Politiks As Usual: In The News 3/30/14

Hollywood, Leave My Childhood Alone: A Guide to What You Can Maim

What Happens When The Facts Don’t Fit The Progressive Script?

Homofascists Turn Their "Gay" Guns On Mississippi

Moviegoers Flood 'Noah' With $44 Million

A Whole Lotta Democratic Corruption Going On

Politico's Dylan Byers: MSNBC in Freefall

How Unborn Babies Become 'Clinical Waste'

Hundreds of Children Abandoned by Illegals Heading into US

NYT Frets as GOP States Burden Blacks Based on 'Unfounded' Vote Fraud Fear

It Has Begun: Connecticut Raises Minimum Wage to $10.10

7 Ways Noah Turns the Bible Upside Down 

Harry Reid Will Refund Campaign For Gifts

Liberals Now Smearing Paul Ryan As "RACIST!!!"

AndrewSullivan.com:

One of the worst traits of some left-liberals is their easy resort to calling those who disagree with them bigots or racists or worse. There are some sites on the web that seem almost entirely devoted to patrolling the discourse for any sign of sin. This one’s a homophobe; this one’s a racist; so-and-so said this and that could be – shock! – prejudiced. It can sometimes be a way to avoid engaging arguments rather than tackling them. And so, on cue, Paul Ryan is taking heat for these remarks:

We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.

He noted that “Charles Murray or Bob Putnam over at Harvard – those guys have written books on this.” Cue liberal freakout. Josh Marshall focuses on the citation of Murray:

When you start off by basing your arguments around the work of Charles Murray you just lose your credibility from the start as someone actually interested in addressing poverty or joblessness or really doing anything other than coming up with reasons to cut off what little assistance society provides for its most marginalized members or, alternatively, pumping up people with racial resentments against black people and giving them ersatz ‘scholarship’ to justify their racial antipathies.

That’s because Murray’s public career has been based on pushing the idea that black urban poverty is primarily the fault of black people and their diseased ‘culture.’ Relatedly, and more controversially, he has argued that black people are genetically inferior to white people and other notional races with regards to intelligence. Yes, that last part should be crystal clear: Murray is best known for attempting to marshal social science evidence to argue that black people are genetically not as smart as white people.

Sigh. Josh seems to be arguing that Murray blames all resilient urban black poverty on culture …. and then blames it all on genes! Pick one canard, would be my advice. And the truth is: in The Bell Curve, Murray was concerned about the role of genes and environment in the resilient IQ differentials among different ethnic groups, as anyone who actually read his book (I did, most liberals wouldn’t) would know. As for the notion that Murray is useless in actually attempting to help urban poverty, has Josh ever heard of the book Losing Ground? It was the key text for the Clinton welfare reforms of the 1990s – which even Obama now concedes he dismissed too easily. 
 
And it is simply untrue that Murray has argued that “black people are genetically inferior to white people and other notional races with regards to intelligence.” Murray’s work specifically insists that there are countless African-Americans with higher IQs than countless whites and Asians and Hispanics. (He has recently focused his efforts on white poverty as well – which would seem to disprove some of Josh’s claims.) It’s just that the bell curve (which was the title of the whole fricking book) starts at a slightly different place for different racial groupings – something that drives blank slate liberals nuts with cognitive dissonance. Years later, the differentials still exist. Why do you think there are de facto quotas to prevent brainy Asians from dominating the Ivy League? But of course, nothing drives ideologues nuts like reality.

One more thing: I’m sure Murray has gotten used to this distortion of his work. But it still strikes me as outrageous that a scholar like Murray is subjected to being called a racist of the worst sort and a dishonest scholar – simply because the resilient data support his core point, and because he dares to cite genetics. (It’s an old and great line that liberals believe nothing is genetic but homosexuality, while conservatives believe everything is genetic except homosexuality. For my part, it seems pretty damn obvious that almost all human behavior is a function of both – and the interaction between them.)
Josh goes another round:

Weigel notes that it’s not necessarily clear that Ryan was referencing The Bell Curve. He might just as well have been talking about Losing Ground, the critique of liberal social policies, particularly welfare, which put Murray on the map in the 1980s or his more recent work on the ‘white underclass’. To which I would say, maybe? Who knows? And really, who cares? At the risk of sounding wrenchingly corny, The Bell Curve is a bell you simply cannot un-ring. 

