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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 The theme of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday was all about complaining how “broken” U.S. politics have become under President Trump. According to the stacked anti-Trump panel, most of the blame belongs to the “anti-intellectual” attitude of “the extreme of the right-wing.” In the mix, Hillary Clinton super-fan Andrea Mitchell couldn’t help but smear the Republicans who were critical of the failed Democratic nominee. Yet she found herself thanking Republican Senator Jeff Flake for standing up to those who chanted “lock her up.”
“I really appreciated that Jeff Flake said the ‘lock her up,’ those cries at the Republican convention by Michael Flynn no less,” she touted, before claiming it was the lowest point of “what I view as the Republican Party.”
Mitchell was also taken aback by how much animosity there was for highfalutin elitists like herself and the rest of the panel, “even among those who are college-educated. Extraordinary.” That teed up Moderator Chuck Todd, who recently bemoaned about how he was taught to be impartial, to get in his own smears of the GOP.
“She referenced a stat here I want to put it up here on this issue, sort of the anti-intellectual streak that’s taking place in the Republican electorate,” he chided, noting a poll that showed 58 percent of Republicans thought colleges had a “negative effect” on the country. “It was a startling, wait a minute, I thought we all agreed college was good.”
Todd handed it off to Heather McGhee, of the left-wing Demos Action, to explain where that animosity came from. And according to her, it had almost nothing to do with the radical leftists that run amok and everything to do with the GOP losing its base as people got smarter.
“It's actually the more that you study the history and the world, you understand how much we've fallen short on values of justice and equality and you want to tend to work more veraciously towards those goals,” McGhee asserted. She also suggested that it was a narrative concocted by the right-wing media and “Republican strategists [who] began to really recognize how much more highly educated folks were trending towards being more liberal.”
McGhee then claimed it was a conspiracy to smear institutions of higher education by focusing on the left’s loony college programs and their violent rioting because of conservative speakers. “It's like the liberal outrage campus of the day,” McGhee said. “And that's where that's coming from. There's been a real spotlight, a distortion I think of the news of what is coming out of college campuses.”
Towards the end of the program, Mitchell had more to say about those in college. She insisted that Millennials were increasingly tuning out of elected politics. Assuming she’s referencing the decline in their turn out between 2012 and 2016, it’s clear that she doesn’t understand that Hillary couldn’t energize them.
But according to Mitchell the GOP was responsible for scaring them away:
…that is a very effective strategy by, you know, the extreme of the right-wing right now is trying to claim that there was election fraud and taking this fake commission and making it into a real fear factor for people who won't tip their toes into elected politics.
Clearly, Mitchell still can’t get over, or understand, Hillary Clinton’s defeat by the likes of Trump.
Transccript below:
NBC
Meet the Press
August 6, 2017
10:51:21 AM
…
CHUCK TODD: But Andrea, I guess the question is: Is the Republican Party’s problem Trump or the fact that they, they don't know what the definition of conservative is right now?
ANDREA MITCHELL: I think it's a combination. And it's partly because they have this Republican President who is not really a Republican and not really a conservative. And, what Jeff Flake was talking about is that he voted against prescription drugs, he voted against the George W. Bush proposals that busted the budget, in his view. He views himself as a real conservative. He's making a distinction between conservatism and populism, and I think that's a good conversation to have for Republicans as well as Democrats.
What you're seeing, David, in your precinct and elsewhere and certainly in West Virginia which is, you know, ground zero of Trump country, is, anger against elites. People feeling that they've been passed over, anger, you know, you see the state, the stats on anger against elite colleges, even among those who are college-educated. Extraordinary.
So it's anger against all of us, the media, as well, and Trump has just tapped into that. And I really appreciated that Jeff Flake said the “lock her up,” those cries at the Republican convention by Michael Flynn no less, the call and response was really a nadir of the Republi-- what I view as the Republican Party.
TODD: Heather, I want to -- she referenced a stat here I want to put it up here on this issue, sort of the anti-intellectual streak that’s taking place in the Republican electorate. 58 percent of Republicans believe colleges and universities have a negative effect on the way things are going in this country. That is a -- I mean, it was a startling, wait a minute, I thought we all agreed college was good. We can have a debate about openness in ideologies at universities, but when did we go all the way there?
