Former DNC press secretary Karen Finney continues to use her MSNBC show to brazenly fly her partisan flag. On Sunday’s Disrupt with Karen Finney, the half-black host slammed North Carolina as a state that showcases the Republican “agenda on steroids.” One of her guests went further, dubbing North Carolina “the laboratory where the GOP has perfected its Frankenstein monster.”
Finney began the segment by telegraphing her feelings about Republican policies in general: “While the national Republican Party is in disarray and discord, at the state level Republican leaders have been frighteningly well-organized enacting so-called reforms.” Apparently Finney is frightened by effective Republican governance. MSNBC pundits often gripe that the national GOP says no to everything and refuses to govern. But when Republicans govern by enacting their policies, they frighten Karen Finney. She also dismissed GOP reforms as “so-called reforms” because, as we all know, only liberal Democrats make real reforms.
Karen Finney
It’s hardly surprising that MSNBC host and former DNC communications director Karen Finney took issue with Reince Priebus’ campaign against the liberal media on Saturday’s Disrupt. Finney mocked “Reince’s rage” and suggested that the Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman is “full of you know what.”
What is surprising is that Finney’s searing critique came despite the fact that she and former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean did almost the same thing to Fox News back in 2007.
MSNBC host Karen Finney denounced Republican “scare tactics” over ObamaCare on Saturday’s Disrupt – and then employed liberal scare tactics to stress the benefits of ObamaCare. Finney further warned that the GOP wants to “[take] something away from people” in their repeal efforts, rattling off a long list of benefits that Americans would lose if ObamaCare was repealed.
Finney began the segment by fawning over President Obama’s Friday press conference, declaring that the president “heads to his vacation with a new verve.” Finney apparently chose to ignore Obama’s near record-low approval ratings.
For a perfect illustration of why few conservatives wish to subject themselves to MSNBC, look no further than Rep. Tom Cole’s experience on the network’s Now with Alex Wagner. The Oklahoma Republican went into the lion’s den on Thursday’s Now, where the conversation was anything but fair and balanced – and certainly less than cordial.
Wagner and weekend host Karen Finney used the opportunity to blast Republicans for their opposition to ObamaCare, with Finney – a former DNC communications director – suggesting the law is about “life and death” for some people. All too often, Cole could barely get a word in edgewise as he was badgered by the dynamic duo. He was often cut off by the two MSNBC hosts, especially when talking about the approval ratings of ObamaCare:
MSNBC contributors Jonathan Alter and Joy Reid sound much like a good metronome: their commentary never changes, marching on at an endless, fixed pace. Alter and Reid have made a career at the Lean Forward network out of comparing Republicans to slave owners, terrorists, and drunks.
Their latest assault on the GOP came on Friday’s Now, with Reid serving as guest host in place of Alex Wagner. Discussing the latest attempt by Senate Republicans to defund ObamaCare, Alter blasted the “suicide caucus” GOP, claiming “smarter conservatives understand” that shutting down the government over ObamaCare “is suicidal.”
MSNBC’s Disrupt only seems capable of “disrupting” conservative voices, even absent host and former DNCer Karen Finney. Guest hosting for Finney, Ari Melber teamed up with NBC Latino contributor Raul Reyes to try and shut down former Republican strategist Robert Traynham on immigration reform, insisting that Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) reprehensible comments on undocumented immigrants represent the GOP’s position on reform.
King is under fire for claiming that young, undocumented immigrants have “calves the size of cantaloupes” because they’re smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. Many Republicans have condemned King for his remarks, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho).
MSNBC’s newest weekend host is also a former communications director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Sometimes, though, it’s hard to tell if Karen Finney ever left the DNC.
Finney spent several minutes touting the benefits of ObamaCare on Sunday’s Disrupt, excitedly holding up a rebate she received from her health insurance provider, gushing: “I got a check.” As President Obama explained in a Thursday speech at the White House, individuals can receive a rebate check from their insurance provider if the insurer spends less than 80 percent of their customers’s premiums on health care. [See video after the jump.]
The July 9 broadcast of Now with Alex Wagner wouldn’t be complete without a panel discussing Texas State Senator Wendy Davis – and the abortion battle in Texas. Yet, it reached a new level with New York Times op-ed contributor Beth Matusoff Merfish declaring that she was “proud” her mother underwent an abortion since “she had the wisdom and the courage to know that her own potential would be cut short by a pregnancy and to terminate that pregnancy and I think many of our mothers have similar stories and it is really important to talk about that.”
The MSNBC network is known for two things: A lack of dissent and touting the official Obama line. So, it's not surprising that the show's panel included Ben LaBolt, a former press secretary from Obama’s 2012 campaign, and Karen Finney, former DNC Communications Director and board member of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
On Sunday's Disrupt show on MSNBC, host Karen Finney wondered by Texas Republicans are "trying to harm the health of women in the state" by passing laws against abortion instead of dealing with other issues, as she hosted Texas Democratic State Senator Leticia van de Putte to discuss fellow State Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster in support of abortion.
Later in the show, as she hosted Dr. Rani Whitfield of the Association of Free and Charitable Clinics for a discussion of Republican governors resisting the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid in their states, the MSNBC host charged that the Republican party's "ideology is basically endangering the health of their citizens."
Updated at bottom of post: Finney responds via Twitter | Former DNC communications director Karen Finney haughtily claims she wants to “disrupt” the conversation on her new MSNBC weekend show, Disrupt. It’s quickly become apparent that all Finney wants to do on the Lean Forward network is distort conservative claims – and distract viewers from the scandals plaguing the Obama administration.
Finney and guest Jonathan Capehart hyped their own liberal “conspiracy” theory on Sunday’s program, claiming the only reason Republicans care about the IRS scandal is because they want to “deny the IRS the additional funds that they need for the implementation” of ObamaCare.
If you need any further proof that the Lean Forward network is all in for the Democratic Party, look no further than the weekend program Disrupt. The newly-minted show is hosted by Karen Finney, frequent MSNBC contributor and former Director of Communications for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Finney decided to rewrite history on Sunday, suggesting to guest Heather Hurlburt that NSA surveillance is acceptable under the Obama administration, but was unacceptable under the Bush administration, because fighting a “global war on terror with these unseen foes” is the “new normal.”
On Friday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC's Karen Finney asserted that Rush Limbaugh's "overall mantra" is "us versus them and hate in general," as she responded to a clip of the conservative talk radio host accusing the Republican establishment of being "ashamed" of the conservative base.
A bit later, host Al Sharpton asserted that conservatives are "almost like in an echo chamber. They're talking to themselves" -- an irony considering the scarcity of conservative viewpoints on the liberal MSNBC news channel.
After Sharpton played the clip of Limbaugh criticizing the Republcian leadership, he went to Finney, who responded: