MSNBC Helped Sarah Palin Muzzle the 1st Amendment By Not Supporting Martin Bashir

By:  Rmuse/politicususa

The Founding Fathers believed certain rights were so important they listed them in the 1^st Amendment to the nation’s Constitution, and they certainly were specific in prohibiting the U.S. Congress from abridging any Americans’ right to assemble, exercise religion, speak freely, or express themselves in print. There is no group in America more fervent in their support of 1^st Amendment rights than conservatives; particularly teabagger extremists and the religious right. However, they have claimed exclusive use of those rights in their crusade to suppress other Americans rights with frightening efficiency since the population elected an African American man as President. The practice of subverting the people’s 1^stAmendment rights began under the aegis of the George W. Bush administration to quell opposition to its warmongering as it lied the nation into the Iraq War, but Bush and company at least kept the subversion out of the public eye; that has not been the case since conservatives rose to power after the 2008 presidential election.

If America is nothing else, it is a nation of rank inequality and disparity, and the same people promoting the rights of the rich over the rest of the population are guilty of upholding 1^stAmendment rights of conservatives to subvert those of their perceived enemies. Conservatives could not wield inordinate power to restrict other Americans First Amendment rights without steadfast assistance from the all-encompassing conservative media, and besides prohibiting fair exchange of ideas from both sides of the political spectrum, they have enacted disciplinary policies for journalists who fail to toe the conservative line. The news that MSNBC political commentator Martin Bashir submitted his immediate resignation after a heartfelt meeting with the president of MSNBC is yet another example that there is a steep price to pay for any journalist expressing an opinion that is not supportive of, or cleared by, conservatives.

Martin Bashir’s mistake as a liberal commentator was two-fold; he articulated a widely-held opinion about a conservative charlatan, and he targeted mainstream media darling and perpetually self-identified victim Sarah Palin. It is true that Mr. Bashir was free to exercise his 1st Amendment right of free speech and freedom of the press, but he was not entitled to express his opinion with impunity; especially for exposing Palin’s moral deficiencies and pointing out her “well-established-reputation as a world-class idiot.”

Many news outlets, particularly on the left, errantly reported ad nauseum that “Bashir said someone should shit in Palin’s mouth,” but that simply is not true. However, left-leaning bloggers stated it as fact and parroted it mercilessly as if uttered from the mouth of god and those who repeated the lie are as complicit for the firestorm surrounding Bashir’s commentary as Palin’s phony outrage that led to his unwarranted apology and subsequent “resignation.” Regarding Bashir’s “resignation,” MSNBC president Phil Griffin paid “tribute” to Mr. Bashir and stated “I understand his decision. Martin is a good man and respected colleague – we wish him only the best.” Griffin’s tribute is as phony as the idea that there is freedom of speech and the press for liberal commentators, and is an affront to the definition of “good man and respected colleague.”  Any decent human being, and American, would have supported a “good man and respected colleague” and defended Bashir’s 1^st Amendment right of freedom of speech and told Palin to take her harpy victim act to Fox News, read the 1^st Amendment on-air, and tell her ignorant acolytes why a “real American” demanded the “lame-stream media” take punitive action against a man for exercising his 1st Amendment rights.

Mr. Bashir is not completely without fault in this whole affair either. If he was expressing his true opinion, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, he should not have apologized, “resigned,” or claimed he “deeply regretted what was said.” All he did was embolden “America’s resident dunce” and empower her and conservative media to target and punish the next American who dares question, point out, or expose the certain instance of Palin’s morally insensitive remarks. Bashir is not the first, and likely not the last, journalist to experience the wrath of conservative media for exercising their 1^st Amendment right of free speech, and besides the double-standard and hypocrisy rampant in America’s conservative media, it informs the 1^stAmendment freedom of speech is reserved for conservative commentators exclusively.