As Joan Walsh notes here, in the years since publishing The Bell Curve, Murray has slightly softened his argument. He now refers to IQ and what he believes is the mental inferiority of African-Americans not as ‘genetic’ but rather as ‘intractable.’ By this Murray seems to mean that there are too many factors playing into intelligence to definitively say genetics are behind what he claims are the mental/intellectual shortcomings of black people. The deficit is simply ‘intractable’ – by which he means that whatever mix of genetics, culture and circumstance create it, nothing can be done to change it in any meaningful way.

But if Josh had read the original book, he would have seen that that was Murray’s argument all along! “Intractable” means a function of both culture and genes. Now I should make clear that I’m not entirely persuaded by Charles’ thesis. I think it’s too fatalist and gloomy. The plasticity of IQ is obvious, and culture may matter far more in the long run. If Murray’s thesis requires no government action to help the poor, I’m as opposed to it as David Frum. But Murray is an intellectual adventurer. He speaks things we only talk about in our own heads. And his original prediction – that modern, SAT-based, liberal economies will, over time, lead to greater and greater inequality has not exactly been proven unfounded, has it? And referencing Murray – along with Bob Putnam, one should add – is perfectly appropriate when talking about arguments about poverty and how to tackle it.

Michael Sean Winters gives Ryan the benefit of the doubt:

First, we on the left have been complaining that Republicans like don’t give a hoot about the poor, and not without cause. I remember Cong. Ryan speaking at Georgetown in 2012 and talking about subsidiarity and federalism and how the federal government should not be the lead actor in anti-poverty efforts. I thought at the time: That would be credible if he could point to any single Republican governor or mayor who was actually attempting some innovative anti-poverty efforts, but he can’t, so the invocation of subsidiarity in this regard is a smokescreen. It is obvious that Ryan has been trying to wrestle with the issue of poverty since then, and I think we have an obligation not to throw his words back in his teeth the second they are uttered. That is not the way to create a bipartisan consensus on the need for our nation to confront lingering poverty in our midst.

By the way, check out Murray’s responses in our Ask Anything series to get his recent take on the Bell Curve criticism. A long thread on race and IQ is here.

RELATED:  MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Finally Finds Kneejerk Racism Accusation That Isn’t Legitimate

Gay Groups Oppose Black Mayor Nominated to Head Virginia Democrat Party; Will MSNBC Cover Spat?

Newsbusters.org:

To its credit, the Washington Post this morning is reporting an intramural spat roiling inside the Democratic Party in the Old Dominion. Turns out gay rights groups are livid that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) has nominated Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones to chair the state's Democratic Party. Jones, who happens to be African-American and is a Baptist pastor, "has not endorsed same-sex marriage," the Post's Laura Vozzella noted, even though he has a strong record on other issues of import to the gay-rights movement.

"Activists are working to thwart Jones's election at the party's central committee meeting March 15 -- setting up a highly unusual battle for a sitting governor, whose choice for party chairman is rarely challenged," Vozzella noted in the fourth paragraph of her March 7 front-page story. While the Post deserves kudos for noting the rancorous division within the Democratic ranks, it remains to be seen if MSNBC -- which revels in portraying Republicans as bearing antipathy towards African-Americans -- will dare to cover the story at all.

Democratic racial politics aside, this is also a matter of a new litmus test which is emerging throughout the country in Democratic Party politics, with would-be party leaders being pushed to stifle their moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage, even though they may be wholeheartedly in support of other items in the LGBT agenda. As Vozzella noted, Jones "issued a proclamation to mark the [Richmond's] Transgender Day of Remembrance."

We don't expect that MSNBC, much less any other liberal media outlet, will pay significant attention to this spat, although, quite frankly, they should. There are a few reasons the political press should care:

• This episode is evidence that the Democratic Party, just as much if not more so than the GOP, has pretty heated disagreements within itself when coalition constituencies come into conflict
• This matter is evidence of how the approval of the gay rights agenda within the Democratic Party poses an existential threat to the political futures of loyal Democrats who dare to transgress the emerging litmus test over "marriage equality"
• This episode shows the internal divisions within the Democratic Party of Virginia which Gov. McAuliffe will have to bridge during his tenure, particularly if he wants to prove a reliable surrogate for the Democratic presidential nominee in the crucial swing state in 2016
• The liberal media love to hype "victim" narratives and many of them are scripted with gays or blacks as the victim of conservatism. Here is a case which doesn't neatly fall into that pattern

Political journalists always insist that they do have a bias, but that it's a bias for conflict or controversy. particularly if it involves an underlying debate roiling in the arena of public opinion.

