O'Donnell On Frothy's Napkin Metaphor

Bradlee Dean On Maddow Lawsuit

MSNBC's Dan Ratigan Rants On Political Corruption & The Debt Crisis

Yeah, I'd say this can be filed under "epic."

Brian Brown On NOM's Hate Pledge

MSNBC's reliable Thomas Roberts goes right for NOM's hypocrisy. And after Slaggie Gallagher called him out, Tim Pawlenty obediently belly crawls on board NOM's hate express.

MSNBC's Sharpton Hire Was a "Payback" For Helping Comcast/NBC Merger Gain Approval

Earlier this week I criticized MSNBC for hiring "Reverend" Al Sharpton to host the 6pm slot

Even their usual biased version of the news would be preferable to a supposed “Reverend” who bears false witness and who was complacent in the deaths of eight innocent people. This is a new low in cable news, while CNN hired a lying misogynist, MSNBC has gone even further a lying murderer. It was not Sharpton's  hand that beat Jews in Crown Heights or  started the fire at  Freddy's but it was his words that incited the murderers into action.

Today we may finally have an explanation of what really was behind the hiring of the professional bigot/ racial arsonist, according to the Daily Beast it may have been a quid pro quo for helping to gain approval for the Comcast/NBC merger. 

It’s gone remarkably unnoticed that Sharpton was the first major black leader to endorse the Comcast merger, which met fierce resistance. Michael Copps, a Democrat who’d served on the FCC since 2001, declared, when he ultimately voted against it, that the merger “erodes diversity, localism and competition” and was “a huge boost for media industry (and digital industry) consolidation” as well as “a stake in the heart of independent content production,” charges that were echoed in a New York Times editorial. But Mignon Clyburn, the daughter of South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn and the only minority member on the FCC, threw her decisive support behind the deal, citing a comprehensive diversity memorandum of agreement (MOU) signed by Sharpton as a mechanism that “will serve to keep the new entity honest in promoting diversity.”

Without Clyburn, FCC chair Julius Genachowski, the third Democrat on the commission, seems unlikely to have backed the deal, which he did a week after the MOU was sent to the FCC. The MOU was significant because it countered opposition from Jesse Jackson, a variety of black organizations, and some black House Democrats.

So Al Sharpton, who in his four days in the host chair has shown little or no talent for his new position got the seat to satisfy a diversity initiative set up and blessed by...hey whattayaknow, Al Sharpton.  But there's more. You see, Mignon Clyburn's dad Rep James, owed Rev. Al some "chits" also.

(Just a couple of weeks before the MOU was sent to the FCC, Sharpton aggressively championed James Clyburn in his post-election fight to retain his leadership position in the House, while Comcast contributed $10,500 to Clyburn’s political committees. Mignon Clyburn, who is reported to have met with Sharpton, declined to respond to Beast questions.)



A Comcast spokesperson told The Daily Beast that Comcast has given $140,000 to Sharpton’s National Action Network since 2009—the same year the merger was first proposed. Though MSNBC president Phil Griffin was honored with a top prize at the April 2011 annual conference of NAN—and he, Chris Mathews, and other NBC notables had a table at NAN’s dinner—NBC would not answer questions about how much it's given Sharpton. Comcast also insisted in an email to The Daily Beast that the company “pledged we would not interfere” with NBC news operations, and “we have not and we will not,” a response similar to the only answer we got from NBC. Neither, however, directly answered the question of whether there was any connection between Sharpton’s merger role and his anticipated selection for the show.

So Al helps the dad of the key FCC vote, who gives the merger support, and then there's the Cenk Uygur angle. We all laughed at him when he said last week the reason he lost his show was that he was too hard on the Obama administration. As Glenn Greenwald of Salon reported:

When I first heard Ugyur make this claim, I assumed it was hyperbole -- until I watched the video and read the transcript of the Sharpton interview.  The 60 Minutes segment was aired on May 19, 2011, and chronicles what it calls Sharpton's "metamorphosis: today he's down right tame. So much so, that he has made his way into the establishment."  I includes this:

Sharpton told us that having a black president is a challenge: if he finds fault with Mr. Obama, he'd be aiding those who want to destroy him. So he has decided not to criticize the president about anything -- even about black unemployment, which is twice the national rate.

