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MSNBC Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 05, 2017 16 Comments
NBC/MSNBC continues to grab Fox News people. Former host Greta Van Susteren will join the network only a few days after Megyn Kelly announced her new shows and roles at NBC:
"I'm thrilled to start my next chapter at MSNBC," Van Susteren said. "The network is the right destination for the smart news and analysis I hope to deliver every day, and I look forward to joining the talented journalists and analysts I respect there."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 05, 2017 25 Comments
As soon as Yahoo's Bianna Golodryga said she didn't want to "turn political," you knew that was precisely what she was about to do. But when Golodryga proceeded to criticize the Texas open-carry law this morning, you might be surprised that it was Meredith Vieira who—excuse the expression—shot her down. Vieira was a guest on Morning Joe to discuss a documentary, for which she served as executive producer, about the University of Texas Tower shootings in 1966, in which Charles Whitman shot 49 people, killing 16. The gun-control shoe was bound to drop, and after her "not to turn political," Golodryga launched into a criticism of the new Texas open-carry law, fretting that it could prevent UT from attracting "students and the top talent in teaching for fear of this law." Retorted Vieira: "It's interesting. On that day, the students were allowed to carry on campus and the police relied on them. One of the police -- they didn't have SWAT teams back then and they didn't have the equipment either to get to somebody who was up in the tower. So they were asking students: does anybody have a shotgun? The police themselves didn't have shotguns. And the students helped them."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 02, 2017 24 Comments
Whatever happened to those 'Question Authority' and 'Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism' bumper stickers that flourished on liberals' cars during the dark days of George W.'s administration? Now, in the waning days of a Dem presidency, a touching trust in the judgment of the president is in evidence on the left. On today's Morning Joe, Prof. Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of Princeton's African-American studies department, said he is "struck" that anyone would question President Obama's judgment that sanctions against Russia are warranted. After all, argued Glaude, the president "has sworn to protect this country."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 01, 2017 38 Comments
A former Obama White House adviser to President Obama, Karine Jean-Pierre, said this morning that "the thing about Donald Trump is that he is the known. He is, it is very reminiscent of cross-burning in front of your house. Of the KKK." Jean-Pierre made her outrageous remark in response to a question from Al Sharpton, on his MSNBC show, as to what justice will be like under President Trump. The supposed Republican on the panel, Elise Jordan, rather than refuting Jean-Pierre, essentially seconded her, saying Trump "spends more time decrying a New York Times reporter than these white supremacists who are going out and committing these horrible acts."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 31, 2016 15 Comments
I have a dirty little secret -- I've been watching MSNBC since the election. It's just so glorious to see them suffer. Is that bad of me? The Free Beacon posted the other day a supercut of the Worst of MSNBC 2016.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 28, 2016 30 Comments
Then why did Barack Obama get so many things so wrong? That's the question that inescapably arises in response to the claim by NBC correspondent Chris Jansing on today's Morning Joe that Obama's decision-making style is "very professorial, thoughtful, in-depth." Jansing said that Obama and Trump "could not be more different in the way they approach problem solving," describing Obama admin concerns about Trump's supposed "shoot-from-the-hip" style. Mike Barnicle weighed in to wonder whether Trump would be up to the task of comforting the nation after tragedies such as the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 23, 2016 10 Comments
It was the strangest of settings for some very serious breaking news. There was Mika Brzezinski, cuddled up in her flannels on Morning Joe's special Christmas set. In the previous segment, Joe Scarborough had grilled Sean Spicer, whom President-elect Trump yesterday named as his White House spokesman, over Trump's tweet of yesterday in which he said that the US needed to greatly strengthen its nuclear arsenal. Spicer repeatedly refused to say that the Trump tweet came in response from a statement by Vladimir Putin, just hours earlier, announcing Russia's intention to strengthen its own nuclear arsenal. When the show returned after a break, Spicer was gone, but Mika and Joe announced that during the break Spicer had been on the phone with Trump, that Mika had posed a question about the nuclear tweet, and that in response Trump told her: "let it be an arms race because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 21, 2016 49 Comments
"There, I said it. Mark it Down. Write it." That was Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe predicting that Republicans will be "wiped out" in the 2018 elections if they govern as far right as the Trump cabinet selections suggest. Scarborough drew the analogy to the 1994, and more specifically to the 2010 midterm elections, when Dems suffered cataclysmic losses after an emboldened Obama admin governed from the left in its first two years. Scarborough misses an important point, in the view of this Insurrectionist. Dems didn't get punished in 2010 because of some abstract notion that they governed too far to the left. They lost because their liberal policies failed. The economy remained in the doldrums. And people could see that Obamacare was heading for failure.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 20, 2016 18 Comments
In the wake of yesterday's terror attacks, including the one in Berlin in which 12 people were killed and many more injured, Donald Trump tweeted that the civilized world must "change thinking." A disdainful Joe Scarborough reacted on today's Morning Joe: "I don't know exactly what the civilized world is going to do about trucks, unless we're going to ban trucks. But again, some of the deadliest attacks have been with vehicles."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 19, 2016 32 Comments