A bias for conflict demands significant media attention to the Jones nomination controversy, but the liberal newsroom's rooting interest for the fortunes of the Democratic Party demands adherence to a overarching midterm election narrative which exclusively focuses on real and imagined Republican divides. Expect partisan and ideological loyalties to win over the journalistic thirst for a good story.

RELATED: Yes, Gay Activists Failed in Sochi. Here’s Why.

MSNBC’s Most Embarrassing Mockery of Mitt Romney’s Russia Warnings

Mediaite.com:

The smug self-assuredness that often suffices for expertise on cable news was perhaps never more smug than when former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned the American public that Russia was rapidly positioning itself as America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Among the worst offenders were the hosts and guests who provide MSNBC with content on a daily basis. 

In early 2012, President Barack Obama was caught on an open microphone telling Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” after the presidential election in his dealings with Russia. Romney reacted strongly to that comment. Appearing on CNN, the GOP nominee said that the United States should regard Russia as a geopolitical adversary and should work to limit Russia’s flexibility rather than to secure it. His observation was soundly criticized by the president’s defenders who, at the time, were still attempting to rehabilitate Obama’s floundering “Reset” with Russia. 

There were few who defended Romney’s comments. Even snake-bit Republicans, chastened by the swift backlash in the media, hedged when asked to back up Romney’s assessment of the challenges posed by Moscow. But MSNBC’s wagons circled particularly quickly in defense of the president. Volley after volley of snark was lobbed in the GOP nominee’s direction.

“I don’t know what decade this guy’s living in,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews said with a sigh on March 28, 2012. “Is he trying to play Ronald Reagan here, or what?”

“This is Mitt Romney’s severely conservative problem,” University of Georgia professor Cynthia Tucker opined on-the-air. “It made Romney look dumb. He’s not a dumb man, but he said something that was clearly dumb.”

Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein agreed that Romney’s statement was evidence of an “antiquated worldview.” He fretted further about how Romney, should he become president, would enter the office having severely complicated America’s bilateral relations with Moscow given his carelessly provocative statement. 

“I personally am worried about what it says to the Russian people,” Matthews added to a chorus of sagely nods.

MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell got in on the self-satisfied ridicule, too. 

 Promoting Maddow’s latest book about the “unmooring of American military power,” O’Donnell asked the flagship MSNBC host if Romney was merely reflecting on what he might have read in that book. 

“He read about Reagan’s private, outside-the-CIA cabal of team-B zealots who were telling him that Russia had all the stuff they didn’t have so he could justify a giant defense budget,” Maddow submitted scornfully. 

“It is amazing that Mitt Romney can flip like that just as soon as he hears something to exploit in foreign policy,” O’Donnell remarked.

Maddow took her observations about Romney’s position on Russia one ill-advised step further on her MSNBC.com blog:

I can appreciate why the Romney campaign would try to make Obama’s “hot mic” story interesting, but the problem is the former governor just doesn’t have any real policy chops in this area. He’s out of his depth, and struggles when the subject takes center stage.
It’s not just that Romney is uninformed; it’s that he hasn’t figured out how to fake it.

Appearing on Andrea Mitchell Reports in April of that year, Romney surrogate and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was confronted by the MSNBC anchor. Calling Romney’s comments “a throwback to the Cold War,” Mitchell insisted that “we work with Russia all the time.” “Hardly an ally but certainly not an adversary,” she declared.

But the worst offender was one who should have, and likely did, know better, former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The former Army general greatly entertained his MSNBC hosts with some of the most snide commentary about Romney’s observation. 

“Come on, Mitt. Think,” Powell said of Romney’s remark in May to the chuckles of host Joe Scarborough. “That isn’t the case.” 

He went on to suggest that Romney’s assessment of the threat posed by Russia was so dubious that it was possible he was being disingenuous or he was coached to make that statement.

