MSNBC and the Media Blackout on Bernie Sanders

MSNBC is putting a media blackout on Bernie Sanders. Its greatest offense was when it dismissed Ed Schultz.

The word behind the cancellation is that MSNBC's corporate masters, Comcast ordered the firing, over Schultz's coverage of the Trans Pacific Partnership (PPP), as reported by Alternet in "MSNBC Cans Only Cable TV Host Who Extensively Covered TPP."

Have any doubts? Read here:

It has to be noted that Comcast, the company that owns MSNBC, is a big supporter of the TPP. Comcast hired a phalanx of lobbyists to spearhead a targeted campaign to push for Trade Promotion Authority, which recently passed. Included among the individuals it was paying was the former chief of staff for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Act now, while the momentum and popular outrage over Schultz's dismissal is still fresh. Please sign the petitions of protest over the firing at MoveOn and at Change.org.

The national paper of record likewise is doing a poor job, with an implicit political agenda. See the analysis at Alternet, "Why Is the NY Times Basically Doing a Blackout on Bernie Sanders? The New York Times' Sanders coverage is intellectually dishonest."

Thom Hartmann has given a few analyses of the media blackout of Sanders, earlier this summer, in "The Media's "Wave of Silence” on Sen. Bernie Sanders & Why" and in the last week, in "The Bernie Sanders News Blackout Continues...."

MSNBC gave an early view of how it was going to bat for Clinton and against Sanders when it gave extended time to Claire McCaskill of Missouri as she engaged in hyperbole, trying to make Sanders out to be an extremist, far beyond acceptable boundaries of American politics. Click here for the video of McCaskill redbaiting Sanders.

You can push social issues and fair treatment for different communities, as when the station points out inhumane policies regarding women's reproductive rights, Republican obstruction against marriage equality or other goals for LGBT fairness, or runaway police violence against unarmed black people. But do not ever tread on issues of economic power. Otherwise Comcast will make sure that you get the axe.

And what has the MSNBC tone been like on the station since the decision to let Ed Schultz go?

It is grasping at arcane side-distractions to divert attention from the surging momentum behind Bernie Sanders. A prime example of this is its pundits' steady drumbeat for Vice President Joe Biden to enter the race. Beyond this, it is just approaching candidates on a personality focus, instead of giving attention to the candidates' positions on the issues, such as Biden's personal tragedy of losing his son to brain cancer.

However, voters will realize that Biden is just another mainstream Washington politician, with too long a record of supporting corporations.

Twitter and other social media users, use this hashtag to protest MSNBC's firing of Sanders: #StopBernieBlackout

POSTSCRIPT:
Until this evening, the only major cable news network reporting Bernie Sanders' mere six percentage point margin behind Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire was none other Fox News.  CNN and MSNBC today restricted their reportage to push speculation of a Joe Biden candidacy. They noted Clinton's persistently weak poll numbers. Yet, if her numbers were weak, shouldn't the networks report which candidate was cutting into her potential support? --That is Bernie Sanders? No, they never uttered her name. Yet, it was Fox News that this evening reported the six digit difference. Only in the evening of August 4 did MSNBC report online the news of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that showed the Democratic presidential nomination race to be tightening between Clinton and Sanders in New Hampshire. A WUMR TV poll reported the same narrow margin between Clinton and Sanders.

Ed Schultz outlines his four step plan to save Detroit

Ed outlines his four step plan to save Detroit

Ed Show staff

11:00 AM on 07/22/2013

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Republicans have given up on the city of Detroit, they want to wipe the slate clean and start privatizing city assets, and in the process, city workers are in danger of losing their pensions.

Ed Schultz outlines his four step plan to save Detroit. Lansing, Michigan Mayor Virg Bernero and Michael Eric Dyson join Ed to discuss.

Website URLs for Weekend News Shows

Missed the weekend (Sunday morning) news shows?:
ABC This Week with Christine Amanpour
alas, the previous sunday's episode: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/
CBS Face the Nation:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/ftn/
NBC Meet the Press:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
PBS Washington Week in Review:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/
CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS:
podcasts (including video podcasts): http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/fareedzakaria/rss
CNN Reliable Sources:
http://reliablesources.blogs.cnn.com/
MSNBC Weekends with Alex Wit:
unavailable

NIGHTIME SHOWS
CBS 60 Minutes: Full episodes: http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/
60 Minutes Overtime: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

MSNBC Rachel Maddow: vlog stream:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/

PBS
Need to Know: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/

Bottles Thrown at Oakland Police, No Rationale for Tear Gas or Police Grenade Fired At Rescuers

Video interview between protestor and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell includes the claim that protestors, on Tuesday, October 25, had thrown bottles and rocks at the Oakland Police.
Acts of violence against the police are unacceptable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlHiNEZ1wA&feature=player_embedded

However, it is unconscionable that the Oakland Police have fired tear gas at protestors. One protestor, Marine Corps veteran or two Iraq tours, Scott Olsen, was struck in the forehead with a tear gas canister fired by Oakland Police.

And it is further unconscionable that the police fired a live grenade at protestors that rushed to the aid of Olson after the attack by the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ

Meet Orlz Taitz, as wikipedia struck down a bio

Meet Orly Taitz, the lawyer for the birther movement, as wikipedia scrubbed an attempt at a bio of her. Actually, her intrusion into in the American constitutional process raises a paradox. She lectures us over the issue of President Barack Obama's native US birth, yet she was actually born abroad (in the Soviet Union, in a section that later broke away from the Ukraine as Moldova). I sense some projection, in the psychological sense of the word. She operates as a lawyer, yet she got her law degree from a correspondence institution, Taft. The way she screeches, I'd be uncomfortable with her working near my mouth, in her other profession, dentist.
Joseph A. Palermo at Huffington Post wrote (today, August 4, 2009)a funny and spot-on piece about her.

As he said, Taitz has crowded into Ann Coulter's turf as Tourette's-like right-wing spouter of crazy ideas. The difference between Coulter and Taitz is that Coulter is just pushing our buttons; the astute suspect that she's being theatrical for effect. Taitz, no doubt, is completely convinced of her delusional interpretation of reality.
She doesn't have the best legal scruples: she submitted a forged Kenyan certificate to a US court (the document reads "Republic of Kenya," yet it was dated months before Kenya became a republic.) See TPM, "Why is Orly Taitz in Israel Two Days After Submitting a Forged Obama Birth Certificate to a US Federal Court?," August 3, 2009.
She's an ugly spirited bigot, for as TPM reports,

"she is on record saying that Israel's Arab enemies should be "exterminated" rather than merely defeated, and appears to have refused a ride to MSNBC's affiliate in Tel Aviv because she believed the driver to be a Muslim. Like right-wing settlers (see video), Taitz is also fond of calling her critics "nazis" or "brownshirts," as she did with David Schuster in her interview from Tel Aviv."

As to Taitz, she's racheting up the insinuations. In her implosion on MSNBC, see vieo at right, she goes beyond her false claim that Obama was not born in the US; she claims that he is invalid as a president since one of his parents was not a US citizen. We've got news, you supposed lawyer, only the candidate needs to be a citizen by birth; the parents don't enter the equation.

Attractive, well coiffed, she'll be around for a while --I can bet you this, as this is the country where seven of ten Republicans support ex-Governor Sarah Palin.