Former MSNBC Host Phil Donahue: Chris Matthews Saw Me As ‘Threat To His Supremacy’

Mediaite.com:

In the run-up to the Iraq War, there were very few voices in the media who were openly opposed to it, even on MSNBC. One of the loudest critics at the time was Phil Donahue, and despite the fact that his MSNBC show Donahue did well compared to other MSNBC shows at the time, it was cancelled less than a year after it began. With the war’s 10th anniversary upon us this week, Donahue sat down with HuffPostLive to talk about his firing and time at the network, as well as making some interesting comments about Chris Matthews. Donahue said his popularity at the network was a personal threat to Matthews, who he described as “emotionally upset.”

Marc Lamont Hill played a clip of Donahue and Matthews back in 2002, in which Matthews berates Donahue for always being so negative and pessimistic about the United States. After briefly dissecting how people like Matthews at the time were unfairly equating patriotic dissent with hating the U.S., Donahue divulged some information about his former colleague. He said that Matthews “wanted to be the face of the network” and noted how he was quoted in a magazine as predicting Donahue would be MSNBC’s downfall.

Donahue shared his theory on why Matthews disliked him so much.

“I think he saw me as a threat to his supremacy. He wanted to be the face of MSNBC, and here comes this talk show host… I think I was a threat to his goal of being the man of MSNBC. And he was quite emotional. He was emotionally upset.”

RELATED: Matthews And Guests Utterly Perplexed That Blacks Could Support ‘Pure Racism’ Of The Tea Party

MSNBC Panel Praises Bill O’Reilly For Slamming Michelle Bachmann, Highlight Network’s Own Timidity

Love, love, love this article by Mediaite's Noah Rothman on MSNBC's utter hypocrisy, huge ego and cowardness in ever attacking Barry and the Democrat party for doing some the same exact things they give the GOP so much grief about:

On Thursday, the host and panel guests on MSNBC’s Now praised Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly for directing a series of unqualified criticisms at Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) after the conservative House member made a series of inaccurate statements in a misguided effort to attack Democratic politicians. Well, the MSNBC hosts almost praised O’Reilly before the panel guests pulled back, lest they allow themselves a moment of impartiality. In fact, their praise was couched in a criticism: why do Fox News Channel’s hosts not criticize Republican politicians more often? In fact, with a bit of introspection, MSNBC’s hosts could ask themselves why they don’t chastise Democratic politicians with any regularity? Particularly given the wealth of material available to support those criticisms. 

On Wednesday, O’Reilly went after Bachmann’s factually inaccurate attacks on President Barack Obama in clear terms lacking any prevarication:

“It’s long past time for partisans, on both the right and the left, to cut the nonsense and look at things clearly. We’ve got huge problems in America and the president’s directly responsible for some of those problems… Michele Bachmann is playing small ball with the president, can’t back up her criticism, and actually trivializes a huge problem: irresponsible spending by the federal government.”

The following day, the hosts and panel guests of Now praised O’Reilly for his unorthodox divergence from the expected, reflexive defense of a Republican lawmaker under fire in the press.

MSNBC host Alex Wagner cited the Washington Post’s fact checker blog which admonished Bachmann for inflating the amount of funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) applies to administrative costs versus the funding it directs to needy beneficiaries. 

“As comedic as Michelle Bachmann’s lies and distortions are, I actually feel like this is really dangerous,” Wagner said. “This gets into the water stream and then it becomes a repeated talking point, and people are completely misled about the realities of our budget and government spending.”

“This is what happens when you read the comments section of too many right-wing blogs,” noted The New Yorker columnist Rick Hertzberg.

“She’s probably getting more air time on MSNBC, at this point, than on Fox,” Hertzberg guessed. 

Wagner corrected him and noted that O’Reilly did take Bachmann to task over this and other assertions she has made in recent days which are inaccurate and, as O’Reilly noted, damaging to the conservative movement in the long run. Wagner called O’Reilly’s rogue commentary “a welcome change.”

MSNBC contributor and former Democratic operative Karen Finney almost agreed, but stressed that this kind of truthful commentary on Fox is lamentably rare.