RELATED:  Mitt Romney Was Right About Russia

Politiks As Usual: In These News 3/2/14

Costs Of ObamaCare Bungles Start To Add Up, With Maryland First At About $30.5M

Brewer’s Foolish Veto  

Kerry Disputes That Putin Seized Crimea Because He Thought Obama Wouldn’t Respond 

In Mississippi, 72% of the Babies Aborted Are Black 
 
Kristol Blasts Maher's Claim That Obama's Race Fuels Tea Party
 
Biden Tries to Sign Canadian Woman Up for Obamacare
 
Radical Left Amazed MSNBC Can Be 'So Unabashedly Left-Liberal and Survive In the Corporate Media'

How Season 2 of “House of Cards” Murders the 25th Amendment

Even the Left Hates the IRS's New Proposed Rules, But Nets Won't Report

'Dallas Buyers Club': A Tea Party Movie Dressed Up in Liberal Drag

The Ten Most Abusive Obama Executive Actions

Ted Cruz: Liberals Should Love the Keystone Pipeline

Movement to End Solitary Confinement Gains Force

Alec Baldwin Lashes Out at MSNBC: Calls Rachel Maddow a ‘Phony’

Even if the guy has an axe to grind, I'm just glad that someone in the public spotlight finally displays the guts to not kiss Rachel Maddow's royal ass:

“I haven’t changed, but public life has,” State and Main star Alec Baldwin wrote (or rather told to Joe Hogan) in this week’s New York cover story in which the embattled Baldwin officially bid adieu to the profiled life.

Baldwin had a nasty professional year in 2013, featuring several incidents in which he was accused of using homophobic slurs (Baldwin disputes these in the piece), and getting an MSNBC talk show (which he claims he never wanted) that barely made it out of the starting gate.

Baldwin said those incidents have taken their toll, and he exited the spotlight Monday morning with a middle finger for many of his past employers, especially MSNBC. There’s also a lot about Shia LaBeouf, another celebrity who’s experienced some well-broadcasted troubles.

Les highlights:

On MSNBC: “It turned out to be the same shit all day long. The only difference was who was actually pulling off whatever act they had come up with. Morning Joe was boring. Scarborough is neither eloquent nor funny. And merely cranky doesn’t always work well in the morning. Mika B. is the Margaret Dumont of cable news…The problem with everybody on MSNBC is none of them are funny, although that doesn’t prevent them from trying to be.”

On Phil Griffin: “All he wanted to talk about was Giants tickets, Super Bowl tickets, restaurants, movies. The conversations about the set, about the physical production of the show, cameras, lighting—it seemed like he wanted to get those over with as quickly as possible. He didn’t care. He had four monitors on the wall. They were all on, muted. He never listened to them. He never watched them.”

On Maddow: “I think Rachel Maddow is quite good at what she does. I also think she’s a phony who doesn’t have the same passion for the truth off-camera that she seems to have on the air.”

On the media: “Now I loathe and despise the media in a way I did not think possible. I used to engage with the media knowing that some of it would be adversarial, but now it’s superfluous at best and toxic at its worst. If MSNBC went off the air tomorrow, what difference would it make? If the Huffington Post went out of business tomorrow, what difference would it make?”

RELATED: Rachel’s Show

RNC Chair Reince Priebus Calls for Complete GOP Boycott of MSNBC over ‘Demeaning’ Tweet

Mediaite.com:

Republicans are fuming at MSNBC tweeting out a derogatory message last night about the right wing “hating” a cute Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family, and now RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is openly calling for a Republican boycott of the network until network head Phil Griffin apologizes.

In a memo posted on the official Republican party website, Priebus attacks the tweet as the latest example of comments from MSNBC “that belittle and demean Americans” with a conservative philosophy, and says until Griffin takes action and apologizes publicly, no Republican official or elected representative should grace the network with their presence.

This morning I left a message with MSNBC President Phil Griffin to express my displeasure. I have sent him a letter demanding that he personally, as president of the network, take responsibility and apologize for the disgusting tweet. Until he takes internal corrective action and personally apologizes—not just to the RNC but to all right-of-center Americans—I’m banning all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC.

As an elected official, strategist, or surrogate, I’m asking for you to agree to the same.

Priebus takes shots at recent comments made by current and ex-MSNBC personalities from Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir to Melissa Harris-Perry and Alex Wagner, saying it all adds up to “toxic programming” coming from the liberal network.