Strike Three.



So lets summarize the NBC/Comcast merger is in trouble because people think the new company will not be racially diverse enough. Al Sharpton, who gets almost $200,000 from Comcast gets involved and gives the merger his racial blessing.  Al also helps the father of the one African-American member of the FCC retain his Congressional leadership position, and that one African-American member of the FCC comes out in favor of the merger guaranteeing its passage.



A few months later, the one person at MSNBC who has been told he is too critical of the administration (in their opinion only) gets replaced by Al Sharpton who has publicly said he will not ever criticize the president.



Incredible coincidence right?  That of course is if you believe in coincidences, I don't.

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Bachmann-Affiliated Preacher/Radio Host Sues Rachel Maddow & MSNBC

Right wing radio host and preacher Bradlee Dean has filed suit against Rachel Maddow and MSNBC for a report claiming that Dean had called for the execution of homosexuals. According to the suit, Dean did not and does not endorse executing gay people. Dean and his band have performed at fundraisers for Rep. Michele Bachmann and she has praised his ministry. From a press release issued by the conservative group, Freedom Watch:

Tomorrow, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc., a foundation dedicated to restoring morality and values in the nation's youth, will sue MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and others who defamed its founder, Bradlee Dean. A press conference will be held to announce the suit at the above location at 11 am on July 27. Bradlee Dean and his attorney will speak at the press conference. Bradlee Dean, a renowned hard metal rocker who came to Christ after suffering a hard life as a young boy, has dedicated his life to this mission, a mission that has been under attack by liberal media since its inception. In the course of his ministry, Dean once made a statement on radio criticizing his fellow Christians for not taking a stronger stand about the gay rights lobby promoting homosexuality in the schools. He made a strong reference to Muslims taking the issue more seriously in the context of Shariah law, but did not condone their practices. It was Bradlee's intent to focus attention on the issue, not to advocate harm to anyone.

Here's the Bradlee Dean quote in question:

"Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination."

Below are audio clips of the full quotes in context. In the second clip, Dean calls for the imprisonment of gay people and praises a then-pending Rwanda law that would imprison gay people for life.

MSNBC's New Low: Hiring Murderous Al Sharpton As On-Air Host

When CNN hired Elliot Spitzer many complained that hiring the disgraced former governor was a new low in cable news. Allow me to submit to you that with the hiring of "Reverend" Al Sharpton to be their 6pm host, MSNBC has smashed through CNN's record and established a record for pulling a host out of the sewer that may never be topped. While CNN and others have hired people disgraced by political or sexual scandals, in hiring Sharpton MSNBC has contracted with a "Reverend" who bears false witness and a racial arsonist who is responsible for the deaths of at least eight innocent people.



Let's look at the Sharpton track record. Sharpton is the man who, in 1987, helped to make the Tawana Brawley false rape charge big news and to this day refuses to admit that it was proved a hoax.



A grand jury noted many problems with Brawley's story. Among these were that the rape kit results did not indicate sexual assault. Also, despite her claim of having been held captive for days, Brawley was not suffering from exposure, was well-nourished, and appeared to have brushed her teeth recently. Despite her clothing being charred, there were no burns on her body. Although a shoe she was wearing was cut through, Brawley had no injuries to her foot. The racial epithets written on her were upside down, which led to suspicion that Brawley had written the words. Testimony from her schoolmates indicated she had attended a local party during the time of her supposed abduction. One witness claimed to have observed Brawley's climbing into the garbage bag which she claimed to be her prison.