“Okay, Bill O’Reilly, one time, called her out,” Finney remarked dismissively. “The Republican Party has got to break their addiction to the Bill O’Reilly…”

“To crazy,” Wagner interjected. 

“To, you know, Rush Limbaugh, and, I don’t know, check a few facts. Do a little math here and there,” Finney continued. 

Oh, how saucily droll. Judging from this panel’s reaction, one may be led to believe that MSNBC’s hosts regularly critique ideologically simpatico lawmakers on the Hill. Or, perhaps, that there is simply a dearth of factual inaccuracies promoted by Democrats to critique. 

For the sake of a narrowly defined argument, let’s focus entirely on what Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler has deemed Pinocchio-worthy in recent weeks. Maybe MSNBC’s hosts missed this choice nugget from a speech delivered by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in the Senate on March 4:

“I think we ought to go back to the people and the party that was the only party and the only people to balance the budget in 40 years. I hate to break it to my Republican friends, but that is the Democratic Party. We are the ones who did it. We did it when Bill Clinton came into office. We did it after hard work. We did it after painful cuts. We did it with smart investments.”

It has become part of the modern Democratic Party’s provenance myth that Bill Clinton’s presidency was characterized by minimal deficits, balanced budgets, peace, prosperity, and a general cultural renaissance. All of these glorious accomplishments – achieved single-handedly — were ignominiously undone by his predecessor. 

Unfortunately, the facts do not comport with the attractive fable. 

“Clinton’s plan was never intended to achieve a balanced budget. After the bill’s passage, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit would decline modestly — from $290 billion in 1992 to $200 billion in 1998,” Kessler writes. “Between 1994 and 1999, realized capital gains nearly quadrupled, the CBO concluded, with taxes on those gains accounting for about 30 percent of the increased growth of individual income tax liabilities relative to the growth of GDP.”

“Clinton was lucky to have become president just as a revolution in computer and information technologies was unleashed,” he continued. The 42nd President of the United States was also lucky to preside over a Republican Congress after 1994 which, Kessler notes, “substantially shifted” the policy debate in Washington and “immediately set the goal of achieving a balanced budget within seven years.”
Kessler’s verdict: three Pinocchios.

Then there’s this comment from the beginning of the month:

”Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.”

This irresponsible comment, delivered by the President of the United States and leader of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, prompted a spokesperson from the Architect of the Capitol to issue a statement noting that the comments were flatly “not true.” 

“White House officials assumed there was an impact but they were not exactly sure themselves. We will also note that the president said the pay cut was happening “tomorrow,” Kessler writes. “Obama’s remarks continue the administration’s pattern of overstating the potential impact of the sequester, which we have explored this week. But this error is particularly bad–and nerve-wracking to the janitors and security guards who were misled by the president’s comments.”

This comment earned the president four opprobrious Pinocchios.

This is just two examples from the Washington Post’s fact checker blog from March alone.

The president’s inaccurate and hyperbolic statements relating to the sequester have largely contributed to the failure of the Democratic Party to realize their goal of cornering Republicans and forcing them to acquiesce to another round of tax hikes. At the moment, the sequester fight appears today to be a stinging defeat for Democrats, largely due to the president’s rhetorical overreach. 

A number of MSNBC anchors and hosts did, in fact, mention Kessler’s findings in this instance, including S.E. Cupp, Willie Geist, Andrea Mitchell and Chris Jansing. But if the criticism of Fox is that it does not regularly engage in Sista Souljah moments — castigating their own in order to maintain credibility — then this moment passed by MSNBC’s hosts unexploited. The network’s marquee hosts and opinion leaders neglected to use this event in the way O’Reilly did Bachmann’s. 

Kessler’s post on Obama or Boxer’s gaffes, and they were gaffes, would have made for a perfect opportunity for the nation’s premier cable news personalities on the left to pull an O’Reilly and criticize Obama for endangering the cause of liberalism with his careless comments. They neglected to do this. 

