“Proud” of “Tearful” Obama’s Attack on Gun Rights
“With silence more powerful than words, the President mourns victims of gun violence and takes action to stop it....The tears of the most powerful man in the world, powerless to get the United States Congress to tighten gun control laws....There have been 13 mass killings during the Obama presidency. Each time, Republicans voted against gun legislation, but last month, after San Bernardino, Mr. Obama decided to act on his own.”
— Anchor Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News, January 5.
“I am touched by his emotion and proud of his ability to show it. Regardless of what you think about the Second Amendment; about his proposals; there is no doubt this is a national crisis that needs to be addressed and he — his emotion is backed by determination.”
— Co-host Mark Halperin on Bloomberg TV’s With All Due Respect, January 5.
Correspondent Byron Pitts: “It was a rare glimpse at America’s parent-in-chief.”
President Obama: “And from every family who never imagined their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun.”
Pitts: “Camera clicks the only sound in the White House East Room as the normally stoic President Obama openly wept and paused to compose himself.”
— ABC’s Nightline, January 5.
Obama’s Executive Actions on Guns Like Emancipation Proclamation
“What was the worst day of the Obama presidency? Sandy Hook....After that, he was going to do everything in his power and if people don’t like it, his attitude is see you in court and that is — you know, that’s one way for a President to act. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. Right?”
— Columnist Jonathan Alter on MSNBC’s All In, January 4.
Exercising Second Amendment Rights Will Lead to “Public Chaos”
“There’s a lot of law enforcement struggling to figure out how you’re going to decide if somebody is open carrying as a weapon and somebody sees a person carrying a weapon, they may call 911 and say ‘Hey, there’s somebody in the mall carrying a weapon.’ Now it’s legal in Texas but that’s going scare some people. Is this not sort of a — asking for a public — sort of a public chaos, frankly?”
— Chuck Todd’s question to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick on NBC’s Meet the Press, January 3.
Trump Playing to Right’s Racism
“Trump’s supporters show all the hallmarks of people with high levels of racial resentment. They are — you know, they seem — a good number believe that President Obama is un-American or maybe even a Muslim and connected to terrorists. A good number referred to him as arrogant and elitist which, for myself, reads very much like ‘uppity’ as an old insult towards African Americans who have achieved some sort of stature in mainstream society.”
— Slate’s Jamelle Bouie on CBS’s Face the Nation, December 13.
“You’re playing to racists....This is about ethnicity and it’s about race and you’re talking to those people. And it’s not just a dog whistle. You’re saying to them, ‘You’re right, we never elected him President. He’s not one of us, he’s black’....And that game is serious business on the hard right. If you look at the people who still believe the President is not legitimate, who think he’s a Muslim, who think he’s not from this country, put all of it together, he’s a foreigner, he’s playing to them still. And that’s why he [Trump] said we’re not going to let Muslims in the country anymore. It’s all playing to that same crowd of people. Fact.”
— MSNBC host Chris Matthews during live coverage of Barack Obama’s press conference, December 18.
Terrified by Ted
“Ted Cruz has a strong ground game in Iowa.”
“I deleted my tweet calling Ted Cruz a Nazi. Not fair to his totally decent supporters, as much as I dislike the man himself.”
— January 6 Tweets by Newsweek’s Alexander Nazarayan. The first tweet was accompanied by an old photo of marching Nazis holding swastika flags.
“Some Republicans worry [Ted] Cruz is too polarizing, too unwilling to compromise with Congress to win in a general election. [to Cruz] How can you be a President and hate the Democrats and hate the culture of Washington so much and be effective?”
— ABC’s Tom Llamas on ABC’s World News Tonight, January 6.
“If we weren’t talking about Trump, we’d be talking about the horror of this country possibly being led by Cruz....Because I think the anger that we see driving Trump, the anger on the right, white people, if you will, working white people, whatever that category gets defined as, are so angry, especially the very religious people, that they’re willing to put somebody in there who’s a complete enemy of the state. They’re willing to go all the way to the hardest far right rail.”
— Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, December 22.
Host Larry Wilmore: “Cruz is against abortion, of course, ’cause, you know, same-sex marriage. He’s definitely against that. He wants to repeal ObamaCare, allow him to do that, wants to do away with the IRS. He doesn’t believe in global warming, loves guns. Now, a lot of people think Trump is all bluster, blah, blah, blah. But Cruz — to me, I believe he will try to follow through on all of these things. He’s not kidding around.”
Comedian Aida Rodriguez: “He’s going to do everything the KKK does. That is his agenda. He falls in line with the KKK. Every single fucking thing that they do, he’s going to do. Absolutely.”
— Exchange on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, December 14.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo to Carly Fiorina: Any “Regret” for Influencing Shooter?