HEATHER MCGHEE: Well, I think you really have to sort of follow the thread of this narrative. You know, Republican strategists began to really recognize how much more highly educated folks were trending towards being more liberal.
And we can talk about why that might be, I mean, Republicans would say it's a nefarious liberal bias on campus. Other’s might say it's actually the more that you study the history and the world, you understand how much we've fallen short on values of justice and equality and you want to tend to work more veraciously towards those goals.
But if you look at right-wing media. A narrative has taken root, it's like the liberal outrage campus of the day. And that's where that's coming from. There's been a real spotlight, a distortion I think of the news of what is coming out of college campuses. That it's very clear, you start to see it pop-up Breitbart, you start to see it pop-up on Fox News and then it moves into the Republican voter.
…
11:24:34 AM
MITCHELL: But one of the things that really strikes me when we talk about college campuses and Millennials is the sort of tuning out of politics, elected politics. And it gets back to what I think we really need to see in both parties, is focusing on legislatures and on governors and thinking. And not being afraid of being purged from the rolls, and that is a very effective strategy by, you know, the extreme of the right-wing right now is trying to claim that there was election fraud and taking this fake commission and making it into a real fear factor for people who won't tip their toes into elected politics.
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By Brad Wilmouth
On Sunday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, as Al Sharpton presided over a discussion of an upcoming march to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in the Civil Rights Movement, the MSNBC host fretted that President Donald Trump is "killing the dream" after one of the guests claimed that MLK Jr.'s "dream" had become a "nightmare" for many.
Rabbi Jonah Pesner of the leftist Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism complained about "mass incarceration" and "voter suppression" as he commented:
We will be marching and praying with our legs because this is not a nostalgia march, right, we are marching to protect and defend the dream, which for too many people has become a nightmare with mass incarceration, with voter suppression, with people afraid of losing their health care benefits. So it's important that we march -- but that we march for the dream getting protected for the future, not just nostalgia for the past.
Host Sharpton then dismissed President Trump's decision to keep a bust of Martin Luther King in the Oval Office as he responded:
It is not a nostalgia march because we saw when President Trump came into office, President Obama put the bust of Dr. King in the Oval Office. President Trump said, "I'm going to keep the bust, but I'm adding Winston Churchill." But did he put the dream out? Because in the dream of Dr. King, he talked about voting rights -- which is now under siege -- he talked about poverty -- which we are really clearly dealing with as the rabbi just referred to rather.
The MSNBC host then added:
And he talked about criminal justice reform -- he talked about the idea of health care. Dr. King said that in a speech all of this is in danger right now. So this thousand ministers march is to say, "Wait a minute, you can't commemorate the dreamer and kill the dream."
The hand-wringing continued as the Reverend K.W. Tulloss of the National Action Network responded:
You're so right, Rev, again, August 28, ministers are coming beyond the wall of the church to really focus on the needs of our community, and these last several months are dismal. Many of our -- many of the policies that are being proposed are aimed at cutting down on the backs of our members, and it's very important again for us as religious leaders to reach out beyond the walls and the press and to make this administration know that our members are at stake.
He then added:
This is why we're here where they're representing our people. We are there to let the folks know that we are there with them, and we want this administration to take notice that, "Hey, this is important, you are messing with people's lives."
Below is a transcript of the relevant portions of the Sunday, August 6, PoliticsNation on MSNBC:
8:16 a.m. ET
RABBI JONAH PESNER, RELIGIOUS ACTION CENTER FOR REFORM JUDAISM: We will be marching and praying with our legs because this is not a nostalgia march, right, we are marching to protect and defend the dream, which for too many people has become a nightmare with mass incarceration, with voter suppression, with people afraid of losing their health care benefits. So it's important that we march -- but that we march for the dream getting protected for the future, not just nostalgia for the past.
