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MSNBC Tag

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 21, 2016 17 Comments
This Insurrectionist regularly monitors Chris Matthews' Hardball show. And while there's little doubt that come November 8th Matthews will pull the lever for Hillary, he has given Donald Trump a fairer shake than other MSNBC hosts. I chalk it up to Matthews' regular-guy upbringing. Factoid: Matthews did a short stint as a Capitol Hill police officer. A striking example of Matthews' relative fairness came tonight. After airing a clip of Trump criticizing the police shooting of an African-American man in Tulsa, OK, Matthews repeatedly pressed Hillary surrogate Stephanie Schriock, the president of the pro-abortion rights EMILY's List, to agree that Trump was "right in saying that." She clumsily dodged and weaved, but under persistent questioning by Matthews, Schriock eventually conceded "yes, I think so." Said a satisfied Matthews: "that's all I'm asking."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 20, 2016 9 Comments
Andrea Mitchell has her unmentionables in major undulations over the fact that Donald Trump, Jr. posted a tweet analogizing terrorists hiding among bona fide refugees to a few poisonous Skittles in an otherwise okay bowl. And so on her MSNBC show today, Mitchell teed up Dem Rep. Adam Schiff to take a big swing at the Trump campaign. Schiff was only too happy to oblige, piously denouncing Trump, Jr., whom he described as a "rotten apple" falling not far from the tree. Schiff accused Trump, Jr. of saying "essentially, children who are fleeing the war and violence are like poison candy." The truth is that far from analogizing innocent children to poison candy, the point of the tweet was that terrorists would infiltrate themselves among the innocent to enter our country and wreak mayhem here.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 19, 2016 19 Comments
Legal Insurrection readers who are also Rush Limbaugh fans know that one of El Rushbo's pet peeves is the way liberals have tried to co-opt the term "our values" into their political lexicon. There was a perfect—if annoying—illustration of the phenomenon on today's With All Due Respect. In clips of Hillary and President Obama, and during a live interview of Obama spokesman Josh Earnest, discussing the latest terrorist bombings in NYC and New Jersey, the v-word was bandied about no fewer than six times. View the video for the nails-on-blackboard montage!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 14, 2016 15 Comments
How deeply has Joe Scarborough dived into Hillary's tank? On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough offered Hillary a script of how she should attack "right-wing Republicans." Howard Dean was so impressed by Scarborough's work on Hillary's behalf that he exclaimed "I actually think you could actually be her speechwriter. That's exactly what she should be saying. I'm sure you don't want that job, but I'm just saying, you know?" Howard, don't be so sure Scarborough doesn't want that job. Sure looked this morning like Joe was auditioning for a spot in Hillary's West Wing.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 13, 2016 36 Comments
As liberal pundits go, I find Sam Stein among the least objectionable—a low bar to be sure. The HuffPo editor has a streak of fairness to him. But on today's Morning Joe, Stein served up some absurd spin on Hillary's "basket of deplorables." "Deplorables," according to Stein, in a way "does work to her advantage." Why? Because some moderate Republicans will "look at this division between the deplorables and the non-deplorables . . . and do say to themselves: do I want to be part of that?" A kind of snob appeal, Sam? Don't think so, and even Joe Scarborough, who continued his attacks on Trump throughout the show dismissed the notion, saying "you don't win voters by calling other voters irredeemable."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 12, 2016 20 Comments
Let's say it simply: Joe Scarborough has become a shameless pro-Hillary shill. On the big issues of the day: Hillary's health collapse and her "basket of deplorables," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook himself could not have spun things for Clinton more audaciously than did Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. On Hillary's collapse, Scarborough played the happens-to-everyone card, saying that he often has to grab the handrail walking down the stairs and feels faint during every performance with his rock group. As for Hillary heaving half of Trump supporters in a "basket of deplorables," Scarborough first tried to prove Hillary right with some poll numbers, then dismissed the issue as "much ado about nothing."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 09, 2016 10 Comments
