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Media Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 18, 2017 8 Comments
Roger Ailes, who founded and built news powerhouse Fox News, died today at the age of 77. No one has released a cause of death. His wife released this statement via CNBC:
In a statement to Drudge Report, his wife Elizabeth Ailes said, "I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning. Roger was a loving husband to me, to his son Zachary, and a loyal friend to many. He was also a patriot, profoundly grateful to live in a country that gave him so much opportunity to work hard, to rise—and to give back. During a career that stretched over more than five decades, his work in entertainment, in politics, and in news affected the lives of many millions. And so even as we mourn his death, we celebrate his life..."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on May 01, 2017 8 Comments
During a discussion on CNN this morning of the health care mandate, radio host Michael Smerconish said, "The way in which you can afford to pay for people with pre-existing conditions is if you get a guy who's a stud like Chris Cuomo who works out and is healthy, and get him into the pool." From far rejecting Smerconish's embarrassing bit of ingratiation, Cuomo engaged in some dabbing that would make Cam Newton proud. See the screencap.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on April 20, 2017 24 Comments
During today's Morning Joe discussion of the ouster of Bill O'Reilly at Fox News, Joe Scarborough asked, "Do they remake over the entire network? Is anybody else in the [Murdoch] family's crosshairs right now?" Replied New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters: "I think you have to look at somebody like Sean Hannity, and question whether or not his almost propaganda-like attitude and programming every night is going to be acceptable in the minds of the family, which is clearly trying to shift the network in a different direction."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on April 13, 2017 74 Comments
The question of how much taxpayer money is being spent on President Trump's travel to Mar a Lago is worthy of inquiry. But CNN's approach to the subject this morning was a virtual parody of snarky, partisan snideness. Alisyn Camerota trumpeted the fact that President Trump is on a pace to outspend in one year President Obama's travel costs for eight years. But is that so? This AP fact check suggests she might be overstating the cost of presidential trips to Mar a Lago by a factor of three. Moreover, Camerota and guests depicted the Mar a Lago trips as nothing more than Trump golf outings. The reality is that the Palm Beach location has become a working Southern White House—witness its use as the site of President Trump's meeting there with Chinese Premier Xi last week, and with the Japanese Prime Minister in February.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 19 Comments
The best part of President Donald Trump's presidency? The way it makes the media go crazy. This time the media has gone insane because Secretary of State Rex Tillerson dropped his press pool for an unscheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on his trip to Moscow. Can you blame him, though? After all, the media treat members of this administration fairly and without any bias. *cough*Jeff Sessions*cough*

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 27 Comments
Kansas Treasurer Ron Estes won the special election in the 4th district against Democratic civil rights attorney James Thompson. Estes won with 52% of the vote. Democrats tried to spin the win into a positive because the margin of victory was small. Naturally, many members of the political media joined them.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on April 10, 2017 14 Comments
Surprising consensus on today's Morning Joe that Barack Obama blew it bigly in Syria by punting on his redline. Even Obama fan Mike Barnicle admitted, "Syria was a serious mistake that the Obama administration made." Foreign policy honcho Richard Haass said "history's going to be rough on this. This is going to be the defining moment for the Obama presidency." It wasn't just the panel that trashed Obama's mishandling of Syria. Joe Scarborough noted that not only did leading Dems like John Kerry and Hillary quickly come out in support of Trump's strikes, but that Dems were saying things that were "almost disloyal to Barack Obama, saying we could have never moved this quickly."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 04, 2017 6 Comments
Journalists have faced escalating danger in recent months due to the cartels. Numerous murders have forced one news outlet to shut down production entirely. El Norte De Cd. Juarez's director, Oscar Cantu Murgia, announced the shut down on Sunday after the murder of Miroslava Breach, a collaborator for the paper, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua:
“On this day, esteemed reader, I address you to report that I have made the decision to close this newspaper due to the fact that, among other things, there are neither the guarantees nor the security to exercise critical, counterbalance journalism,” wrote Norte’s owner, Oscar A. Cantú Murguía.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 28, 2017 13 Comments
Hot stock tip: invest in companies producing anti-smog surgical masks. That is, if you buy into Chris Cuomo's environmental alarmism. On CNN this morning, the panel discussed the Trump admin's announcement yesterday that it plans to roll back some of the Obama-era EPA regs viewed as overly restrictive on the coal industry. Cuomo claimed that the Obama regs are "seen as key to keeping the United States from looking like Shanghai in terms of blowing all kinds of black smoke into the air."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 27, 2017 20 Comments
Joe Scarborough spent the first half-hour of today's Morning Joe blasting White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon for the failure of the health care bill. Excerpts:
  • "I will call Steve Bannon a hack. When you go in and threaten members, you're not only a hack, you're stupid at your game . . . Bannon failed miserably. He is the biggest loser."