This not to say that MSNBC’s personalities never go off the reservation — it has been known to occur. But this particular episode, criticizing Bill O’Reilly for not attacking lawmakers on his side of the political aisle while praising him for doing just that, is simply too rich.

Instead of attacking Fox for not making a point of regularly skewering the Republican Party’s most perplexing figures, some of MSNBC’s host should try it out for themselves.

RELATED: O’Reilly Goes After Bachmann For ‘Lavish White House’ Critique: ‘Playing Small Ball,’ ‘Can’t Back Up Her Criticism’

Teacher's Union Lost 70,000 Members Last Year

Townhall.com:

This is actually pretty incredible news. According to Mike Antonucci over at Intercepts, the National Education Association is down 70,000 teachers.

This passes for good news these days when it comes to union membership, but the National Education Association is down 70,000 members compared with this point last year. The reason it is relatively good news is because the union budgeted for a loss of 130,000 teachers and 10,000 education support employees in the 2012-13 school year.
Of course, the school year isn’t over yet, but the budget projection did seem excessive, considering the worst of the recession’s layoffs were already behind us. The situation for teacher union membership remains fluid, as there is still legislation pending in a number of states regarding collective bargaining, agency fee and payroll deduction, all of which can have a considerable effect on union membership.

Overall, union membership is down in the United States.

Union membership in the USA dropped half a percent in 2012 to levels not believed to be seen since the 1930s, driven largely by a decline in the number of government employees who are union members.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday released its estimates of union membership for this past year based on the Current Population Survey, a monthly sample of 60,000 households nationwide.
It found the percentage of wage and salary workers who were members of a union declining from 11.8% in 2011 to 11.4% last year. It estimated that 14.4 million workers belonged to a union.

RELATED: Charter school results too good to ignore

Singer Michelle Shocked Gets Slammed By Gay Mafia For Daring To Oppose "Gay Marriage"

One thing so-called "tolerant liberals" aren't tolerate of is free speech, that is, free speech that leans conservative or worse yet, doesn't agree with their Anti-God, morally bankrupt views. Folk-singer Michelle Shocked found this out the hard way this week:

Michelle Shocked has gone silent after a homophobic rant at a San Francisco concert Sunday night that has left her without a U.S. tour. Ten out of eleven of her upcoming concert dates have been canceled by the venues themselves, Billboard has confirmed.

Clubs from Santa Cruz, CA to Evanston, IL have pulled Shocked from their schedules. Meander's Kitchen in Seattle nixed her April 26th show "due to her homophobic performance in San Francisco last night, during which she actually said 'God Hates Fags,'" the club wrote on Facebook.

Late Tuesday, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado replaced Shocked, who would have performed on June 23.

Yahoo Music reports that the indie-folk singer went on an anti-gay marriage rant before her second set at Yoshi's in San Francisco on St. Patrick's Day.

"When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back," she reportedly said, and "You can go on Twitter and say, 'Michelle Shocked says God hates (anti-gay slur).'"

At that point the venue attempted to mute the singer and announced the show was over.

Whether the "God hates" comment was meant to be sarcastic is unclear; Shocked has not commented directly on the incident, and has instead taken to Twitter to retweet others who either defend or demonize her. Many of the commenters suggest she was being ironic, which infers that it reflects her own views. However, other retweets don't carry a clear motive.

 RELATED: To Save Traditional Marriage, End State Involvement in Marriage

Stupid Blonde Woman Lindsay Vonn Takes On Serial Philanderer Tiger Woods As A Mate

No doubt, the stereotype that blondes are dumb must have a traumatic effect on naturally-born blonde women fighting to get through life on hard work and intelligence instead of good looks. However, whatever progress blondes have made to prove that they aren't born dumb took a giant leap backwards upon the news that Olympic skier Lindsay Vonn is officially dating serial adulterer and world famous golfer Tiger Woods:

Even Tiger Woods' new gal pal, Lindsey Vonn, had something to say about the pro golfer when his cheating scandal broke in 2009.

Woods, 37, and Vonn, 28, took to their Facebook pages Monday to announce they were officially a couple.