REVEREND AL SHARPTON: Reverend, it is not a nostalgia march because we saw when President Trump came into office, President Obama put the bust of Dr. King in the Oval Office. President Trump said, "I'm going to keep the bust, but I'm adding Winston Churchill."
But did he put the dream out? Because in the dream of Dr. King, he talked about voting rights -- which is now under siege -- he talked about poverty -- which we are really clearly dealing with as the rabbi just referred to rather -- and he talked about criminal justice reform -- he talked about the idea of health care. Dr. King said that in a speech all of this is in danger right now. So this thousand ministers march is to say, "Wait a minute, you can't commemorate the dreamer and kill the dream."
 REVEREND K.W. TULLOSS, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK WESTERN REGIONAL DIRECTOR: You're so right, Rev, again, August 28, ministers are coming beyond the wall of the church to really focus on the needs of our community, and these last several months are dismal. Many of our -- many of the policies that are being proposed are aimed at cutting down on the backs of our members, and it's very important again for us as religious leaders to reach out beyond the walls and the press and to make this administration know that our members are at stake.
This is why we're here where they're representing our people. We are there to let the folks know that we are there with them, and we want this administration to take notice that, "Hey, this is important, you are messing with people's lives." And we recognize that everything is at stake, and that's what we plan to do August 28.
SHARPTON: You know, Rabbi, when I look at the fact that you referred to mass incarceration -- when I look at, when we see the continued cases of police brutality that all of us support good policing, but that we're not dealing with the bad police as well as the fact that this attorney general as said, "I'm even questioning consent decrees." I look at our colleagues in the NAACP this week talking about a travel warning for the state of Missouri because of any number of situations with black motorists in the state of Missouri.
And yet, in the midst of all of this, I look one morning, and ministers are in the Oval Office laying hands on President Trump and praying and saying, "God bless him and strengthen him in what he's doing," without questioning what he's doing. That's why I think some other faith leaders need to come and say, "We're not here to condemn the President, but we're here to uplift justice and fairness. While y'all are blessing this, let's look at what is going on.
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By Alex Xenos
Filling in for Don Lemon Thursday on CNN Tonight, New Day's Chris Cuomo once again sparred with White House counsel Kellyanne Conway. Conway called out the network for their obsession with the Trump-Russia story:
Six percent said it's the number one issue to them but it's consumed 75 percent of coverage...you wonder what other news you're missing or what are we going to cover, or what are we not covering today because we're covering this. You've got to feel a little bit of trepidation.
Cuomo put to rest that stipulation real quick:
CUOMO: No.
CONWAY: That you are covering an issue...
CUOMO: I don't.
CONWAY: -- that 6 percent of Americans tell pollsters --
CUOMO: I don't.
CONWAY: -- that is most important to them when 75 percent of them --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I cover it because I think it's right...
Nobody is saying don't cover the issue at all; just be rational about it. Devoting 93 percent of a three-hour program to the Trump-Russia issue is not rational, especially since they were and are silent about Democrats colluding with the Russians in the 80's and the Chinese in the 90's (Both communist enemies by the way).
Conway then brought up the hypocrisy of the media's lack of coverage on the Clintons' Russia connections:
I will just say this to you--Thank you--That if you are so concerned about what family members of presidential candidates get from Russia, whether they're involved in Russia, then please explain to your viewers why you're not or never were as a network incensed about Bill Clinton getting a $500,000 speaking fee in Russia, and his wife turning around and giving 20 percent, being part of the 20 percent of the Iranian rights that went to Russian interests.
This was perhaps the most humorous moment of the exchange:
CONWAY: Are you for sanctuary cities, do you think that's a good idea? Because that means the law is nothing.
CUOMO: I'm not for or against anything. I'm a journalist. I'm not an elected leader. People didn't put me anywhere.
Right, a "journalist." "Not for anything," you say. Just like you were "not for anything" in these moments either (Click here to see the endless propagandizing).
Conway followed up:
CONWAY: Well, OK, so you're not for the rule of law?
CUOMO: I am for the rule -- of course, I'm for the rule of the law. I'm an officer of the court. I'm an officer of the court.
CONWAY: You're asking for the rule of law. You want to appeal to America tonight.