“Do you feel any sense of regret about how you characterized what was going on at Planned Parenthood after the attack in Colorado? Because of what the man said, which seems as though he was influenced by some of the rhetoric that was coming out of you and others that painted a very ugly picture, an unfair one, about Planned Parenthood?”
— Chris Cuomo to GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on CNN’s New Day, December 11.
Cuomo Stumbles, Denies “All Jihadis Are Muslim”
Host Chris Cuomo: “Sixty percent of your party agrees with him [Donald Trump]. They think all jihadis are Muslim.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham: “All jihadis are Muslims, but the only way we’re going to win this war is to partner with the 90 percent.”
— Exchange on CNN’s New Day, December 16.
C’mon! ISIS Is Barely a Threat, Let’s Not Scare Ourselves to Death About Them
“I think we’re scaring ourselves to death with this ISIS threat. ISIS, to the degree that it is a threat at all, is much more of a threat in terms of what it can do ultimately with a cyberattack....I don’t think we need to worry about invasions of hostile Muslims. We could surround this country with a moat and put burning oil in there. That’s not going to protect us in this day and age. We live in a different time....What we’re doing is the same thing we did after 9/11. We turned al Qaeda into the biggest international franchise since McDonald’s.”
— Former ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor, December 17.
Bear Grylls to Obama: No Human Being Ever Has Done More to Protect the Planet!
“I read somewhere that what you’ve done with your climate change plan is the most significant thing any single human being has ever done to protect the planet. That’s amazing because there are so many skeptics out there.”
— Bear Grylls with Barack Obama in Alaska on NBC’s Running Wild With Bear Grylls, December 17.
Bringing Up Bill’s Bad Behavior Is “Low Blow” to Hillary
Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schlicter: “I would like to bring Hillary Clinton’s actions into it. When she was given the choice between standing with a serial sexual abuser and with women who are being violated —”
Host Don Lemon: “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. That’s not fair.”
Schlicter: “— by a serious sexual harasser. That is fair.”
Lemon: “It is not fair. It is not fair. It is a low blow. I want to end this. This is the lowest of the low and it has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. It is just a cheap shot. Can you please stop? Cut him off please. Thank you. We’re done. Thank you. We’ll be right back.”
— Exchange on CNN Newsroom, December 22.
“Are we going to get into an argument not only of sexism between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton but, eh, Donald Trump attacking Bill Clinton?....What about Donald Trump? Going after Hillary Clinton, going after Bill Clinton? Does this work for him?”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, substitute hosting Meet the Press, December 27.
I’d Vote for a Rapist as Long as They’re Liberal
“Republicans have voted against the Violence Against Women Act. Now, that to me, is more important than anything that Bill Clinton did or didn’t do, because it’s what she’s going to vote for, how she’s going to lead the country that matters more than that. On the other hand, he is a dog.....People have to understand, it’s policy. Teddy Kennedy. Remember Chappaquiddick?....A girl drowns and he abandons her and she drowned, and women still voted for Teddy Kennedy. Why? Because he voted for women’s rights. That’s why. That’s the bottom line of it in my opinion. I mean, I don’t like either one of them, to tell you the truth, Teddy or Bill. They’re both dogs, as far as I’m concerned. But I still will vote for Bill Clinton because he votes in my favor.”
— ABC’s Joy Behar on The View, January 5.
Actress Susan Sarandon Lectures “Xenophobic” Americans on Syrian Refugees
“I start hearing this fear-based, hate-based, xenophobic dialogue that’s going on in this country, you know, where we’ve taken these people and we’ve reduced them to a concept for political reasons. And I just thought, my God, you know, we’re better than this. This is not who we are. This is America, you know. This is the land of immigrants and refugees.”
— Actress Susan Sarandon on ABC’s The View, January 4.
Whoopi Gun Rant: Build “an Assault Weapons Wall!”
“What is the government supposed to protect you from? Sandy Hook didn’t come from another country. That came right out of here....Connecticut came out of here. North Dakota — I’m sorry, Colorado came out of here....Oklahoma. They came from here. So what is the government supposed to do? Because it seems to me, you know, you want to ban people, you want to ban a people from coming. You want to build a wall? How about an assault weapon wall? Let’s build a wall about that!”
— Whoopi Goldberg on ABC’s The View, December 17.
George Lucas: Soviet Directors Had “A Lot More Freedom” Than I Had
“It’s a big industry, you cannot lose money....You’re forced to make a particular kind of movie....You know, back when Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and they’d say, ‘Oh, but aren’t you so glad that you’re in America?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I know a lot of Russian filmmakers and they have a lot more freedom than I have. All they have to do is be careful about criticizing the government. Otherwise, they can do anything they want.’”
— Film director George Lucas on PBS’s Charlie Rose, December 25.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
RESEARCH ANALYST: Mike Ciandella
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Kyle Drennen, Matthew Balan and Curtis Houck
INTERN: Michael McKinney