  • "The stupidity of Steve Bannon knows no ends."
  • "He's an idiot when it comes to how Washington works."
  • "He blew this."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 13, 2017 14 Comments
CNN's 7 a.m. ET hour today began with a news montage. Have a look, and see if you don't agree that the hit parade of horribles for the Trump administration could just about as easily have been put together by the DNC as by CNN. Here's what was included:
  • McCain calls out Trump to provide evidence of wiretapping.
  • Dem Rep. Adam Schiff saying there'd be an open hearing; an unidentified voice saying "we're going to ask, is there any truth to this."
  • Kellyanne saying "the president has asked for the investigation into surveillance to be included."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 09, 2017 22 Comments
Shortly before the presidential election, GOP public relations worker Steve Schmidt saw Hillary Clinton "trending over 400" electoral college votes. He also predicted that Dems would retake the Senate and were "close" to retaking the House. We know how all that played out. So you probably want to take this morning's comments from the man who brought you John McCain's 2008 campaign with a gargantuan grain of salt. Asked on Morning Joe what he would tell President Trump regarding his assertion that President Obama tapped his phones, Schmidt went on a rant.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 08, 2017 18 Comments
On CNN this morning, commenting on a report that President Trump has "no proof, no regrets" over his allegation that Pres. Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, Chris Cuomo claimed "no, proof, no regrets: they only go together with this administration." Really? We only have to go back to the immediately previous administration to debunk Cuomo's claim. Remember President Obama's "proof and regrets" that a video led to the murder of four Americans in Benghazi? Nope? How about "if you like your policy, you can keep your policy?" Or when he told the press on national television the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" at a Harvard professor's home? Remember President Obama's "proof and regrets" over that? Neither do we.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 07, 2017 29 Comments
For David Ignatius, what is an acceptable number of terrorists and terrorist attacks in the United States? The question arises because on today's Morning Joe, Ignatius, of the Washington Post, was discussing the Trump admin statement that since 9/11, 300 people admitted from countries on the reissued executive order have been subject to "criminal, counter-terrorism investigations." Sniffed Ignatius: that's a "tiny number." Really? If those 300 had not been caught up in counter-terrorism investigations, how many would have carried out terrorist attacks? If only 1-in-20 had, that would be 15 terrorist attacks. Fifteen San Bernadinos, Pulses. Even one. Tiny?

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 06, 2017 24 Comments
Morning Joe suffered a split personality today over President Trump's tweets alleging that President Obama had tapped his phones. On the one hand, Joe and Mika waxed apocalyptic, claiming the country is "in crisis" and questioning President Trump's "stability." At one point, Mika even seemed to choke up as she said, "this is really a dark time which could get worse." But at the same time, Joe Scarborough zeroed in on former Obama spox Josh Earnest's "very legalistic" responses to questioning by ABC's Martha Raddatz. On This Week, Raddatz cited former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau's tweet, warning "I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping. Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it." Pressed by Raddatz, Earnest admitted "I don't know" whether the Obama Justice Department sought and obtained a court-ordered wiretap of the Trump campaign.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 06, 2017 68 Comments
Former President Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Chuck Todd on Meet The Press that evidence between President Donald Trump and Russia do not exist:
We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.
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