What MSNBC accomplished by not supporting Bashir’s 1^stAmendment right and journalistic freedom as a political commentator was muzzle, and pre-censor, the rest of the network’s on-air talent and send a strong message that expressing their opinion is perilous and risks termination whether it is through forced “resignation” or outright dismissal. They also positioned themselves as just another conservative media outlet serving the needs of “America’s world class idiot” evidenced by her gratitude for “the media who came out and said, look, our standards have to be higher than this.” Palin’s remarks are an insult to the media she perpetually insults for honest reporting, and an affront to Americans because no mainstream media outlet cited the blatant hypocrisy in her phony victim role.

Palin said she was “calloused,” and “at this point I’m used to it. My role is to accept his apology and be humble enough to accept it and move on.” But she clearly did not and cautioned “those with that platform, with a microphone, a camera in their face, they have to have some more responsibility taken.” It was clearly a warning to the next journalist that expressing their honest opinion about Palin will face conservative media’s wrath like this author for not apologizing, disavowing verified facts, or acknowledging anything other than exercising the 1^st Amendment’s guarantee of the right of free speech. Mr. Bashir’s job was finished before his meeting with MSNBC president Phil Griffin or his alleged “resignation,” and the least he could have done was not give Palin the satisfaction of a humiliating apology. If he had to say anything, he should have confessed that he honestly believed exercising his freedom of speech was guaranteed in the 1^stAmendment, accepted that it is a right reserved for conservatives like “America’s resident idiot,” and forced conservative MSNBC to terminate his employment.

Fox News host: ‘Why is MSNBC devoting time’ to sexual assaults instead of IRS?

By David Edwards/Raw Story
Fox News host Andrea Tantaros wants to know why MSNBC is “prioritizing” sexual assaults in the military over a scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

As competing hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee were underway on Tuesday, Tantaros said on her radio show that she couldn’t understand why MSNBC wasn’t devoting more time to the House Republicans’ fourth IRS hearing.

“What are they the place for breaking? Breaking wind? Breaking what? I mean, what are they doing over there?” she asked. “Sex crimes in the military, they are a real issue. There’s no doubt about that. I’m not going to just poo-poo it. What baffles me, though, is the way they prioritize these issues, the timing and tone of this.”

“Why is MSNBC devoting time to this issue?” Tantaros, who also hosts Fox News’ The Five, wondered. “There are so many other issues to deal with.”

“And MSNBC has been on this sexual assaults in the military, like, basically all afternoon, every day for weeks,” Tantaros’ co-host added. “They’re devoting, like, and inordinate amount of time to this. They’re obsessed with it, because that’s what they see when they look at the military.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tantaros agreed. “I mean, it’s the way that they prioritize these things. It’s unbelievable what they consider to be priorities. And by ‘them,’ I mean the administration and MSNBC because they are the same thing. MSNBC is an arm of the administration.”

A Media Matters analysis of Tuesday’s cable news coverage found that MSNBC devoted 1 hour and 21 minutes to sexual assaults in the military, while spending 1 hour and 13 minutes on the IRS hearings. Fox News spent almost 4 hours on the IRS hearing and less than 14 minutes on sexual assaults in the military.

Last month, Tantaros instructed her radio listeners to find anyone who voted for President Barack Obama and “punch them in the face.”

Listen to the audio below from The Andrea Tantaros Show, broadcast June 4, 2013.

MSNBC’s Black Viewership Increased In 2012—And They’re Proud Of It

By Alyssa Rosenberg/Think Progress

In Hollywood, executives are notoriously reluctant to admit that they’re on the lookout for viewers of color. For some reason, it seems to be conventional wisdom that, say, the kind of content that African-American audiences are looking for overlaps in no way with anything any white viewer might be engaged by, ever. And so expressing a wish for a black, Latino, or Asian audience is apparently to express a wish to make a niche product.

So there’s something really refreshing about seeing MSNBC president Phil Griffin tout the fact that his network, which was already number one in cable news for African-American viewers, grew their African-American viewership in 2012 by 60 percent, in a year when CNN’s grew 23.7 percent and Fox’s declined by the same number.