The opening segment of today's Morning Joe was a Niagara of negativity deluging Donald Trump, focused on his comments at the Commander-in-Chief Forum. No discussion of Hillary Clinton's newest lies about her email, and the fact that, in order to create a veil of secrecy for her Foundation malfeasance, she subverted our national security. Two examples of the extreme hostility toward Trump, coupled with a dose of Hillary-worship. Ad man Donny Deutsch detected "envy" of Putin by Trump, saying "I think he wants to be a dictator." A bit later, Mika Brzezinski sympathized with poor Hillary: she's so "incredibly prepared" to be president that she has to "dumb herself down to deal with this idiot on the other side."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 08, 2016 8 Comments
A few days ago, we reported on "Dr." Joe Scarborough declaring that Hillary Clinton "doesn't have" any health issues. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took off his neurologist's hat and put on the campaign consultant's cap. Scarborough's advice to Hillary: refuse to answer any more questions about her emails. According to Joe, Clinton should put her answer up on her website, refer journalists to it any time they try to probe her on the matter, and "move on" to a discussion of Syria. Mike Barnicle echoed Scarborough's "move on" advice, suggesting Hillary say that if people are still concerned about her email, they should just vote for "Bozo the Clown." To his credit, Mark Halperin dissented from Scarborough's advice, saying that there are "many new questions" that have been raised about Hillary's email that she still needs to answer.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 07, 2016 27 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski teased an upcoming segment with James Carville and Steve Schmidt by saying it would be a "debate." But the only contest between the two was to see who could be more critical of Donald Trump. And Schmidt, senior adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, won that contest hands down. Schmidt actually said that the "peaceful transition of power" would be "in doubt" if Donald Trump loses, suggesting he might refuse to concede and rouse his supporters by claiming the election was rigged.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 06, 2016 20 Comments
A leading candidate for President of the United States has a documented history of serious health issues, including a blood clot on her head. She has had at least two fainting episodes, including one in which she fell and broke an elbow bone. During this campaign season, she has been plagued by numerous coughing fits including two just this past weekend. The candidate, of course, is Hillary Clinton. Yet Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were very reluctant even to raise the issue on today's Morning Joe. When Scarborough announced they were about to show a clip of one of Hillary's coughing fits, Mika declared "I don't want to show it!" Scarborough apologetically said "I thought you wanted to! I wasn't even going to bring it up." But not to worry. As to Hillary possibly having a health issue, Mike declared: "No, she doesn't. That's just BS." And Scarborough was right there to second her: "she doesn't have one," later explaining "we all cough."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 03, 2016 17 Comments
Joy Reid has a history of shutting down guests on her MSNBC show who disagree with her. Last week, Reid abruptly ended a segment when a conservative Latino guest tried to raise Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's support of eugenics. Today, the ever PC-Reid instructed a Trump supporter not to speak of "illegals" when referring to illegal immigrants. African-American Trump supporter Paris Dennard was making the point that Trump is not opposed to immigration generally, but to illegal immigration, and that illegal immigrants take jobs from black Americans. Dennard twice spoke of "illegals." That led guest Juan Hernandez, a supporter of Libertarian Gary Johnson, to say he was "insulted." Reid agreed, adding "this is like being in a family home. And when you're in this home, we just ask that you please not use terminology that offends people. So y'all are guests in our house, please don't use that terminology."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 01, 2016 58 Comments
UPDATE: Looks like Scarborough was parroting a Clinton campaign talking point. John Podesta, chair of the Hillary for America PAC, had put out a press release entitled "Trump Choked," and repeating that c-word a couple of times in the release. Maybe Morning Joe can cut out the middleman, dispense with hosts, and just run a looping feed of Clinton campaign press releases. Like Bulgarian and Ukrainian Olympic judges back in Soviet Union days who gave American ice skaters a crummy score after a strong performance, on today's Morning Joe Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough totally trashed Donald Trump on his visit with the Mexican president. For not raising the issue of who would pay for the wall, Scarborough screamed "he choked! I can't stand people that choke under pressure!" Brzezinski was reluctant to discuss the trip at all, dismissing Trump as a "fringe, alt-right Republican candidate . . . let's not pretend this is some sort of foreign policy discussion."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 31, 2016 54 Comments