Michael Steele, the head of the RNC before Priebus, is currently a political analyst for MSNBC.
This is the offending tweet that set off the controversy:

Several hours later, after an Internet outcry from conservative bi-racial families, MSNBC deleted that tweet and sent out two others apologizing for the “offensive line.” Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com, also tweeted out an apologetic message, saying the offending tweet was “not who we are at MSNBC.”

RELATED: MSNBC fires staffer after new controversy

MSNBC Host Andrea Mitchell Cuts Away from Some Silly NSA Thing to Breaking Justin Bieber News

MSNBC.com:

For those of you who don’t like how the media prioritizes the superficial over the substantive, here is your new go-to video for everything you hate about cable news. On MSNBC Thursday, Andrea Mitchell was speaking with former Congresswoman Jane Harman about reviews and proposed restrictions on the NSA debate, but before they could really get down to the meat of the subject, Mitchell had to cut away for some breaking news.

Specifically, news having to do with America’s favorite… whatever he is… Justin Bieber. Yes, just as Harman was about to get into the details of what she believes proper NSA reform should be, Mitchell cut away because heaven forbid policy should get in the way of a good celebrity scandal.

Ever since Bieber got arrested early yesterday, the media has been itching to cover every last detail, though there have been some networks proudly boasting to be above the pettiness.

RELATED:  Justin Bieber Is Now Comparing Himself to Michael Jackson

MSNBC Guest: People Oppose Abortion Because "Their Sex Lives Are So Miserable"

RELATED: Coulter Rips MSNBC’s Conservatives, Praises Fox’s ‘Not Stupid’ Liberals: ‘It’s a Real Fight on Fox’

MSNBC Host Alex Wagner Lies and Says ‘Casualties’ Resulted from New Jersey Bridge Closure

They'll literally say anything to defame Chris Christie's character. Meanwhile, thanks in part to Hillary Clinton's negligence, people in Benghazi died:

MSNBC host Alex Wagner became frustrated on Wednesday when Business Insider’s Josh Barro insisted that some of the actions of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie which have been construed as “intimidation” are closer to standard transactional politics. Wagner insisted that the closure of two local outbound lanes of the George Washington Bridge in 2013 was anything but standard politics because it resulted in “casualties.”


Barro began by saying that a number of the behavioral improprieties that Christie has been accused of, with the exception of the bridge closure, are really standard political behavior. He specifically cited the claims of Olympian Carl Lewis who says Christie sought to pressure him out of running for the New Jersey state Senate as a Democrat. 

“These seem like the sorts of political things a governor ought to be doing, trying to get strong candidates out of races,” Barro posited.

“Closing the bridges, there were casualties to that decision,” Wagner protested. 

It was unclear whether Wagner was using the term “casualties” to apply to waking wounded or the word’s more modern context which includes both wounded and fatalities. However, she would be hard-pressed to prove either accusation. 

On January 8, shortly after emails surfaced implicating Christie’s staff in the closure of the bridge for allegedly political purposes, hundreds of reports surfaced linking those closures to the death of a 91-year-old woman who passed away before an ambulance that was caught in bridge-related traffic could reach her. 

Some suggested that this was a preventable death that was brought about by the state of New Jersey’s negligence. A follow up report in the following day’s New York Times debunked this assumption. Quoting the late nonagenarian’s daughter, the Times reported that the deceased’s family believes that she passed away in her home and was only later pronounced dead at the hospital.

“The traffic didn’t make any difference,” the husband of the 91-year-old’s daughter told the Times. 

“I honestly believe it was just her time,” the woman’s daughter added. 

RELATED:  Jake Tapper: Christie Got More Scrutiny for BridgeGate Than Hillary Clinton Did for Benghazi

Ann Coulter Calls Melissa Harris-Perry MSNBC’s ‘Token’ African-American

So on point as usual is Ms. Coulter:

Sean Hannity is not letting MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry off the hook any time soon. On Monday night, he and Ann Coulter said Harris-Perry’s tearful apology for a segment making light of a picture of Mitt Romney and his white family with an adopted black grandchild was insincere and pushed by management, while Coulter went so far as to call Harris-Perry the “token” African-American at MSNBC.

Coulter found it ironic that Harris-Perry would insinuate that anyone else, like Kieran Romney, is a token, because “what does she think she is at MSNBC?”

Hannity was actually stunned Coulter would say this, giving the slightest of defenses to MSNBC by saying they have other black personalities like Al Sharpton. But aside from that, he agreed with Coulter that the network is full of “lunatics” who just can’t get enough of their own hyperbolic rhetoric.