“I think we made a commitment, we decided, that in order for this channel to succeed, that we had to reflect the country. This meant that we had to be part of the country in ways that the other channels weren’t,” he told Mediaite. “People want to know that we reflect their world. And it’s not just a single show – its across the board. You look at the guests every hour and we make sure that we have women, African Americans, everything, and I think to spend a day watching MSNBC is to see America as we have seen it.”

It’s not just a relief to hear Griffin say this—it’s smart strategy. I don’t know why it’s surprising to anyone that as a nerdy lady, I enjoy seeing a reflection of that identity in Rachel Maddow when she’s on the air, rather than needing the news delivered to me by an authoritative white dude my father’s age. And I’m not sure why it’s surprising either that people might like to see an African-American woman like Melissa Harris-Perry lead discussions of, among other issues, race, because we’re interested in the particular perspectives she brings to the table that we don’t happen to possess on our own. Enjoying seeing myself on screen, and enjoying the insights and experiences of people who are not like me, and whose perspectives I can’t magically situate myself into are not actually mutually exclusive impulses.

When I asked NBC executives whether, in addition to encouraging the creators of the shows they’d ordered to make sure their casts were diverse, they had internal targets they wanted to reach for the percentages of their staffs and for their viewerships, NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke side-stepped the question to focus instead on the kind of show they’d like to have on the network.

“I think we really would love to have a diverse family show,” she said, explaining that in the past, “In family shows based on people’s experiences and it’s their it’s a white couple and they tend to have the white children, and you end up having to cast a diverse kind of secondary character to shoehorn in. I think we would love, and we have some good prospects for this year, to have a Cosby, have a diverse family show where we’re trying to find a role for a white person on it.”

I think that’s a great goal. But I would love to see more executives like Griffin who are comfortable coming out and saying they want to grow their audiences of color as part of their overall audience development strategy, and that they’re programming with that in mind. We really ought to be at a point where saying you want non-white people to watch your network shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that you don’t want a white audience, too. If we can come together around Will Smith and Dwayne Johnson, the world of entertainment really ought to be smart enough to dream up some other points of common interest, and to matter-of-factly market them to all of us.

MSNBC OUSTS CONTRIBUTOR PAT BUCHANAN OVER RACIST BOOK

By Marie Diamond/Think Progress


Conservative contributor Pat Buchanan’s tenure at MSNBC may have finally come to an end. APreports that MSNBC president Phil Griffin has indicated the controversial former presidential candidate will not be allowed back on the network after the release of his latest book. “Suicide of a Superpower” has been roundly condemned for its racially-charged content, including chapters titled “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America.” Griffin said, “When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn’t think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC.” As ThinkProgress has reported, Buchanan has a long history of bigotry and has made many offensive statements while in the network’s employ. 275,000 people signed a petition calling on MSNBC to fire him.

Mark Halperin calls Obama a ‘dick’ on live TV

By David Edwards

After Time’s Mark Halperin referred to the President of the United States as a “dick” Thursday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made it clear that he helped orchestrate the incident.

Scarborough set Halperin up by asking him about yesterday’s press conference where President Barack Obama scolded Republicans for not raising the debt ceiling.

“Are we on the seven-second delay?” Halperin asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Scarborough said. “Come on. Take a chance.”

“I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday,” Halperin announced with smile.

Following the commercial break, Scarborough admitted he was complicit in the stunt.

“I’m sorry. It was a joke,” he confessed. “We made the joke before the show about the seven-second delay and we were going to try it out.”

“Joking aside, this is not a pro forma apology, it’s an absolute apology, heartfelt to the president and the viewers,” Halperin said. “I became part of the joke, but that’s no excuse. I made a mistake and I’m sorry and I shouldn’t have said it. As I said, I apologize to the president and to the viewers who heard me say that.”