What was your reaction upon waking to the news of Trump's planned trip to visit the President of Mexico? This Insurrectionist saw it as a bold move that might help him appeal to various voting groups. Morning Joe has been on an anti-Trump riff of late, but even so one anticipated that at least someone on the panel would applaud Trump's gambit. Wrong. Across the board, the Morning Joe gang ripped and ridiculed Trump's trip. Joe Scarborough set the tone, mockingly pointing out that Trump and the Mexican president will be "very excited" since their combined approval ratings will reach 50%. Mika Brzezinski, after emotionally declaring "I'm absolutely done with being emotional about this" said "it's almost silly to spend too much time analyzing his moves because they're nonsensical." Mike Barnicle couldn't see "what difference this trip makes." Willie Geist said Trump might be walking into a "trap" in which the Mexican president will seize the occasion to tear Trump down in front of the Mexican people. Donny Deutsch outdid the others, psychoanalyzing Trump: "megalomania, sociopath, detached from reality." Thank you, Dr. Donny.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 27, 2016 16 Comments
On Joy Reid's MSNBC show today, conservative Latino Alfonso Aguilar cited Hillary Clinton's praise of the eugenicist Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Hillary has said that she "admire[s] Margaret Sanger enormously." Reid responded by saying Sanger was not a legitimate issue because she is a "dead person." Even worse, when Aguilar tried to make that point that a majority of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood are on minority women, Reid shut Aguilar down, calling his statement "incredibly offensive. I think that smear of Planned Parenthood cannot go forward and we're not going to continue with that line of questioning." Reid abruptly returned to another Trump-bashing topic.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 25, 2016 23 Comments
This would be funny if it weren't so ironically hypocritical. There was reporter Jeremy Peters, of the New York Times—appearing on MSNBC—piously condemning "Sean Hannity's incredibly inappropriate role as an adviser to Donald Trump who is essentially giving him tens of millions of dollars of free advertising." Just what does Peters think the MSM is: from his own New York Times to MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, the Washington Post, etc., if not one huge monolith devoted to electing Hillary Clinton and other Dems while destroying Donald Trump? If Hannity is giving Trump "tens of millions" in free advertising, what is the combined value of free advertising that the MSM is giving to Hillary Clinton? Peters spoke after a clip ran of Hannity's show in which Trump asked people at a rally to show their support for different policy options on immigration.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 17, 2016 26 Comments
Tell us what you really think, Bill . . . Weekly Standard editor William Kristol has been one of Donald Trump's harshest conservative critics. He really let it hang out on today's Morning Joe, calling Trumpism "a new low" consisting of "Third-World, authoritarian, populist, demagogic politics." Earlier, Kristol sniffed off the significance of the major shake-up in the Trump campaign, in which Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon and consultant Kellyanne Conway have assumed leading roles: "I don't think it matters, because the problem is Donald Trump."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 15, 2016 51 Comments
Take this with a good grain of salt, since Donny Deutsch is a Hillary-supporting Dem, but Donny does run in the same New York circles as Donald Trump, and has called him a friend. Guest co-hosting on With All Due Respect today, Deutsch said "I can actually see Trump bailing. I can't see us ever getting to the point where election night, Trump becomes George McGovern. He is not going to allow—it's just not in his system . . . I cannot see him the rest of his life with a big 'L' on his face." Mark Halperin called the notion of Trump dropping out of the race a "Manhattan fantasy."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 04, 2016 45 Comments
On Hardball, Chuck Todd called it a "fantasy," but . . . he reported that some Republicans think that maybe they can talk Donald Trump into quitting, and that an ideal replacement ticket would be Mike Pence and Nikki Haley. Chris Matthews was very skeptical, saying that there'd never be a week when Pence could beat Hillary, because he lacks the "pizazz." Todd replied that some Republicans believe that a generic Republicans could beat Clinton. Todd quoted one Republican as saying "take any two people in the White Pages. Make them the ticket. Put R's next to their name, and put them on a desert island and not say anything, and they think that candidate gets 47%." Then again, how tuned in can someone be who still thinks in terms of the "White Pages?"
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