The worst part of that incident was when Sharpton falsely named Steven Pagones, an Assistant District Attorney in Dutchess County, as one of the rapists, and a racist, among other accusations. Sharpton and Brawley's lawyers asserted "on 33 separate occasions" that Steven Pagones "had kidnapped, abused and raped" Brawley. He also accused district attorney William Grady of trying to cover up Pagones’ involvement in the crime, and he demanded Governor Cuomo immediately arrest the two “suspects.” Sharpton refused to provide evidence, saying only that they would reveal the facts when the time was right. There was no evidence, and Pagones was soon cleared.



Three months after the "Reverend" accused Pagones, a Sharpton aide named Perry McKinnon stepped forward to blow a hole in Sharpton's story. McKinnon announced that “Sharpton acknowledged to me early on that ‘The [Brawley] story do sound like bull---t, but it don’t matter. We’re building a movement. This is the perfect issue. Because you’ve got whites on blacks. That’s an easy way to stir up all the deprived people, who would want to believe and who would believe—and all [you’ve] got to do is convince them—that all white people are bad. Then you’ve got a movement.”



To this day, Sharpton stands by his Tawana Brawley story. Does MSNBC believe that its hosts should be ruining people's lives with false charges of rape?



The Brawley case was not the only time that Sharpton used false claims as a tool of his bigotry. Twice he used lies to stir up Anti-Semitic pogroms which resulted in deaths of innocents, one was in Crown Heights and the other in Harlem.



The Crown Heights pogrom occurred after a car accident involving the motorcade for the Lubavitcher Rebbe killed a young boy Gavin Cato. A riot was sparked after a private Hasidic ambulance came to the scene and, on the orders of a police officer, removed the Hasidic driver from the scene. Gavin Cato and his cousin Angela were picked up soon after by a city ambulance.

Caribbean-American and African-American residents of the neighborhood then rioted for four consecutive days fueled by rumors driven by Sharpton that the private ambulance had refused to treat Cato, which was a lie. Sharpton was fully aware that the ambulance was directed by the police to get the driver and scram.



Al Sharpton became the de-facto representative for the Cato family. During Gavin Cato's funeral he referred to "diamond merchants" considered a code word for Hasidic Jews. He charged them with shedding "the blood of innocent babies" told the Jews to "pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house" then he continued to agitate the crowd by leading marchers through Crown Heights shouting "No Justice No Peace". Sharpton did not start the riots; he poured gas on the fire and made it explode. Stirred in part by such rhetoric, hundreds of Crown Heights blacks took violently to the streets for three days and nights of rioting and violence against the local Jews. Sharpton reacted to chaos by stating, "We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system."



A few years later, Sharpton decided that Harlem should be segregated and that a Jewish-owned store named Freddy's Fashion Mart should close even though it had been there for decades. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away, Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.”



Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper” — “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.” Three months later, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, stormed Freddy’s with a pistol, screaming, “It’s on now: All blacks out!” In addition to shooting, he burned the place down. Eight people died. Sharpton first lied about being present. When confronted with a video tape showing his presence, he said: "What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?"







Well "Rev" what's wrong with a man standing idly by when eight people die. Is that the make-up of a "Reverend?" Apparently it is the make-up of an MSNBC host.



You may remember the case of the Central Park Jogger, brutally raped and left for dead by a gang of youths. During the trial Sharpton led a mob outside the court which claimed, without a shred of evidence, that "the boyfriend did it," and screamed that the victim was a "whore."



This is what MSNBC hired. Not someone you can trust. Even their usual biased version of the news would be preferable to a supposed “Reverend” who bears false witness and who was complacent in the deaths of eight innocent people. This is a new low in cable news, while CNN hired a lying misogynist, MSNBC has gone even further a lying murderer. It was not Sharpton's  hand that beat Jews in Crown Heights or  started the fire at  Freddy's but it was his words, that incited the murderers into action.

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