Washington Monthly‘s Steve Benen noted that the Morning Joe crew was probably upset that Obama didn’t appear “docile and conciliatory” towards Republicans in Congress.

“Halperin’s credibility as an objective observer of political events has long been dubious, at best, but this morning’s little stunt should remove all doubt,” Benen wrote.

Update: MSNBC has suspended Halperin indefinitely.

“Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable,” MSNBC said in a statement. “We apologize to the president, the White House and all of our views. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, broadcast June 30, 2011.

Motor City Liberal Comments: I remember  jokers like this were scared  to air their slightest of criticism of George W.Bush.and if they did they waited until Bush became the political version of a nuclear reactor meltdown so there was no blacklash from his flying monkeys in the right wing media and their followers.

Before the right wing lurkers say well you guys said the same about Bush, well no one called Bush a dick on national tv and let me remind you Bush critics almost saw their careers ruined check out the Dixie Chicks and vocal Bush critic Danny Glover who lost a phone endorsement deal.

MSNBC suspends Scarborough over donations to GOP

By Daniel Tencer

MSNBC has suspended morning host Joe Scarborough after he admitted to having made eight previously undisclosed donations to the campaigns of Republican candidates.

Scarborough and MSNBC management agreed to the two-day hiatus after Politico reporter Kenneth P. Vogel asked for comment about five donations Scarborough had made to political candidates. Scarborough admitted to making the donations, as well as three others.

Scarborough apologized for the donations, but said they were not meant to have a political agenda and were simply him "being kind to longtime friends." Scarborough is a former Republican congressman.

The suspension comes two weeks after MSNBC suspended prime time host Keith Olbermann "indefinitely" over his donations to three Democratic candidates.

Though Olbermann was quickly reinstated, the suspension caused an outcry among Olbermann's progressive supporters, and sparked a debate over whether news commentators such as Olbermann and Scarborough should be held to the same journalistic standards as straight news reporters.

Under NBC guidelines, reporters can make donations to political campaigns but have to get permission from management first.

"To some, the suspension of Mr. Scarborough will simply underscore the strangeness of a policy that seeks to protect NBC’s journalistic integrity, but does not differentiate between news reporters and political commentators," notes the New York Times. "There is no love lost between Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Scarborough. But the two men may now find themselves agreeing about a new approach toward commentators’ donations at MSNBC."

MSNBC.com compiled a list earlier this year of journalists who have made campaign contributions. Scarborough's previously known donations, as well as those of several other MSNBC staffers, were listed.

Politico's Vogel reports:

Scarborough gave at least five separate previously unknown $500 contributions while serving as an MNBC host – all to Republican candidates to whom he was close who were running for state legislative seats in or near Scarborough’s hometown of Pensacola, Fla. After being contacted by POLITICO about the donations, Scarborough voluntarily disclosed three other $500 contributions to a friend running for county office in Florida.

In his own statement, Scarborough said that “despite the fact that these races were local and not relevant to my work at MSNBC I have been told they violated MSNBC guidelines,” and that he had agreed to the suspension.

“I recognize that I have a responsibility to honor the guidelines and conditions of my employment, and I regret that I failed to do so in this matter. I apologize to MSNBC and to anyone who has been negatively affected by my actions.”

Scarborough will be on suspension without pay Monday and Tuesday of next week, and will return to the air Wednesday.

Before Bush Donor Takeover Of MSNBC, Network Selectively Applies Rules To Suspend Olbermann

By Lee Fang UPDATED: We have been notified that Comcast has not yet officially taken over MSNBC/NBC Universal. Although Comcast has tentatively finalized a deal to purchase a majority stake in NBC, Comcast awaits final approval of the takeover from the Justice Department and from the Federal Communications Commission. A statement from Comcast reads: “The joint venture between Comcast and GE has not yet received regulatory approval. Comcast is not in any way involved with decisions made currently by NBC News.” However, once Comcast gains final approval from federal regulators to move forward, Comcast COO Steve Burke, a Bush fundraiser, will be placed at the helm of MSNBC and other NBC companies. Our original post inaccurately asserted that Comcast’s Burke was involved in the decision to fire Olbermann. We apologize for the error.

