MSNBC Slams 'Right' Over 'Knockout Game' and IRS Scandal, 'Want to Stoke Issues of Race'

NewsBusters ^ | December 31, 2013 | Brad Wilmouth

[2ndDivisionVet]

On special edition of MSNBC's PoliticsNation on Monday in which a panel of MSNBC regulars selected awards for the year 2013, MSNBC contributor Joy Reid asserted that the "Knockout Game" was the "most overrated story of the year," as she complained that conservatives "went absolutely ballistic" and "wanted[ed] to stoke issues of race."

MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams then brought up the IRS scandal in which conservative organizations were given closer scrutiny before the 2012 elections, with Williams charging, "Ain't nothing there. Never was, never will be," and with fellow panel member Krystal Ball chiming in that "It's not even a scandal."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, December 30, PoliticsNation on MSNBC:

AL SHARPTON: Let's get right back to the awards. First up, the most overrated story of the year. Krystal?

KRYSTAL BALL, MSNBC HOST: Well, slipping in right under the wire at the end of the year here, I think I got to go with pajama boy. The young man in the advertisement. Conservatives freaked out about this thing. It was incredibly silly.

SHARPTON: Joy?

JOY REID, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Got to say the knockout game. Two videos that were in about a hundred different stories, no trend anyone could discern, but the right went absolutely ballistic over it because they want to stoke issues of race.

SHARPTON: Jimmy?

JIMMY WILLIAMS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: The Internal Revenue Service scandal.

BALL: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Ain't nothing there. Never was. Never will be.

BALL: It's not even a scandal.

WILLIAMS: Not even a scandal.

[LostInBayport]

If it wasn’t for Newsbusters, what is said on MSNBC would never penetrate the public consciousness. They have no viewers.

I do understand that it is important to publicize their insanity, but I wonder what would happen if we paid them no attention at all (like 99% of television viewers do).

[kcvl]

NBC News has hired Joy-Ann Reid, a broadcast veteran who has worked in television and radio since 1998, as an MSNBC contributor and managing editor of theGrio.com. Reid replaces David Wilson, who has been bumped up to executive editor the NBC African-American video news site he founded in 1999.

Reid, who is a former online news editor for NBC affiliate WTVJ, was a press aide for the Obama campaign in 2008. She is currently a freelance columnist for The Miami Herald and editor of “The Reid Report,” a political blog.

[skeeter]

When the left plays the race card they seek to perpetuate a fantasy.

When the right 'stokes issues of race' they usually are simply telling the truth.

[M Kehoe]

Resist we much.

5.56mm

[loveliberty2]

Were MSNBC and its talking heads representative of the entire population of the United States, then there would be no hope for preserving liberty for future generations.

America's Founders understood that and expressed it over and over again.

Visit here for reprints of the following essay:

An Enlightened, Committed People Who Understand The Principles Of Our Constitution

- The Most Effective Means Of Preserving Liberty

---

"Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free." James Madison

America's Constitution is the means by which knowledgeable and free people, capable of self-government, can bind and control their elected representatives in government. In order to remain free, the Founders said, the people themselves must clearly understand the ideas and principles upon which their Constitu­tional government is based. Through such understanding, they will be able to prevent those in power from eroding their Constitutional protections.

The Founders established schools and seminaries for the distinct purpose of instilling in youth the lessons of history and the ideas of liberty. And, in their day, they were successful. Tocqueville, eminent French jurist, traveled America and in his 1830's work, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, wrote:

".every citizen ... is taught . the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution ... it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon."

On the frontier, he noted that "...no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling that shelters him.... He wears the dress and speaks the language of the cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious about the future, and ready for argument about the present.... I do not think that so much intellectual activity exists in the most enlightened and populous districts of France' " He continued, "It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contri­butes to the support of the democratic republic; and such must always be the case...where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.."