CUOMO: I'm an officer of the court.
CONWAY: Are you for the rule of law? That's interesting, which is this nation, we're a nation of law.
CUOMO: Of course, of course, we're for the rule of law. But how you enforce the law is the subject of question.
(CROSSTALK)
CONWAY: OK. The rule of law...
CUOMO: And that's one issue but that's not what we're talking about here.
CONWAY: ... the rule of law would say that sanctuary cities should not get grants from DOJ and DHS.
CUOMO: That's fine, but that's not what we're talking about here. This is about the standards for who gets in...
CONWAY: Well, we are talking about...
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By Kyle Drennen
During the first year of a new administration, a prominent elected official switches his political affiliation to the party that just came into power. The national media hail the news and warn the politician’s former party that it has become too extreme and out of touch with country. That was the scene in 2009, when Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter abandoned the Republican Party and became a Democrat in a desperate attempt to win a tough reelection fight.
However, on Thursday, when West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced he was leaving the Democratic Party in favor of the GOP, the liberal media couldn’t be bothered to cover the stunning political news. The NBC and ABC evening newscasts completely ignored the story, while CBS Evening News only offered a pathetic 13 seconds of air time.
On Friday morning, things weren’t much better. The most CBS This Morning could manage was a 14-second clip during its “Eye Opener” segment of Fox News reporting on Governor Justice’s switch. NBC finally noticed the story, with correspondent Kristen Welker even calling it “a big victory for the GOP” during a report on the Today show. However, that “big victory” for Republicans was only worth a mere 22-second mention.
Amazingly, ABC News has not said one word about Justice becoming a Republican.
Contrast such paltry network coverage of the Democrats losing a moderate member of their own party to how the media hyped Senator Specter’s departure from the GOP in 2009 as a devastating political blow worthy of multiple full reports and analyses.
When the news broke on April 28 that year, the networks went wild. On CBS Evening News, Chip Reid touted that Specter “says he’s leaving the Republican Party because the Republican Party left him” and “blames the party’s increasingly conservative tilt.” On NBC Nightly News, correspondent Kelly O’Donnell fretted over Specter “facing a much more conservative challenger” in a Senate primary and “that voters who tend to turn out in the primaries tend to be on the fringe of the party, not a moderate Republican like he is.” On ABC’s World News, Jonathan Karl declared: “Specter said he had been driven out by the right-wing of the Republican Party.”
The coverage didn’t end there, the following morning on NBC’s Today, Chuck Todd proclaimed that Specter’s move was “devastating” for Republicans and questioned “what it says about the future of the GOP.” Days later, ABC’s World News Saturday and CBS Evening News used polling to blame Specter’s switch on the GOP’s social conservative agenda.
By the way, the same liberal talking points were employed by the press in 2001 when liberal Republican Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican to become a Democrat.
The question now is, where are all the network stories about the Democrats moving too far to left and forcing moderates like Justice to jump ship? Where are the panel discussions analyzing how bad things have become for the party and demanding that it abandon extreme positions on a host of issues?
The silence is deafening and the double standard is glaring.
Here are transcripts of the August 4 “coverage” on the NBC and CBS morning shows:
Today
7:05 AM ET
(...)
KRISTEN WELKER: This morning the President trying to keep the focus away from Russia and on his agenda, tweeting this morning, “West Virginia was incredible last night. Crowds and enthusiasm were beyond, GDP at 3%, wow! Dem governor became a Republican last night. That a reference to Governor Jim Justice switching his affiliation from the Democrat to Republican Party, a big victory for the GOP.
(...)
 CBS This Morning7:02 AM ET
(...)
DANA PERINO [FOX NEWS]: Democratic Governor Jim Justice decided, “I’ve got to get on the Trump train,” became a Republican.
GOV. JIM JUSTICE [R-WV]: You know what else is unbelievable? This man now has a chief of staff that all of us can pronounce his first name.
(...)