"Something nice that's happened off the course was meeting Lindsey Vonn," he wrote of the gold medalist skier.

"Lindsey and I have been friends for some time, but over the last few months we have become very close and are now dating.”

“Our relationship evolved from a friendship into something more over these past few months and it has made me very happy,” Vonn added on her page.

However, in a Time Magazine article posted in 2010 and pointed out three years ago by The Daily News, the now “happy” Vonn, actually mocked her future boyfriend after the news broke that he cheated on his wife, Elin Nordegren, with a slew of women.

"And like millions of Americans, Vonn can't help poking fun at Woods' staged event. When a member of her Vonn-tourage tells her that Woods gave a few friends hugs after ending his statement, she cracks, ‘They're like, 'Yeah, you're awesome, you go have that sex,’" the article reads.

" The room breaks into a laugh. Then she describes a skit she would want to perform if asked to host Saturday Night Live: picture Vonn at Woods' podium, blue backdrop and all. ‘There's something you don't know about me,’ Vonn says in a faux solemn, apologetic voice. ‘Tiger, you're like my idol, and I too have a sex problem." More laughter.That would be freaking funny.’"

RELATED: Tiger Woods, Lindsey Vonn a pretty couple unlikely to last, experts say

Rich, Old, White, Pop Star Madonna Equates "Gay Rights" To Blacks Being Lynched

NYDailyNews.com:

It was a gay (and lesbian) old time at the 24th annual Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Awards, where Madonna called for revolution, and NFL players, newscasters, “Jersey Shore” stars and Honey Boo Boo joined in the chant for civil rights.

Dressed in a faux Cub Scouts uniform bearing the number 13, Madonna stole the show in an 11-minute speech before urging the Boy Scouts of America “to change their stupid rules” of banning gay members.

She compared discrimination against homosexuals to white supremacists lynching black people in the Deep South and said, “I don’t know about you, but I can’t take this s— anymore. That’s why I want to start a revolution. Are you with me? It’s 2013. We live in America — the land of the free and home of the brave? That’s a question, not a statement.”

After being introduced by Madonna, Anderson Cooper took the stage to receive the Vito Russo Award for promoting equality. There, the Material Girl gave him a big hug, grabbed his butt, then tattooed him with big messy kisses that left the CNN anchorman wiping red lipstick from his mouth.

“I’ve had so many blessings in my life and being gay is certainly one of the greatest blessings,” said Cooper, thanking his boyfriend, Benjamin Maisani. “It has allowed me to love and to be loved.”

And not a single mainstream publication or "black" organization/institution will condemn these comments made by a mega-rich, white, anti-God, pop star who wouldn't know a thing about true discrimination faced on a daily basis by blacks and other minorities in this country, if it slapped her in the face, much less what our ancestors went through on the daily during the days of chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws.

Oh yeah, that's Anderson Cooper (above) planting a kiss on Madonna's lips. The irony of homosexuals claiming that they're "born that way" but yet have no problem being intimate with members the opposite sex is beyond funny to me.

RELATED: Shame on Madonna and GLAAD

Study Says MSNBC Coverage Almost Entirely Opinionated, While Fox News Includes More Factual Reporting

Branding everything Republican with a "racist" boogeyman, pushing through the anti-God, morally-bankrupt, white, liberal agenda and making sure blacks and Hispanics forever stay on the Democrat plantation...that's MSNBC in a nutshell:

True to its motto, MSNBC has been leaning forward. To the point that its opinionated programming far outweighs its “factual reporting,” according to a new Pew study. While Fox News, too, had more opinionated programming, the network had a much smaller discrepancy between opinion and straight reporting.

The study — which came as part of Pew Research Center’s annual “State of the Media” report — states that opinionated programming comprised 85 percent of MSNBC’s airtime (versus 15 percent of “factual reporting”). Meanwhile, Fox News had opinion 55 percent of the time, with 45 percent straight news.

Of the three cable networks, CNN was the only one where reporting dominated commentary, with 54 percent straight coverage. Since 2007, the study notes that while the networks used to rely “on significantly distinct formats five years ago, the three rivals now look strikingly similar.” 