Earlier today, MSNBC declared that it would be suspending progressive host Keith Olbermann because he violated NBC’s ethics rules by donating to three Democratic candidates for Congress. As many bloggers have noted, conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has donated to Republican candidates for Congress while promoting the same candidate on air, but has never been disciplined. Moreover, Gawker notes that MSNBC has been exempt from the formal NBC ethics rules for years. It is still a mystery why MSNBC selectively applied NBC’s ethics rules to Olbermann. However, it important to realize that MSNBC has undergone a fundamental change in leadership in the last two months.

Late last year, Comcast — the nation’s largest cable provider and second largest Internet service provider — inked a deal taking over NBC Universal, the parent company of MSNBC. Comcast moved swiftly to reshuffle MSNBC’s top staff. On September 26th of this year, Comcast announced perhaps the most dramatic shift, replacing longtime MSNBC chief Jeff Zucker with Comcast executive Steve Burke [Updated: The shift from Zucker to Burke has not taken place yet -- Burke will preside over MSNBC once the Comcast merger is complete. We have been informed that no Comcast officials are currently involved in the decisions of NBC or MSNBC.]. Burke has given generous amounts to both parties — providing cash to outgoing Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) as well as to Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and other top Republicans. But as Public Citizen has noted, Burke has deep ties to the Republican Party. Public Citizen’s report reveals that Burke served as a key fundraiser to President George Bush, and even served on Bush’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology:

Comcast – the country’s largest provider of cable TV and broadband Internet services – has increased its political giving along with its mergers and acquisitions. CEO Brian Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the 2000 Republican Convention. Comcast Cable President Stephen Burke has raised at least $200,000 for Bush’s re-election campaign. [...] Comcast’s political giving has increased along with its mergers and acquisitions. The company was a “platinum sponsor” at the 2000 GOP convention, and Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the Philadelphia event. Burke was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology in 2002.

Why would Comcast be interested in silencing progressive voices? Historically, Comcast has boosted its profits by buying up various telecommunication and media content companies — instead of providing faster Internet or better services (overall, American broadband services are far slower than in many industrialized nations). Many of these mergers, as Public Citizen and Free Press have reported, have been allowed by regulators because of Comcast’s considerable political muscle. Comcast’s latest regulatory battle has been to oppose Net Neutrality — a rule allowing a free and open Internet — because the company would prefer to have customers pay for preferred online content.

Olbermann has been a strong voice in favor of a free and open Internet. Republicans, on the other hand, have supported the telecommunication industry’s push to radically change the Internet so corporate content producers have the upper hand over start-ups like blogs, independent media, small businesses, etc. As Reuters has reported, the incoming Republican Congress has signaled that it will vigorously side with companies like Comcast against an open Internet.

It is not clear why MSNBC has selectively suspended Olbermann indefinitely without pay — but the move showcases the limits of the corporate media. While modern technology has created a seeming multitude of entertainment and television choices, the reality of corporate media consolidation has resulted in fewer investigative news options and less voices in the media with a critical perspective on powerful business interests. Olbermann has stood out as a voice for working people in a media universe dominated by “reality television” and business lobbyists posing as political pundits. It is unfortunate that Comcast and MSNBC have chosen to suspend him. [Update: Comcast has no formal control over MSNBC yet, but will once the merger is complete in the coming months.]

Update Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts tacitly acknowledged that he would be open to interfering with the editorial content of MSNBC shows and with hosts like Keith Olbermann:

Comcast is in line to acquire control of NBC Universal, once regulators sign off on the $30 billion deal. Mr. Chernin asked Mr. Roberts how he planned to handle daily editorial control of such an immense news operation. “Are you saying that you’ll never interfere?” he asked. Mr. Roberts blanched slightly at the question, which included a hypothetical situation that had Keith Olbermann, an MSNBC host, attacking a couple of Republican congressmen just as the approvals were being finished. “Let’s have that conversation in six months or 12 months,” Mr. Roberts said.

