Tag: MSNBC
GOP Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins Cites Research from Dr. George ‘Rentboy’ Rekers’ Phony Group to Justify Anti-Gay Smears
It’s apparent now that the corporate media has chosen to ignore the fact that that the Family Research Center, a group that is openly affiliated with the mainstream Republican Party, has been named to the official list of U.S. hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for some ace reporter to ask Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), winner of the FRC’s Value Voters Summit presidential straw poll, if he stands by his endorsement by a high-profile hate group.
Unlike representatives from, say, the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation and other race-based hate groups on the list, FRC openly consults with and lobbies Republican members of Congress. It also sponsors the GOP-oriented “Values Voter Summit” in Washington, which features a must-do presidential candidate cattle call that is open only to Republicans.
Christine O’Donnell made her first public appearance at the Summit after winning the Delaware primary this year, and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., won the presidential straw poll. But don’t hold your breath waiting for some ace reporter to ask him if he stands by his endorsement by a high-profile hate group.
In a just world, corporate media would shun the FRC, just as it shuns race-based hate groups. After all, it’s been decades since the media felt an obligation to give the Klan or Aryan Nation a national platform for their views. That’s because the media — and our society as a whole — reached a consensus long ago that there really are not two legitimate sides in the debate over civil rights for racial minorities.
Unfortunately, we’re apparently a decade or two away from reaching the same consensus about the gay rights debate.
Case in point: Last night, MSNBC gave a national platform to FRC Pres. Tony Perkins on “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” ostensibly so Perkins could defend his organization and explain why its designation as a hate-group is wrong.
Instead, Perkins chose to double-down on some of the same lies and smears that led to the FRC being named to the hate group list:
At Least 30 GOP-Fox Channel Propagandists Contributed to, Endorsed or Raised Money for Republican Campaigns This Year
As you doubtless know by now, Keith Olbermann is returning to work tonight on MSNBC’s “Countdown” after being suspended for making three political donations to Democratic candidates in the last week or so of the midterm election campaign.
“There are multiple people being paid by Fox News to essentially run for office as Republican candidates. If you count not just their hosts but their contributors, you’re looking at a significant portion of the entire Republican lineup of potential contenders for 2012.”
– Rachel Maddow
– Rachel Maddow
As his colleague Rachel Maddow said Friday night, Olbermann’s suspension — like CNN’s firing Rick Sanchez and NPR’s firing Juan Williams — draws a sharp distinction between the ethical boundaries of real journalistic organizations like MSBNC, CNN and NPR and the lack of any similar journalistic ethics at the GOP-Fox propaganda channel:
MADDOW: Here’s the larger point, though, that’s going mysteriously missing from the right-wing cackling and old media cluck-cluck-clucking: I know everyone likes to say, “Oh, cable news, it’s all the same. Fox and MSNBC — mirror images of each other. But if you look at the long history of Fox hosts not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties — whether it’s Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck or Mike Huckabee — and you’ll see that we can lay that old false equivalency to rest forever. There are multiple people being paid by Fox News to essentially run for office as Republican candidates. If you count not just their hosts but their contributors, you’re looking at a significant portion of the entire Republican lineup of potential contenders for 2012.
They can do that because there’s no rule against that at Fox. Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn’t. Yeah, Keith’s a liberal, and so am I. But we’re not a political operation — Fox is. We’re a news operation. The rules around here are part of how you know that.
Indisputable evidence of this is the fact that at least 30 people who work for Fox donated money and/or time and/or endorsed Republican candidates in the midterms. According to Media Matters, if Fox was a legitimate news organization, it would have to suspend most of its marquee names, including Glenn Beck, Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol and even the propaganda channel’s owner, Rupert Murdoch.
Here’s the list from Media Matters:
Olbermann Schools the White House on the Difference Between Liberals and Republicans
In the segment before this commentary on MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann made a point of saying that he personally likes Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman and that he believe Gibbs does a good job, so his commentary here is not meant as a personal retaliation against Gibbs’ senseless and badly timed attack on the “professional left” yesterday.
Instead, what Olbermann delivers here is a thoughtful, measured rebuttal to the idea that left-wing media — like the opinion shows on MSNBC and liberal radio talk shows and websites — is just an analog to Fox News and right-wing radio and blogs.
Tea Baggers Call for Sponsor Boycott of ‘Hardball’ – Please Support These MSNBC Sponsors
First, speaking on behalf of Chris Matthews — which I do not — thanks to the tea baggers calling for a sponsor boycott for all the free publicity for his documentary. I’m pretty sure the film, “Rise of the New Right,” would have been relegated to the remainder bin had they not raised its profile this way.
If they actually watched the piece then, good golly, are these authoritarian wing nuts ever thin-skinned. There is nothing inflammatory in it. In fact, there’s hardly anything new there that regular watchers of legitimate cable news haven’t seen.
My guess is that the people who are so incensed about it relegate their information consumption to Republican propaganda on Fox News, where tea baggery is treated with respect the anti-establishment mob phenomenon has not earned and does not deserve.
I’m no fan of Matthews, who, like Dick Morris and Ann Coulter, owes his broadcast career to his spittle-spewing Clinton hatred in the 1990s. My only quibble with his documentary is with the title. There’s nothing “new” about these tired old Bush lovers. They’ve been around years.
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On Gulf, Tea Baggers Demand More Spending, Environmental Protections And Even ‘Commandeering’ Private Property
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