Shades of "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" . . . On today's Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle claimed that Barack Obama had a "great, outstanding" presidency, "with a few minor ripples like Syria." So the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, traceable to Obama's abandonment of his red line, is a "minor ripple?" How callous can Barnicle be? And as bad as was Obama's failure on Syria, it is just one of a string of fiascos at his feet, from the rise of ISIS, to Iran, Libya, and on the domestic front, a record number of people out of work and on food stamps, and the slowest recovery in modern history.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 14, 2016 1 Comment
Some feuds die hard. Joe Scarborough and Keith Olbermann have one going back to at least 2008, with another flare-up in 2012. Scarborough's got the bigger mic now, and he wielded it on today's Morning Joe to mercilessly mock Olbermann as someone suffering from delusions of Nazi tomatoes that talk to him. The context was Mika Brzezinski role-playing Rex Tillerson being questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing. Joe played the committee chairman, but couldn't help himself from launching into an Olby impression, with his trademark "Sirrr!", then riffing "you do know that he calls tomatoes, that he thinks are staring ominously at him, Nazis? You know he does that? . . . Because they keep talking to him in German. The tomatoes in his kitchen. It really disturbs him."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 13, 2016 13 Comments
"Absolute disaster": that's how Joe Scarborough described the prospect of John Bolton serving as Deputy Secretary of State on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough blamed "neo-cons" for boosting Bolton, singling out Sheldon Adelson. Said Scarborough: "he needs to tell Sheldon Adelson, sorry, I love you buddy, and I'll play blackjack out at your casino, but I can't let you destroy US foreign policy because you like this guy." Scarborough's beef with Bolton focused on his hawkish approach to foreign policy, noting that he was one of the few in the foreign-policy community still saying that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea. Scarborough suggested that Bolton's stance would put him at odds with Trump, who made his opposition to the Iraq war a key element of his campaign.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 11, 2016 33 Comments
Jennifer Rubin is the Washington Post's "right" columnist, though many people would dispute that designation. Rubin has made no secret of her Trump hatred, which came through today on MSNBC. Rubin branded several of Trump's cabinet and high level nominees "ignoramuses."
"I wish I could say that Ben Carson is the only person who doesn't have experience in his area. You mentioned Tillerson. We also have Terry Branstad, who is the ambassador to China. He's been the Governor of Iowa! And I like her, I think she's smart, Nikki Haley, terrific person, but she's going to the UN. But does she have any foreign-policy experience? So I think what we have are ignoramuses, billionaires, and a few generals."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 10, 2016 24 Comments
Guess the Chris Hayes contingent missed the memo from President Obama about giving Trump a chance . . . The topic on Hayes' MSNBC show last night was Trump's thank-you tour of states that had supported him. Hayes kicked things off by making a thinly-veiled Hitler allusion, saying the Trump rallies feel "not that far from rallies for the 'leader,' which don't have a great history in politics across the world." Slate columnist Michelle Goldberg was not so coy, coming right out and claiming that Trump is "going to turn our country into a racist police state." Not to be outdone, Fordham professor Christina Greer said that the Trump rallies "have a feeling of a Klan rally, they have a feel of a white-supremacist rally."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 09, 2016 23 Comments
And people fret about Trump trying to control the press? Now we learn about the kind of paranoid control freaks running the Clinton campaign. Mika Brzezinski made a stunning revelation on today's Morning Joe. Mika, a loyal Democrat, said that after she warned that the Clinton campaign was perhaps being arrogant in assuming that the race was over, "I'll just say it: NBC got a call from the campaign. Like I had done something that was journalistically inappropriate or something, and needed to be pulled off the air."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 08, 2016 22 Comments
My, my: such a violent metaphor. Aren't the Dems the peace 'n love party? On MSNBC today, regarding the nomination of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator, Dem Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts threatened "a confirmation hearing that has razor-blade sharp edges." To which guest-host Peter Alexander stunningly responded: "as the Sierra Club told me last night, they said this is sort of like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires." Note: Alexander wasn't merely reporting the Sierra Club's statement. With his preface—"as the Sierra Club told me"—Alexander seemed to be adopting the slanderous simile as his own.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 08, 2016 33 Comments
Donald Trump's nominations have turned out to be a pleasant surprise for some of his biggest conservative critics. That was Joe Scarborough's take on today's Morning Joe. From James Mattis at Defense, to John Kelly at DHS, and now to EPA foe Scott Pruitt . . . at EPA, the President-elect has proposed people with strong records and in a number of cases, strong conservative philosophies. So much so that Scarborough remarked: "How fascinating that the Never Trumpers and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Bill Kristols, and all the people who were rightly the most skeptical of Donald Trump during the primary, have to sit back going, wow, I would not have gotten this with Jeb or Marco."
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