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 On Wednesday, two GOP Senators, with help from the White House, rolled out a new legal immigration proposal that put emphasis on certain merits to receive a green card. And as the Media Research Center reported later that night, the liberal media were up in arms. But CNN’s Fareed Zakaria took a different approach during his show Global Public Square on Sunday. According to him, the Democrats were the ones “out of touch” with the feelings of many Americans.
He blamed it on the party’s ability to demonize those that simply disagree with their dogma. He recalled the story Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, who wanted to add a pro-life stance to the party’s platform in 1992. “He fully understood that the motion would be voted down. But the Democratic Party refused to permit him even to air his views, so great was his heresy,” Zakaria explained as an example.
“That sent a strong signal to working-class Catholic and evangelical voters that if they did not fall in line on this one issue they were no longer welcome in the party,” read Zakaria, from a book by Mark Lilla.
The CNN host cited poll data to prove the point that in 2016 the Democrats lost some support since 2012 based primarily on the issue immigration:
Look at the Democracy Fund's voter survey, done in the wake of the 2016 election. If you compare two groups of voters, those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then Hillary Clinton in 2016 and those who voted for Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016. The single biggest divergence on policy between these two groups is immigration.
“In other words, there are many Americans who are otherwise sympathetic to Democratic ideas, but on a few key issues, principally immigration think the party is out of touch,” Zakaria added.
According to a Harvard scholar Zakaria was citing, the Democratic Party had a problem reconciling it’s FDR era position of promoting unity and its current hobby of driving cultural wedges between us and calling it individualism.
“Immigration is the perfect issue on which Democrats could demonstrate that they care about national unity and identity,” he said, touting their political ability.
Yet Zakaria also chastised the GOP plan, saying: “To be clear, I think that the bill that the Republicans rolled out this week is bad public policy and mean spirited symbolism.” That’s despite the fact that the proposal was crafted after the immigration systems of Canada and Australia, two counties the left says we need to live like because of their socialized health care and gun control.
Zakaria seemed to beg the Democrats to get themselves together and take the lead on an immigration solution. “Democrats must find a middle path on immigration. They can battle Donald Trump's drastic solutions but still, speak in the language of national unity and identity,” he told them. “The country's motto, after all, is, ‘out of many, one,’ not the other way around.”
Transcript below:
CNN
Fareed Zakaria GPS
August 6, 2017
10:01:39 AM Eastern
FAREED ZAKARIA: In 1992, Pennsylvania’s Governor Robert Casey, Democrat dedicated to the working class, asked to speak at the national convention in New York City. He wanted to propose a pro-life plank for the party platform. Mostly as a way to affirming his Catholic beliefs. He fully understood that the motion would be voted down. But the Democratic Party refused to permit him even to air his views, so great was his heresy.
In his brief brilliant forthcoming book The Once and Future Liberal, Mark Lilla writes: “That sent a strong signal to working-class Catholic and evangelical voters that if they did not fall in line on this one issue they were no longer welcome in the party.”
I wonder today if Democrats aren't making the same mistake on immigration. To be clear, I think that the bill that the Republicans rolled out this week is bad public policy and mean spirited symbolism. But that’s not the issue.
Lilla acknowledges he is, in fact, a pro-choice absolutist on abortion. But he argues that a national party must build a big tent that accommodates people who dissent from the main party line on a few issues.
In Lilla’s view, there is a larger crisis within American liberalism. The movement has had two very different visions. The first one Franklin Roosevelt’s: A collective national effort to help all people participate in the country’s economic and political life. It’s symbol was two hands shaking, an affirmation of the binding strength of national unity.
The more recent liberal project has been centered on identity, affirming not unity but difference. Nurturing a celebrating not national identities but subnational ones: Women, Hispanics, Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans.
…
Immigration is the perfect issue on which Democrats could demonstrate that they care about national unity and identity. And that they understand voters for whom this is a core concern.
Look at the Democracy Fund's voter survey, done in the wake of the 2016 election. If you compare two groups of voters, those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then Hillary Clinton in 2016 and those who voted for Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016. The single biggest divergence on policy between these two groups is immigration.