Coulter also pointed out the irony of MSNBC taking on race in this fashion while they’ve gone above and beyond in finding ways to accuse Republicans and conservatives of racism. She said, “Unfortunately for liberals, there is no more racism in America. There is more cholera in America than there is racism.”

RELATED:  WSJ Columnist: MSNBC Has a ‘Pattern’ of ‘Hiring Black Mediocrities’ to ‘Race-Bait’

Does MSNBC’s ‘Culture’ Encourage ‘Harsh Personal Attacks’?

Mediaite.com:

For his latest column on FoxNews.com, MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz examines the “culture” over at competitor MSNBC that he suggests may have “encouraged” the comments about Sarah Palin that got Martin Bashir fired as well as the more recent controversial segment about Mitt Romney’s black grandson on Melissa Harris-Perry’s weekend show. “Is there something in the water over at 30 Rock?” he asks. 

Kurtz prefaces his argument with a disclaimer of sorts: “First, this is not some sort of Fox attack on MSNBC.” He explains that unlike some of his more partisan colleagues at Fox, he has “friendly relations with a number of people who work there,” thinks the network is good at “dealing with policy issues in more than short sound bites” and maintains that MSNBC President Phil Griffin “has every right to position his outfit as a liberal network.” 

“But has the channel developed a culture in which harsh personal attacks are encouraged, or at least tolerated?” he asks. Seeing a broader theme in instances like the ones involving Bashir and Harris-Perry, Kurtz says MSNBC appears to hold “a view of Republicans and conservatives as so mean-spirited, hard-hearted and clueless that just about any rhetoric against them can be justified.”

While he acknowledges that Fox is not immune to personal attacks, and suspects “some folks are at this moment scrambling to dig up incendiary comments made on Fox,” he claims it’s not on the same level as MSNBC. “Not since Glenn Beck was branding Barack Obama a ‘racist’ with a ‘deep-seated hatred’ of white people has anything been at the Bashir level,” he writes, “and that was five years ago.”

RELATED: Video: Melissa Harris-Perry’s tearful apology to Romney and other adoptive families

CNN’s Don Lemon Tears into ‘Smug,’ ‘Mean’ MSNBC over Mitt Romney Grandson Segment

Mediaite.com:

CNN anchor Don Lemon had some tough words for his competitors at MSNBC Monday night during a discussion about Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel poking fun at a crowded Mitt Romney family photo with his young black grandson. Lemon used the opportunity to vent about the liberal network, calling it “smug” and unwilling to entertain actual diversity of opinion.

Republican Ana Navarro agreed with Lemon that it was in bad taste to use the child to mock the Romneys, but Marc Lamont Hill argued that they didn’t actually make fun of the baby itself, just used it to make a point about diversity in the Romney family and the GOP.

Lemon wondered if Hill would react the same way if the same segment aired on Fox. Navarro predicted, “By now, Jesse Jackson would be protesting and tied to a tree somewhere.”

Lemon then took on the “crowd” at MSNBC that’s given him lots of flak for comments he’s made on issues of race specifically. Lemon explained he’s never bothered responding because “dogs are supposed to howl at the moon, the moon doesn’t howl back.” He called MSNBC a “smug” club where despite touting diversity, there is “no diversity of opinion” on the network.

Hill agreed that “pockets” of MSNBC are “smug and condescending,” but Lemon continued on to dismiss the network as an insular den of liberalism where people are “saying mean, smug things about people who… may disagree with them.”

RELATED:  MSNBC panel: Hey, get a load of Mitt Romney’s black grandson

Politiks As Usual: In The News 12/29/13

Unemployment Benefits For 1.3 Million Expire

Minimum Wage To Rise In 13 States On Jan. 1

LGBT Is The New Black Power

Duck Patriarch: Man-Man Sex ‘Not Logical'; CDC: ‘Anal Sex is the Highest Risk Sexual Behavior’ 

The Secret Danger Liberals Don't Want You to Know: Fracking is Safe

Obama's War on Coal Will Harm Economy, Do Little for Environment

Obama Family Christmas Card: No Mention of Christ or Christmas

Bristol Palin: 'Warning: You Might Lose IQ Points By Watching This MSNBC Clip'

MSNBC's Hayes Derides FNC 'Obsession' with 'Knockout Game' That Targets Whites

Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude

National ID Headed For Your Wallet, Purse

New York Times Wonders: Was Chris Stevens Out of His Depth in Benghazi?