Update Media Matter's Eric Hananoki notes that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough gave a local Alabama Republican candidate $5,000 as recently as this year, and CNBC host Larry Kudlow donated $1,000 to Republican Chris Shays in May of 2009. Indeed, Kudlow also serves on the Leadership Council to the Club for Growth, a group that has donated over $2 million to Republican candidates this year. Do NBC ethics rules apply to Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, Kudlow, or other conservatives working for the media company? As Greg Sargent reported, a close reading of the NBC ethics rules suggest that the political donation standards do not even apply to opinionated hosts like Olbermann. M.C.L Comment: Either these bastards started forcing this policy now or Comcast are looking for an excuse to fire the guy that went after their boy George W. for the mess he cause. I don't care how far on the right you are, you know what happen to Olbermann was not fair know other NBC employees have done the same thing. I can tell Mr. Roberts this if he plans to make MSNBC a Fox News clone I can ensure him the only people that's going to watch MSNBC will be him and five people who happen to come across that station by mistake.

Markos Moulitsas Banned From MSNBC After Twitter Feud With Joe Scarborough

Jack Mirkinson

A Twitter feud between blogger Markos Moulitsas and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has resulted in Moulitsa's temporarily being banned from the network.

The trouble started on May 29, when Moulitsas, who runs the Daily Kos blog, took offense at a series of tweets from Scarborough, who co-hosts "Morning Joe," about the news that the White House had offered a job to Congressman Joe Sestak in an attempt to dissuade him from running for Senate. Scarborough wrote that:

The Sestak story is as unbelievable a cover story as Nixon throwing little Checkers under the bus. A farce on it's face. Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1. The press will let this laughable story slide.

Writing on his blog, Moulitsas said that he felt Scarborough was inflating a non-story. So he shot back on his own Twitter feed, writing, "Like story of a certain dead intern," a reference to the death of Scarborugh's staffer, Lori Klausutis, in 2001, when Scarborough was still in Congress.

This only escalated the Twitter war. Scarborough fired back, writing, "Unbelieveable. You have a long history of spreading lies suggesting I am a murderer. This is the 3rd or 4th time by my count." Moulitsas responded, "I've never suggested you're a murderer. I've noted media hypocrisy in going after [Congressman] Gary Condit [whose intern, Chandra Levy, was murdered in 2001]. But he was Dem. You aren't."

The back-and-forth led MSNBC President Phil Griffin to email Moulitsas, telling him that the network would not be booking him on its shows for the time being:

After I became aware of the ugly cheap shot you took at Joe on Twitter, I asked the teams to take a break from booking you on our shows for a while. I found the comments to be in poor taste, and utterly uncalled for in a civil discourse. I'm hoping this will be only temporary and that the situation can be resolved in a mature fashion, but until then I just don't know how one could reasonably expect to be welcomed onto our network while publicly antagonizing one of our hosts at the same time.

On his blog, Moulitsas accused Griffin and MSNBC of catering to Scarborough because he is a conservative, saying that Scarborough "calls the shots" on the network. He also claimed to be "uncomfortable" on television, saying he would not miss his appearances too much.

Greg Sargent chimed in also casting doubt on Griffin's rationale.

"I don't recall the chief of MSNBC publicly banning Liz Cheney from appearing on the network when she cut an entire Web video 'publicly antagonizing' Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews for allegedly being too frightened to debate her about terrorism," Sargent wrote. "See, conservatives are expected to demonize the media, and can always count on being granted a platform by the same major networks they hammer publicly on a regular basis. It's all part of the game, get it? But it seems Markos got publicly dressed down and banned by the president of the network, no less, all because he got under Scarborough's skin with a few nasty little Tweets."