To compile the report, Pew looked at a half-hour of weekday daytime programming for the first five months of 2007 and 2012, and the first 30 minutes of “general-news focused” evening programs. They “analyzed 6,472 stories over the course of 267 hours of cable programming.”

RELATED:  More Opinions, Better Ratings: Maddow, MSNBC Shouldn’t Be Ashamed Of What The Network Has Become

Former Al Sharpton Linchpin Tawana Brawley Still Refuses To Pay For Rape Lie

While the liberal media continues to cover for all of MSNBC host Al Sharpton's great sins of the past, conservatives can well recall one of his greatest trespasses. That of adviser and mentor to Tawana Brawley, the young, black woman who falsely accused a group of white men of abducting and then raping her back in 1987. The case brought national media attention and racial tension to the New York City's tri-state area. But after a grand jury refused to indict the men, including Steven Pagones, then a prosecutor with the Dutchess County’s District Attorney’s Office, Pagones later filed and won a slander lawsuit against Brawley, Sharpton and her attorneys, C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox. Brawley, now a registered nurse living in Virginia, owes Pagones $431,492 after she lost a defamation lawsuit more than a decade ago and yet, she still refuses to pay a dime to a man whose life she basically ruined:

A disbarred lawyer for a black New York teen who falsely accused six white men of rape in 1987, says her wages shouldn't be garnished to pay a defamation award. 

Tawana Brawley's former lawyer, Alton Maddox, said in a letter to state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that Steven Pagones, a former prosecutor who won a defamation suit in 1997 after Brawley falsely claimed he was one of the men who attacked her in 1987, should not get money from garnishing Brawley's wages from her nursing job, the New York Post reported Sunday.

"New York and Virginia have conspired to deprive her of property without due process of law," Maddox's letter, which he posted on his Web site, reads. Brawley, who now goes by the name Tawana Vacenia Thompson Gutierrez, works at a licensed nurse at a nursing home in Virginia.

"The things he's saying on his Web site are outright lies. It's ludicrous," said Pagones. 

Pagones got a court order in January to collect on his defamation award.

Brawley was ordered in 1997 to pay $190,000 at 9 percent interest annually. She hadn't paid any of it before the garnishment order, and her bill currently amounts to $431,492, the Post reported. 

Brawley's wages from her employment as a licensed nurse in a nursing home are being garnished at $150 per week, but Pagones still has not gotten any of it as the money is being held in escrow, giving Brawley an opportunity to file an appeal, the Post reported.

Steve Harvey Quote of the Day!

“Hollywood is more racist than America is."

- comedian, actor, author, radio and game show host Steve Harvey

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House Speaker John Boehner Tells ABC He Would Oppose Gay Marriage Even If Family Member Came Out As Gay

Mediaite.com:

During an exclusive Sunday interview with ABC, House Speaker John Boehner told Martha Raddatz that he is unwavering in his opposition to gay marriage and would not change his opinion on the subject if a family member came out as gay like Senator Rob Portman‘s son earlier this week. 

“Rob is a great friend and a longtime ally. I appreciate that he has changed his views on this but I believe marriage is a union of a man and a woman,” Boehner told Raddatz. 

Raddatz inquired what he would do if one of his relatives turned out to be gay. Would he he change his views on this subject? 

“I believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. It’s what I grew up with it. It’s what I believe. It’s what my church teaches me. I can’t imagine that position would ever change,” he said.

Good for Speaker Boehner. Homosexuality is an unGodly behavioral choice made by individuals that is based on nothing but untethered lust. Changing your mind on an issue like "gay marriage" all because a family member chooses to engage in homosexuality is corny, lame and stupid because it shows that your principles can change on a whim. And while no sane conservative would ever tell someone to love your child any less because they choose to engage in homosexuality, accepting this unGodly act is the same as accepting them being an alcoholic or a drug addict or a rapist--love the sinner, hate the sin.

RELATED: GOP Sen. Rob Portman Reveals His Son Is Gay And He Now Supports Gay Marriage