Cruz To Dump Canadian Citizenship

IRS Could Face Blame for Obamacare’s Unexpected Tax Bite

Politico.com:

Obamacare’s rollout dented the Department of Health and Human Services in just the first month. Up next year: the Internal Revenue Service.

A key piece of the health care law gives Americans making less than 400 percent of the poverty line subsidies to buy insurance. But if buyers don’t alert the insurance exchanges to big life changes throughout the year — like a divorce, promotion or new job for them or a spouse— they could wind up with sticker shock at tax time.

It’s a new responsibility for this group — many of whom are just struggling to sign up.

The IRS, for its part, must make sure consumers don’t get blindsided — or it will face a bunch of angry taxpayers who didn’t realize they would owe Uncle Sam money back, tax experts said.

“If I were the IRS, I would be very concerned that I’m going to be viewed as the villain when people have to pay back money the government gave them for health insurance,” said Chris Condeluci, who was Senate Finance Committee GOP tax counsel during drafting of the Affordable Care Act.

There is time. Potential “repayments” to the government will not come due until 2015, when recipients file next year’s taxes. But the new rule for reporting these life changes begins this January.

RELATED: MSNBCers Wonder Whether Troubled Obamacare Will Be Vindicated by History

Glenn Greenwald Snarks at MSNBC: I Defend Snowden Like You Defend Obama ’24 Hours a Day’

Mediaite.com:

Journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared on MSNBC Thursday, one day after Edward Snowden delivered a Christmas address to television viewers in the UK and around the world from Russia. Things got heated when MSNBC anchor Kristen Welker cited critics who’ve accused Greenwald of “crossing a line” in his defense of Snowden. “What do you say to your critics who say you’ve become more of a spokesman for Edward Snowden?” she asked. 

“I think that’s ludicrous is what I say to that,” Greenwald shot back. “Every journalist has an agenda. We’re on MSNBC now, where close to 24 hours a day the agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Party are promoted, defended, glorified, the agenda of the Republican Party is undermined. That doesn’t mean the people who appear on MSNBC aren’t journalists, they are.” 

He said that every journalist has a “viewpoint” and he doesn’t hide the fact that he finds Snowden’s decision to expose the NSA’s surveillance programs “heroic.”

I think the point is not so much about MSNBC and what happens here,” Welker said in defense of her employer, “but more that sometimes when you talk about Edward Snowden you do defend him, and some people wonder if that crosses a line.”

“Sure, I do defend him just like people on MSNBC defend President Obama and his officials and Democratic Party leaders 24 hours a day.” When Welker pushed back that “not everyone on MSNBC does that 24 hours a day,” Greenwald conceded that it’s “not everybody, but a lot of people do.”

After comparing Snowden to figures like Chelsea Manning and Daniel Ellsberg, Greenwald said, “I absolutely do defend what Edward Snowden does and I don’t pretend otherwise.”

RELATED:  Like Clockwork, Joy Reid Is Annoyed About Glenn Greenwald Sniping at MSNBC

MSNBC’s Resident Black Obamabot Michael Eric Dyson Disses Christianity: Men Loving Jesus More Than Women ‘Sounds Interestingly Homoerotic’

Newsbusters.org:

Have you ever wondered what MSNBC president Phil Griffin uses as qualifications to hire on-air personalities for his so-called "news network?"

Consider the case of perpetually race-baiting contributor Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson who on Monday’s Ed Show actually said that Christian men claiming to love Jesus more than they love women “sounds interestingly homoerotic”


I’d say the idiocy on display here was astonishing, but as readers know, it’s quite commonplace on MSNBC with all the idiotic contributors and hosts that have been hired in recent years.
As for this Georgetown professor/MSNBC "political analyst," his understanding of Christianity is abysmal.
"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." - Mark 12:30.

Evangelist Greg Laurie observed last month:

This statement reveals that God is not simply looking for some emotional, gooey kind of love. He is looking for a complete, true love.

You see, some people only love the Lord with all of their soul or with all of their emotion, but they don't love Him with all of their minds. Other people love God with all of their minds, but they neglect the emotional side of loving the Lord.

