Delaying Obama’s Amnesty = Putting History on Hold
Delaying Obama’s Amnesty = Putting History on Hold
“The showdown over immigration takes a dramatic turn: A last-minute ruling dashes American dreams for millions of families under the threat of deportation.”
— Fill-in anchor Lester Holt opening the NBC Nightly News, February 17.
“Tomorrow was supposed to be a historic day for millions of illegal immigrants. They would be able to begin to apply for legal status under immigration reform that President Obama implemented by executive action over the objections of Congress, but a federal judge’s ruling has now put all of that on hold.”
— CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, February 17.
White House correspondent Chris Jansing: “Tonight, Andrea Gabelones is devastated, worried her dream of working for the FBI may not come true.”
Andrea Gabelones: “You know, we were so ready for this and then today it just crushed us, you know?”
Jansing: “In Texas, Alfredo Garcia’s future plan, a Ph.D. program at Notre Dame, is at stake.”
Alfredo Garcia: “All the possibilities that I have in the future just vanished.”
— NBC Nightly News, February 17.
Ruling “Defines” Conservatives as “Against Immigrants”
“The Texas decision clearly defines who is against immigrants in the U.S. Latino voters will remember; 2016 is not that far away.”
— Univision and Fusion news anchor Jorge Ramos in a February 17 posting to Twitter.
How Did “Noble” ObamaCare Get Such a Bad Reputation?
“How did something [ObamaCare] that was this noble an idea become something, over time, that the other party uses against this President constantly?”
— New York Daily News sports writer Mike Lupica to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, February 19.
David Brooks: “I’m Totally Pro-Obama” on Christian-Bashing
Clip of President Obama: “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ....In our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”...
New York Times columnist David Brooks: “Well, I’m pro-Obama. I’m totally pro-Obama on this. I think he said the right thing.”
— NBC’s Meet the Press, February 8.
Global Warming: Worse than ISIS Terrorist Beheaders?
“Do you think the media sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism and this kind of chaos, as opposed to a longer-term problem of climate change and epidemic disease?”
— Matthew Yglesias, Executive Editor of Vox.com, to President Obama in interview posted February 9.
“The single most important thing we face globally is the fact that we are heating the planet to a level that has never before been tried, while also trying to have human civilization. That’s a real big experiment to run, with human beings live in real time. It is the kind of challenge that 100 years from now, people will look back and be like, ‘How did they talk about anything else, ever?’ Like, didn’t they understand they were sitting tied to train tracks with a train coming?”
— MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes on NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly, early morning of February 17.
Journalists Rally Around Lyin’ Brian Williams
“Brian is an honest, decent man, an excellent reporter and anchor — and a brave one. I can attest that — like his predecessor Tom Brokaw — he is a superb pro, and a gutsy one.”
— Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather as quoted by Politico’s Dylan Byers in a February 5 article.
“#BrianWilliams’s helicopter lie is nothing compared to the misinformation spewed by U.S. press in lead-up to Iraq War.”
— Longtime PBS host Bill Moyers in a February 7 posting to Twitter.
“Execute Brian Williams. The only logical solution to the frenzied reaction to the NBC News anchor’s public admission of a mistake is for him to be feathered, tarred, dragged through the streets of New York to Times Square, and stoned to death. Even then, I doubt his most ferocious critics, especially in the brutal slaughterhouse of social media, would be sated. They’d want to see his bones removed, sawn into pieces and hurled into the Hudson River.”
— Former CNN host Piers Morgan writing in Britain’s The Daily Mail, February 9.
Gagging Over “Self-Righteous” Reaction to Brian’s Lies
“In the end, I find the phenomenon of the schadenfreude circus that has erupted — yet again — to be overwrought and unnecessarily brutal. And the judgments about whether Williams should be fired, from pundits who never saw the inside of a Chinook helicopter, self-righteous and gagging.”
— Time’s Joe Klein in a February 6 Web article, “Accept Brian Williams’s Apology.”
Brian Pays the Price for Bush’s Iraqi Lies
“Now this may seem like overkill but for me, no, it’s not overkill, because I’m happy. Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War....Never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot at in a war we probably wouldn’t have ended up in if the media it had applied this level of scrutiny to the actual [bleeping] war.”
— Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, February 9.
