The journalists at ABC on Wednesday didn’t hesitate to exploit the shooting in California as an opportunity to promote gun control. As details were still unfolding in the San Bernardino shooting, George Stephanopoulos lamented, “[Obama] spoke after Sandy Hook. Always coming out to call for more measures to make it more difficult the people to access to the kind of weapons to pull off the mass shootings. It has been one of the great frustrations of his presidency.”
Guns
By Ken Shepherd | December 2, 2015 | 3:43 PM EST
The liberal Daily Beast website's Cheat Sheet digest declares last Friday a "dark day" by virtue of a new record for gun sales in the U.s. concluded in a 24-hour period.
By Matthew Balan | December 2, 2015 | 11:55 AM EST
Liberal movie director Spike Lee slammed the National Rifle Association on Monday's CNN Tonight, as he promoted his new movie, Chi-raq. Host Don Lemon pointed out to Lee, "You take on the NRA in the film." Lee replied, "Well, we have to. I think that we're at the tyranny on (sic) the NRA and the gun manufacturers, because there's a profit...in what they do. And that means that...they're putting profits over a human life." Lemon then sang the praises of the film: "And you think that can be changed....I'd tell everybody: go see this movie now."
Matthews: Mass Shootings Don't Happen in Europe; When Reminded of Paris, Says That Was Terrorists, Not 'Locals'
By Ken Shepherd | December 1, 2015 | 8:20 PM EST In an interview with GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on the December 1 edition of Hardball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisted that mass shootings don't happen "all over Europe." When an incredulous Santorum reminded Matthews about the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks, Matthews shot back that the Paris perpetrators were terrorists and not "locals."
Amanda Marcotte: ‘Terrorism’ the ‘Logical End Point’ of Conservative ‘Deep Sense of Entitlement’ to Women’s Bodies
By Tom Johnson | December 1, 2015 | 12:56 PM EST Anyone fascinated by strident pro-choice rhetoric finds that Marcotte seldom disappoints in that regard. In a Monday Salon piece pegged to the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings, the lefty pundit asserted that “terrorism…is the logical end point of [the pro-life movement’s] deep sense of entitlement over others’ bodies,” and that the movement “has been built on a lie: That it is about ‘life,’ when it’s clearly a movement of religious prudes who want to sneer at women they think are sluts.”
Marcotte added that “a movement built on a lie is bound to be one that’s wicked and dishonest in all its tactics, and that is what we see with the anti-choice movement. People who are willing to lie to get their way are not going to apologize and grow a conscience just because some people get killed for their lies…This shooting should be a reminder that the pro-choice side is the moral one, and not just because you never have to worry about some pro-choicer shooting up a crowd under the delusion of religious righteousness.”
By Brad Wilmouth | November 30, 2015 | 5:54 PM EST
As Monday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello devoted a segment to whether political rhetoric against Planned Parenthood's practices inspired an attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood office, host Costello began by asserting that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had "falsely" claimed that the abortion provider "was guilty of harvesting a live baby's organs" as the CNN host wondered if such "rhetoric" is "fueling" violence.
And Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah took aim at Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Dr. Ben Carson as he made charges of politicians "legitimizing hate," and charged that most extreme language comes from the right more than the left.
By Michael McKinney | November 30, 2015 | 4:31 PM EST
Planned Parenthood executives appeared twice on MSNBC on Monday with female interviewers who acted more like facilitators than journalists. Planned Parenthood boss Cecile Richards appeared on Andrea Mitchell Reports. Meanwhile PP's Executive Vice President, Dawn Laguens, was on MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall.
By Brad Wilmouth | November 29, 2015 | 11:25 PM EST
On all three broadcast network Sunday talk shows, hosts pressed some of their GOP guests by forwarding a quote from Planned Parenthood complaining that "hateful rhetoric" from abortion opponents had contributed to the shooting attack on Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain in Colorado.
NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press notably managed to utter the words "hateful rhetoric" three times and "heated rhetoric" once as he repeatedly brought up Planned Parenthood's complaints about being criticized by the pro-life movement for selling baby parts.
By Curtis Houck | November 26, 2015 | 2:17 PM EST
Promoting his latest book Wednesday night on Newsmax TV, longtime sports writer and Washington Post columnist John Feinstein surprisingly went off the liberal reservation and told host Steve Malzberg that ESPN Radio 980 personality and Pardon the Interruption co-host Tony Kornheiser “should probably have gotten” suspended for comparing conservative Republicans to ISIS back.
By Tim Graham | November 25, 2015 | 10:41 AM EST
On Monday night's All In, in a discussion of the rock-concert shootings in the Paris terrorist attacks, MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed that the National Rifle Association doesn’t care at all about the loss of life in shootings, and only wants to sell more guns.
Host Chris Hayes suggested from a devil’s-advocate position that when the NRA protested an effort to prevent people on the government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing guns, it showed “integrity” in maintaining their gun-rights position. Reid replied “there's nothing in the NRA's behavior that indicates they care about anything other than maximizing gun sales.”
By Michael McKinney | November 23, 2015 | 1:55 PM EST
On Monday's Morning Joe, the crew discussed New York Police Commissioner William Bratton's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press. Joe Scarborough played a clip of Bratton begging Congress to pass a law preventing people on the government's terrorism watch list from buying guns. Scarborough echoed the plea as well.
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 1:03 PM EST
Manuel Bojorquez zeroed in on the plight of a Syrian refugee family in Texas on Monday's CBS This Morning, and played up how they "feel misjudged after the Paris attacks, and after Texas recently ordered volunteer organizations that help resettle refuges from Syria to discontinue those plans immediately." Bojorquez later spotlighted how "about dozen people — some armed with long guns — protested in front of a mosque outside Dallas" against the Obama administration's plan to bring 10,000 refugees from Syria.