Give Josh Barro credit for candor. When it comes to guns, the New York Times correspondent makes no bones about the kind of draconian, Second Amendment-defying approach he thinks is necessary.
Forget about expanded background checks or other such measures. The only way to have a "big impact on violent crime," according to Barro, is to emulate Australia and "really take away massive amounts of guns that people have, reduce the rate of gun ownership substantially."
Appearing on MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday, the New York Times’ Josh Barro dismissed controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server as “all just background noise.” He contended: "The Clintons have been embroiled in scandal longer than I have been alive. And at this point it's all just background noise. Everybody’s formulated an opinion about whether they think the Clintons are above board or whether they care about whether the Clintons are above board or not. And I can't imagine this breaking through..."
On Wednesday, the hosts of The Cycle on MSNBC mocked Republican alternatives to ObamaCare. When Toure read a quote from Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) saying he wants to replace the ACA with a more patient-centric plan, Josh Barro of the New York Times wondered: “What does that mean?” And added that “it can mean whatever the listener wants it to mean.” Toure and Kystal Ball sarcastically threw out words to dismiss Republican arguments against ObamaCare. Ball shouted, “patient centric!...cheaper!...flexible!”
If you're a Republican presidential candidate, getting an on-air thumbs-up on MSNBC from both a public-radio personality and a pro-abortion-rights activist is not exactly something to brag about to prospective donors or primary voters. But, alas, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-.S.C.) found himself on the receiving end of praise from EMILY's List communications director Jess McIntosh.
Some liberals like to pass Josh Barro off as a conservative, but not long ago the New York Times correspondent debunked that notion himself, tweeting that he was most easily understood as a "moderate." But after his appearance on MSNBC today, another term might more aptly apply: elitist liberal.
Speaking with Alex Wagner, Barro crammed a carload of condescension into thirty seconds. Barro claimed that health insurance is "weirdly complicated," and thus that Americans can't be permitted to choose it as they would other products. No, we can't let people use their "own judgment." The free market "doesn't work very well" with health insurance. Individuals can't be "trusted" with it, and thus government must be involved and we need people like . . . Jonathan Gruber.
During a discussion on MSNBC’s The Cycle about the disparaging comments ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber made about the law’s passage and the “stupidity” of voters, New York Times writer and substitute Cycle co-host Josh Barro sought to defend him by blasting the expectations that Americans have about health care as “completely incoherent” and lying was the only solution to make them happy. Barro told fellow panelists and guest Lauren Fox of National Journal that “what drives me crazy about this story” was that: “Jonathan Gruber was right. Public opinion on health care policy is just completely incoherent.”
During MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on Wednesday night, the show’s panel fretted over the droves of Democrats that ran campaigns against President Barack Obama in the midterm elections (instead of embracing him) and that led The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel to wonder if such a tactic affected turnout among certain demographics due to “the dissing of a President.”
Vanden Heuvel first brought up an article where Democratic leadership in Congress sought the President’s help on something (she said it was legislation; the New York Times story she referred to cited ambassadorship approvals) only to be refused any help to show as an example of how many in the Democratic Party have been harboring “a lot of resentment” toward Obama.
In a discussion about Rand Paul’s presidential chances on MSNBC’s The Last Word, a panel featuring Josh Barro and Richard Wolffe managed to hit Republicans for being anti-immigrant while also accusing Paul and conservatives – not the Obama administration – of misleading on Benghazi. Paul has received media criticism for supposedly fleeing a dinner with Rep. Steve King when the Iowa Republican was approached by two so-called “Dreamers” regarding his opposition to the President’s DACA program. Paul says he got up from lunch to conduct a pre-arranged interview with reporters a few feet away.
The New York Times’s Barro, who recently caused a stir for suggesting on Twitter that socially conservative attitudes need to be ruthlessly “stamped out,” had unkind things to say about those who support more border security as well. He whined that “so much of the Republican base...is just very strongly anti-immigration.” He elaborated further on the subject: “And when Republicans talk about these immigration issues, they come off as sort of nasty.” In Barroland, it’s “nasty” to want the President to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, but perfectly civil to daydream about society blackballing social conservatives for their religious beliefs. [MP3 audio here; video below]
Last night on Twitter, Josh Barro, the openly gay, neo-conservative political editor for Business Insider, MSNBC regular, columnist for Bloomberg and New York Times reporter went on a tirade against “anti-LGBT” people, calling on the public to shame them, and stamp out their views “ruthlessly.”
The budding totalitarian sure has a bully pulpit – one of the most popular political blogs, with 57.6 thousand followers. He was named in the top 10 best Twitter feeds of 2013 by TIME Magazine. He was also named one of President Obama’s favorite columnists to read.
MSNBC is known for its promotion of abortion and “abortion rights” and on Monday, June 16 its afternoon program The Cycle showed just how over-the-top its activism is.
“The Cyclists” played host to Jill Filipovic, Senior Political Writer at Cosmopolitan.com, to promote an article she wrote about new abortion laws being pushed in Ohio. During the interview, the Cosmopolitan editor proclaimed that “I mean all of these kind of real horror stories because as you said we've become essentially a country of have and have-nots when it comes to abortion.” [See video below.]
During a panel discussion on Amazon.com offering discounts to consumers who are parents -- a discount mechanism completely on the honor system since the company cannot verify claims of parenthood -- MSNBC The Cycle co-host Toure Neblett justified lying to take advantage of the discount, saying "nobody was getting hurt here."
"If a lie is being told to a corporation, it's not really a lie," Neblett quipped, shortly after calling a lie about qualifying for the discount "a noble lie." For his part, Business Insider writer Josh Barro also excused dishonestly benefiting from the discount because such discount gimmicks are "price discrimination" and because brick-and-mortar Amazon competitors are supposedly the victims of the cutthroat corporate suits at Amazon [watch the video excerpt below the page break]:
MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner and her band of left-wing panelists sneered at the legislative recall effort currently underway in Colorado on Tuesday’s NOW with Alex Wagner. Serial MSNBC contributor Joy Reid even went so far as to refer to the NRA, one of the groups behind the recall, as “Neo-Confederate.”
Wagner was slamming the NRA, which seemingly everyone at MSNBC loves to do, when Reid joined the conversation and introduced the racial element into the mix: “Yeah, it’s interesting. There is a sort of Neo-Confederate thread that runs through these sort of pro-gun movements and the NRA movement.”