“Let’s see... So George W. Bush is now an artist and a painter & roots for dear brother ‘Jeb in 2016;’ Dick Cheney now appears on many networks as a grumpy old man pundit; Condi Rice gets to be on the board that picks college football’s Final 4... but it’s Brian Williams who’s to be punished for Iraq? Are u effing kidding me? I mean, an entire country was demolished, trillions were wasted, thousands of our troops were killed & wounded, tens/hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed, and now, FINALLY, someone is paying for Iraq war lies... and it’s Brian fucking Williams?????”
— Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore in a February 8 posting to Facebook (ellipses in original).
Asking for Driver’s License = “Partisan Move to Kill the Vote”
“Let me finish tonight with the Republican Party’s official plan to remain competitive with the Democrats, even as the demographics of this country shift. The plan is to quite nakedly reduce the votes of those groups who tend to vote Democratic, minorities, poor, older people, to do it by requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID card....The person leading this partisan move to kill the vote, especially the minorities, is someone named Reince Priebus. He is the reason the Republican talk of recruiting minority voters is so deep in deceit. As we heard tonight, the party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of massive resistance.”
— Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, February 12.
Searching for a Muslim “Trayvon Martin Moment”
“It feels to me, as someone observing this, admittedly from the outside, like a galvanizing moment for Muslim-Americans: a Trayvon Martin moment, a Michael Brown moment for Muslim-Americans, though very different in the context and specific sets of facts, and history....Whatever the motivations for this horrendous slaughter, it takes place in a context where subtle, persistent, anti-Muslim bias is part of American life and this feels like a wake up call.”
— Host Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s All In, February 12, talking about the three Muslims killed by their neighbor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, allegedly because of a dispute over a parking space.
Three Cheers for the Media’s Favorite Liberal Smear Artist
“In more than 16 years of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made news relevant for a new generation. It will be part of his incredible legacy when he leaves the show later this year.”
— Co-host Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning, February 12.
“It’s hard to imagine the late night landscape without Jon Stewart. He really has done so much for it, and he should be proud of those 16 years.”
— Co-host Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today, February 11.
CNN Anchor: “Our Rights Do Not Come from God”
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore: “Our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution; they come from God. It’s clearly stated-”
Co-anchor Chris Cuomo: “Our laws do not come from God, Your Honor, and you know that. They come from man....Our rights do not come from God.”
— CNN’s New Day, February 12.
Wants Even More Climate Fearmongering in Everyday Weather Reports
“Science Guy” Bill Nye: “What I would hope for — my dream, Joy — is that you all, you and the news business would just say the word ‘climate change.’ Just, like, ‘It could be climate change. It’s a possible connection to climate change. Is this evidence of climate change?’ Could you just toss that in now and then?”
Host Joy Reid: “Absolutely. I would like to toss that in every single time.”
— Talking about cold weather in the eastern U.S. on MSNBC’s The Reid Report, February 16.
Sees Anti-Muslim Bias in Lack of Big Manhunt for Suspect Already in Jail
“I just want to get you to respond to this question about the difference in the response we’ve seen to, say, the Boston Marathon bombing, the massive and immediate mobilization when the perpetrators of acts of violence at home are Muslim, versus when the victims are Muslim. Why do we fail to ask some of the same questions or respond in the same way?”
— Guest host Dorian Warren to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Richard Cohen on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, February 14. The brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon were at large for several days; in the North Carolina case, the suspect turned himself into police the night of the murders.
Mr. Attorney General, Will You Please Quack Like a Duck?
Host Melissa Harris-Perry: “You know, we know we call you ‘the duck’ in nerd land.”
Attorney General Eric Holder: “The duck?”
Harris-Perry: “We call you ‘the duck.’ So, in nerd land, we say you have a very sort of placid and even way of presenting, but you are just working for justice underneath. Would you quack for us?”
Holder: “Well, I’m not sure I’m going to do that. But I like the analogy.”
— Interview shown on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, February 8.
Charlie Sheen Exposes “Vile” Anti-Williams “Witch Hunt”
“Sorry to bother you during this most surreal, unjust and mercurial moment in your awesome life....You are clearly the victim of a transparent and vile witch hunt! Erroneously ‘staged’ by hooligans, non coms, cowards and oligarchs, who’s only desperate and hideous goal is to discredit the genius that they relied on for almost 3 decades! Now and forever you are a true Patriot and a Hero of mine until the day i leave this star crossed imperfect Rock we call Earth...”
— Actor Charlie Sheen in a February 11 open letter to suspended NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
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