Crooms Academy to the Sanford Police Department on 13th Street. The march begins at 11 a.m. and is hosted by the NAACP.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is expected to attend, along with Sharpton, who is expected to deliver specifics on his warning.

Sanford city workers spent the day discussing security and preparing for the rally, including setting up barricades, signs, cones and a stage.

Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch leader, shot and killed Martin, 17, last month, in a gated community in Sanford. Zimmerman claims the shooting was in self-defense.

Is it a “conflict of interest” for the Reverend Al to be a wild-eyed, race-baiting, camera-hogging activist and a cable news program host for MSNBC?

Evidently not, per comments his boss, Phil Griffin,  made to The Christian Science Monitor (I’m shocked):

Sharpton’s dual role would have been unthinkable on television 20 years ago and still wouldn’t be allowed at many news organizations. While opinionated cable news hosts have become commonplace over the past decade, Sharpton goes beyond talking.

“It certainly represents a change in our traditional view of the boundaries between journalism and activism,” said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. “Al Sharpton is clearly an activist.”

Sharpton, a Baptist minister, runs the Harlem-based National Action Network, a civil rights organization. He’s been a frequent presence as an advocate in racially-charged cases dating back to Tawana Brawley‘s accusations of an assault that turned out to be a hoax in the late 1980s.

He joined MSNBC’s roster of hosts last summer after extensive discussions about how his activist role would continue while on the air.

MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin said his chief requirement was that Sharpton discuss his activism with network bosses so they could decide, on a case-by-case basis, how it would affect “Politics Daily,” which begins at 6 p.m. ET.

“We didn’t hire Al to become a neutered kind of news presenter,” Griffin said. “That’s not what we do.”

Griffin, talking before Monday’s show, said he hadn’t seen any conflict with Sharpton’s role on and off the air in the Martin case. He said Sharpton had fulfilled his requirement to honest and upfront about his activities, and credited “Politics Daily” with helping to make it a national story.

And somewhere, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is sadly shaking his head.