Possessing a clear understanding of the failure of previous civilizations to achieve and sustain freedom for individuals, our forefathers discovered some timeless truths about human nature, the struggle for individual liberty, the human tendency toward abuse of power, and the means for curbing that tendency through Constitutional self-government. Jefferson's Bill For The More General Diffusion Of Knowledge For Virginia declared:

"...experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government), those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate...the minds of the people...to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth. History, by apprizing them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future...it will qualify them judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.."

Education was not perceived by the Founders to be a mere process for teaching basic skills. It was much, much more. Educa­tion included the very process by which the people of America would understand and be able to preserve their liberty and secure their Creator-endowed rights. Understanding the nature and origin of their rights and the means of preserving them, the people would be capable of self government, for they would recognize any threats to liberty and "nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud." (Adams)

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

[Forward the Light Brigade]

This is a hoot—the Left calling the right “Stoking the issue of Race” they live on Racism worst than the old Klan.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It's pretty amusing to watch race-baiters accuse somebody else of "wanting to stoke issues of race."

These are the same people who called George Zimmerman a "white Hispanic" when they discovered that a guy named Zimmerman wasn't the race that they had hoped he would be.

[Louis Foxwell]

What is nothing in some circles is a Big F’n Deal (thx Joe) in others. MSNBC dos not register on my radar. They are dumpster divers.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Actually, the site is worth somewhere between $3 and 15 million dollars.

[The Cajun]

MSNBC makes Monty Python's Flying Circus look positively bland.

Now that is a great observation.
Not only MSNBC, but any lib talking head right now really seems to be as absurd and silly as any good Python skit.

Might help my blood pressure if I start considering them part of an old Python skit :)

[andyk]

They’ve perfected the art of projection.

[beelzepug]

“Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, December 30, PoliticsNation on MSNBC...”

Nothing on MSNBC is relevant.

[crazycatlady]

It’s true. The left is famous for this game. Another version is when somebody quotes (or sometimes rewords, but with the same meaning) something somebody on the left has said. Then mock outrage, forgetting the original source. If you want a real challenge to your sanity try living with a roommate or somebody who does that, not just with politics, but with a ything. (”I can’t believe you called me absent-minded. I can never forgive that. “. “OK. But who was it by their own admission, put their car keys in the freezer 3 times in one week?”)

About 10 years ago one of my clients who is a wonderful person but a liberal had a daughter who was doing some kind of charitable(compassionate—I can’t think of the word I need here) in Afghanistan. There had just been some high-profile beheadings. She remarked that [people in the middle east] were”upset about the reaction to the beheadings.” I remarked that I was upset about the beheadings myself.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Yeah I'm not boasting just because I'm a fan.. here's just one little example of how MSNBC beats Monty Python.

This is funny but the MSNBC troupe bets this by a mile!

[therightliveswithus]

And making fun of Mitt Romney’s grandson is what, exactly?

[dhs12345]

So apparently the white guy in Texas to assaulted the elderly black man in Texas was made up and overblown, too.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

2nd,

I think Bill, in his initial post, was talking about how MRC and other conservatives are always talking about the outrageous things MSNBC says. All this does is give them the attention they don't deserve.

We should completely tune out the channel, and let them stew in their own liberal feces.

[MRadtke]

“I have to wonder how they survive with such low ratings. Who’s paying their bills these days?”

That is a good question. There’s probably a money trail connecting this propaganda outlet with some shadowy leftist group.

[dowcaet]

Ah yes the best friend of every braindead lefty, the race card. It is truly sad to see how clueless so many blacks and hispanics are to the reality that they are nothing but pawns and lackeys to the white liberal establishment, but that’s the choice they have made.

[BarneyCrush]

Oh now I see the light...Trayvon (a violent thug who got what he deserved) was the biggest story of the year hands down ...and the IRS scandal (where patriotic Americans were targeted for governmental persecution by high level officials in an effort to undermine the American political system) was a trivial non-story.