Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment

Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).

This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2021.

For all of 2020. For all of 2019. For all of  2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for:

July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.)

Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.

(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center’s Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)

■ New on April 5: Liberal Media Scream: PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor connects Georgia voting to George Floyd trial

I’ll add text and video here next week, but so the Washington Examiner gets the traffic for their post when it’s fresh, please read Paul Bedard’s post on their site where you can watch the video and read the full quote.

■ March 29: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Sad but true,’ Joy Reid agrees GOP would make Jesus suffer

(Washington Examiner post)

This week’s Liberal Media Scream has an Easter and election angle, but it’s not very uplifting.

It features a famous Georgetown University professor condemning GOP election reform efforts in states such as Georgia and suggesting that the party is so racist and mean it would “pass a law to keep Jesus from getting a cup of water while he’s dying on the cross.”

And, of course, it led to Joy Reid, host of her show The ReidOut, agreeing with Professor Michael Eric Dyson.

The comments came while the nation is in a heated debate over election reform, with the GOP heading to tightening ballot access and Democrats moving to open it up to a national mail-in system.

Reid’s show focused on condemning the GOP, and Dyson said Republican efforts like those in Georgia are going further than old segregationist Jim Crow laws. “The real religion, the real politics in America is whiteness and whiteness unhinged,” he said.

Dyson on the Friday edition of The ReidOut:

“I mean, President Biden is right. This is Jim Crow, this is Jane Crow …The real religion, the real politics in America, is whiteness and whiteness unhinged … I think he’s contemplating it seriously when he sees the consequences. What he needs to do is fill these busters with some fear of the government. These are the kind of people who would pass a law to keep Jesus from getting a cup of water while he’s dying on the cross.”

Reid agreed: “Sad but true.”

Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “A cute-sounding quip but with a hard edge just before Palm Sunday as MSNBC decided to showcase Dyson, a man who always sees racial animus motivating conservatives. It’s all part of the far-left/news media joint effort to smear as racist anyone interested in keeping the voting system honest, thus discrediting their concerns without having to address their substance.”

Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.

■ March 22: Liberal Media Scream: Seth Meyers rants against rural whites, Constitution

(Washington Examiner post)

This week’s Liberal Media Scream steps outside the usual lane of angry news media figures to NBC’s Late Night show hosted by Seth Meyers and his 15-minute rant for H.R. 1, the “For the People Act” election law, and against the filibuster.

His was a sweeping condemnation of Republicans, rural Americans, whites, and the Founding Fathers.

He opened Thursday by charging that the electoral system is “heavily tilted toward a minority of voters that are predominately white and rural, thanks in large part to anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate.” He cited new Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s “impassioned speech in favor of sweeping voting reforms” and accused Republicans of pushing Jim Crow-style election changes.

“Republicans tried to steal the last election through the courts. That didn’t work, so now they’re trying to steal the next election through voter suppression. Nuking or changing the filibuster to stop them is a moral necessity,” he urged in his “Closer Look” segment:

Some of the lowlights:

“Our democracy as currently constituted is simply not a level playing field. In fact, it’s arguably never been a level playing field, it’s heavily tilted toward a minority of voters that are predominately white and rural, thanks in large part to anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate. Just consider that right now the Senate is evenly split 50-50 and yet the 50 Senate Democrats represent nearly 42 million more Americans than the 50 Senate Republicans. For example, Wyoming with a population of about 580,000 people, has two senators. And New York also has two senators, even though there are 580,000 people just on my co-op board. …

“I mean, just consider the scope of how heavily tilted our democratic institutions are toward Republicans. They’ve only won the popular vote once in the last 32 years, yet, they’ve appointed a majority of Supreme Court justices, they’ve lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million. In 2016, lost the House by the largest margin since Watergate in 2018, lost two Senate seats in historically red Georgia this year, and yet, Mitch McConnell still basically gets a veto over what the Senate can or cannot pass. The only way the Senate can get anything done right now is through a process called budget reconciliation, which has more rules than a Manhattan parking sign. …

“Warnock delivered an impassioned speech in favor of sweeping voting reforms, and he noted that the GOP assault on voting rights is the most ferocious attack on democracy since the era of Jim Crow.”

[Sen. Raphael Warnock: “We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights, unlike anything we’ve ever seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes.”]

“He’s right. And the clothes aren’t even good. I mean, look at this [picture of Trump], it looks like he was thrown naked in the dumpster behind a Palm Beach pro-shop, and given five minutes to pick an outfit. It’s a good Halloween costume if you want to go as a lost grandpa at Disney World. Warnock was on the floor specifically to call for Senate passage of H.R. 1, a sweeping package of urgent voting reforms passed by the House that are desperately needed to level what is currently a very lopsided playing field. H.R. 1 would combat virtually every GOP voter suppression tactic by, among other things, mandating nationwide early voting and no-excuse mail voting, instituting automatic and same-day voter registration, implementing public financing of elections, and banning congressional gerrymandering, among other things. It’s also incredibly popular in polls, even among the majority of Republican voters. So, naturally, Republican politicians are losing their minds over it. …

“Republicans tried to steal the last election through the courts. That didn’t work, so now they’re trying to steal the next election through voter suppression. Nuking or changing the filibuster to stop them is a moral necessity. We badly need sweeping reforms to make our democracy a level playing field.”

Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Meyers’s argument should be with the founders, not present-day Republicans. He’s upset that our constitutional system, with two senators from every state, is inhibiting the enactment of left-wing policies, as if the Senate make-up is something new. He’s upset by Wyoming but ignores how the next least-populous state, Vermont, has a socialist and a left-wing Democrat for senators. H.R. 1 should be known as the ‘Enable Illegal Voting Act,’ as it’s a grab-bag of left-wing policies aimed at making it easy for Democrats to get votes from those not qualified to vote. The fact Meyers is so excited about it demonstrates he’s a left-wing Democratic activist first, a comedian a distant second.”

Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.

■ March 15: Liberal Media Scream: Meet the Press blames Trump for Cuomo refusing to quit

(Washington Examiner post)

This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest version of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” this time…