Jesus is saying, "I want a love that possesses an emotional, intellectual, and physical backbone." Jesus desires a love that draws from every fiber of your being-inside and out. Any other kind of love is no love at all.

This is in keeping with what truly religious Christians have told me: you are supposed to love Jesus more than anyone else - including your spouse and your children.

However, what Dyson was also missing is that this love isn't sexual.

Maybe he wasn't aware that humans can love without sexual intimacy. We love our parents, siblings, and children without having sex with them or desiring to do so.

That a Georgetown professor and MSNBC "political analyst" doesn't understand that should be very concerning to the heads of this so-called "news network."

That it's apparently not says a lot about this farce.

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MSNBC Hypocrite Chris Matthews Hilariously Takes Issue with Someone Else Using Hyperbolic Rhetoric

Mediaite.com:

On Monday’s Hardball, Chris Matthews took issue with someone engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric. 

Specifically, a Republican state senator who said that Obamacare “has done more damage to the USA then [sic] the swords of the Nazis, Soviets & terrorists combined.” This state senator has not backed down, and Matthews had some fun taking him down, saying that “Ted Cruz has a formidable challenger in the hyperbole department,” but it’s not as if Matthews himself has been immune from making over-the-top statements of his own.

I mean, I really don’t even have to go that far back to find an example to make this point. It was just last week that Matthews declared that conservative radio hosts are just as crazy as Kim Jong-Un (meaning that every uncle in the country should watch out for Glenn Beck now).

Saying Obamacare’s worse than the Nazis? To the nuthouse! Comparing political opponents to the uncle-killing leader of North Korea? To the prompter!

And he also recently followed up a softball interview with President Obama by saying Obama’s critics are less patriotic than the apartheid leaders in Nelson Mandela‘s South Africa.

Matthews has always professed to be above the fray and has rejected the label “media critic” on more than one occasion (though it didn’t stop him from going after Beck and Mark Levin last week). But this is getting tiresome. This is not the first time Matthews has said something patently outrageous only to move on the next day and say, “Hey, why can’t the other side be more civil?”

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Stupid, Race-Baiting, MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry Says “ObamaCare” Was a Word Coined by Wealthy White Men to Diminish Obama’s Accomplishments

Right. And "Bush Tax Cuts" and "RomneyCare" were terms coined by poor, black people to diminish George W. Bush and Mitt Romney's accomplishments. In other words, Melissa Harris-Perry is a total idiot:

Via RCP. By coincidence, Charles Cooke has a piece out today on the alternate universe you too can inhabit if only you Lean Forward far enough:

America II, as anyone who watches the channel will discover rather swiftly, hosts a supermajority of well-meaning multi-culti, progressive types whose foolproof plans for explosive economic growth, uniform social justice, and general human utopia are constantly being undone by a blossoming white-supremacist movement, split apart by neo-secessionists, and existentially threatened by traitors whose defining characteristic is a never-quite-explained hatred for progress. America II features no gray areas whatsoever: All local variation is apartheid, each and every identification requirement is the second coming of Jim Crow, all criticism of the government is sedition. It’s exhausting.

On a network where smirking references to “teabaggers” are treated as witty, Harris-Perry’s attempt to rehabilitate “ObamaCare” as some sort of slur practically qualifies as clever. How to square the fact that O himself now uses the term with the quasi-religious belief that any Republican messaging about him, no matter how innocuous and easily explained by basic partisanship, must be proof of racism in America II? Simple: Claim that “ObamaCare” was a slur, but now, by embracing the word himself, Obama’s taken the power back. If you find that unpersuasive, remember, decoding conservative criticism of O for alleged racial subtexts is a sort of parlor game on MSNBC. Previously identified dog-whistles include “IRS,” “Chicago,” and my favorite, “golf.” Usually the game ends with some variation of “and that’s why it’s racist,” but MHP’s argument has a whole second part to it. Consider this bar raised.

Legal Insurrection has a nice post tracking the origins of the word “ObamaCare,” including a claim from none other than Anthony Weiner that he coined the term himself. Which, if true, partially vindicates Harris-Perry: A wealthy white man really is responsible. By the way, as I write this, there are roughly 575,000 results for “RomneyCare” on Google. On this site alone, that word appears in more than 250 posts. 

RELATED:  No, Melissa Harris-Perry, “Obamacare” was not conceived by rich white men