This week’s edition of, “Let’s freak out over something completely irrelevant and meaningless in the sports world,” brings us into the realm of college football.
The Confederate Battle flag remains very much on the hit list of the left, and some on the right. Now the Stars n’ Bars finds itself in the crosshairs of the coaches at Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
The New York Times Magazine cover story by political correspondent Jim Rutenberg, "A Dream Undone -- Inside the 50-year campaign to roll back the Voting Rights Act," is a 10-part, 10,000-word doorstop (issued with the baleful threat "The first in a series") comparing current attempts to stop voter fraud as a return to Jim Crow, with particular focus on North Carolina. Rutenberg also relayed more Times misinformation about Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign and his appeal to "states rights" in Mississippi.
A Google News search at 3 p.m. Eastern Time today for stories published in March about "Eva Carmichael" (in quotes; sorted by date) returned only 11 items.
Who is Eva Carmichael? She is a 94 year-old woman who was murdered in Meridian, Mississippi on March 1. Based on the complete lack of press coverage outside of the immediate area, it's reasonable to believe that the nation's journalists don't think, in the popular parlance, that "her life mattered" all that much. And why is that?
Ronan Farrow opened his MSNBC program Tuesday with these words: "Who can steal Magnolia State voters?" The opening words on the screen behind him were: "Mississippi Mud," followed by a chyron reading "Stealing the Magnolia State." Farrow's reporting quickly emphasized, several times, that the primary was a Republican one, and that it had gotten "nasty."
Several minutes followed, with NBC's Kasie Hunt reporting live from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, detailing the "really hard fought, really nasty" campaign between U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, portrayed on the whole as a doddering figure, and strongly conservative challenger Chris McDaniel, portrayed as an insensitive extremist.
On her Saturday morning talk show on MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry launched into Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant for signing a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that allows religious people to practice their faith in the business world.
Harris-Perry not only attacked the GOP governor for enabling the “bigots” to “dehumanize” the LGBT lobby, but lectured that he can add “In God We Trust” to the state seal, but the state of Mississippi is horribly failing Jesus by being so behind in economic measurements (video below):
The third page of an unbylined report with an early Saturday time stamp credited to "USA Today" carried at the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger (like USAT, a Gannett Company) claimed that "Walmart heiress Alice Walton expressed solidarity with Walmart's striking workers."
Putting aside whether or not an action taken by what the company estimated may have been fifty associates is a "strike" or a "temper tantrum," the claim was not true. USA Today fell for a hoax. Following the jump are several paragraphs from the Clarion Ledger report and an LA Times writeup identifying the hoax. Additionally, I learned that Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum was the object of Occupy and union movement protests when it opened a year ago.
You've heard of "birthers." But at the Daily Kos, anyone who opposes abortion is a "forced birther." Tub-thumping abortion advocate Kaili Joy Gray is not someone you would call gracious in victory when the Personhood Amendment was defeated in Mississippi.
Her first reaction for all her Kosmonaut friends: "Suck it, forced birthers."
The Election 2011 day-after spin is as laughable as it is predictable on MSNBC.Take network anchor Martin Bashir, who said on his eponymous program today that it was "a big night for Democrats in Mississippi, Ohio, and around the country" last night.
Yet Republicans kept the governor's mansion in Mississippi by a landslide, and may well have captured control of the state House of Representatives. At best Republicans and Democrats will have an even split in the lower chamber, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
And let's not forget the legislative elections in the Old Dominion.
Yesterday's election saw three especially controversial ballot measures, two in Ohio and one in Mississippi. Ohio voters voted on a measure to restrict collective bargaining rights, similar to the Wisconsin law passed by Gov. Scott Walker earlier this year, and on a measure to opt out the national health care mandate imposed by Obamacare. Mississippi voters voted on a ballot initiative to declare that life begins at conception, seeking to ban abortion altogether. However, the only measure to pass was the health care mandate opt out in Ohio.
What are your thoughts on the three ballot initiatives? Are you surprised by the outcomes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
The day before Mississippi voters went to the polls to decide whether to amend the state constitution to define "person" to include unborn children as early as the point of conception, Washington Post's Sally Quinn set out to denounce Initiative 26 on the "On Faith" blog that she edits.
Quinn, an atheist, groused that religious voters in the Magnolia State may make a significant change to the state constitution in order to protect unborn children's lives:
“There are several battles that are playing out across this country” today, MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts noted as he opened the 11 a.m. Eastern hour of live coverage on what the network is calling this year's "Super Tuesday."
Roberts quickly established that he and his network were in the trenches with liberals on every one of those "battles":
MSNBC could easily change its acronym to MSNARAL given its concerted effort to attack a pro-life ballot measure that goes before Mississippi voters in 12 days.
Hardball host Chris Matthews joined MSNBC colleagues Thomas Roberts and Tamron Hall today in featuring guests on their respective programs who blasted Initiative 26, an amendment to the state constitution that would confer legal personhood on unborn babies if it's approved by Magnolia State voters this November 8.