In other words, there are many Americans who are otherwise sympathetic to Democratic ideas, but on a few key issues, principally immigration think the party is out of touch. And they are right. Consider the facts. Legal immigration in America has expanded dramatically over the last four decades. In 1970, 4.7 percent of the American population was foreign born, today it's 13.4 percent. That's a large shift in a small period of time and it is natural that it has caused some anxiety and the anxiety is about more than just jobs.
In his 2004 book Who are We?, the Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington asserted that America had more than a founding ideology, in had a culture, one that had shaped it powerfully. “Would America be the America it is today if in the 17th and 18th centuries it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish or Portuguese Catholics,” Huntington asked. “The answer is no. It would not be America; it would be Quebec, Mexico or Brazil.”
Democrats must find a middle path on immigration. They can battle Donald Trump's drastic solutions but still, speak in the language of national unity and identity. The country's motto after all, is, “out of many, one,” not the other way around.
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By Scott Whitlock
 The country’s top film critics are in love with the liberal agenda of Al Gore’s new Inconvenient Sequel, gushing at the "Shakespearean" Gore “saving the world” “one lecture at a time." The global warming film has more of a “meh” response overall. It’s at 67 percent on Metacritic and 75 at Rotten Tomatoes. But Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, among others, are fans.
The New York Times’ Ben Kenigsberg on July 27 compared Gore to Shakespeare:
Now gray-haired and at times sounding angrier in his speeches, Mr. Gore, in “Sequel,” takes on the air of a Shakespearean figure, a man long cast out of power by what he casually refers to as “the Supreme Court decision” (meaning Bush v. Gore) but still making the same arguments that have been hallmarks of his career.
The headline of Rolling Stone was similarly effusive: “‘An Inconvenient Sequel’ Review: Al Gore Returns to Save the World, One Lecture at a Time.” Film critic Peter Travers repeated Gore’s bogus information:
Gore recalls how the first film was roundly mocked for suggesting that storm surges could flood the 9/11 memorial site in Lower Manhattan – and as footage here shows, that's exactly what happened during Hurricane Sandy.
Actually, no. That’s not what Gore claimed. On July 27, National Review explained:
 In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore didn’t say anything about lower Manhattan getting inundated because of a passing storm. He showed the tip of the island disappearing underwater because of melting ice in the North Atlantic, not because a hurricane happened to strike the area at high tide and during a full moon. There’s a fairly critical distinction between the two scenarios: One is permanent. Lower Manhattan may someday be uninhabitable by anyone who doesn’t have gills...
Yet, Newsweek spun the movie as bulletproof: “Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Sequel' is packed with scary climate change evidence. Good luck with the deniers, dude!"
Entertainment Weekly hailed, “Gore is a little grayer and a little thicker around the midsection, but he's still tirelessly speaking truth to power on behalf of our ailing planet in his folksy Tennessee twang.”
Despite all the elite praise, the film only has a score of 45 from Rotten Tomatoes readers.
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By Scott Whitlock
How unhinged are some media outlets in responding to the election of Donald Trump? Rolling Stone's website on Friday promoted “professional cuddling” as a reaction to those struggling to “cope.” Writer Allie Voipe highlighted this presumably blue state response: “Since November – and the election of Donald Trump – professional cuddling services have seen a spike in client interest.”
According to Adam Lippin, the CEO of Cuddlist, “The holiday season was the first time that since Trump won the election that a lot of people were seeing their family.” Apparently those who take part in these organized hugging sessions must be told to keep it appropriate:
"This is a G-rated event," says one organizer. "Touch stays outside the bikini area."
The magazine's Twitter profile touted:
Voipe wondered why professional hugging is so needed in the Trump era?
But what makes the organized effort of being held, a service that comes with a cost (Cuddlist sessions go for $80 an hour), something that aids in relieving the fear and discomfort that has come with Trump's presidency?
Apparently, anti-Trump cuddling is a response to abusers... people like the President:
A significant number of those seeking professional cuddling services have experienced abuse, and some see in Trump qualities that remind them of past trauma.
Conservatives reacted to Barack Obama’s election a different way. Gun sales grew 158 percent since the Second Amendment opponent took office.
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