90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, February 12, 2015

So, What About Rev. Al Sharpton's Suspension?

In light of Brian Williams sanction, MSNBC host's lies deserve review

With its swift and severe punishment of Brian Williams, NBCUniversal declared yesterday that it will not stand for on-air talent lying to viewers.

Now that the media conglomerate has delineated that bright line, when does the Rev. Al Sharpton’s suspension without pay begin?

In the wake of last year’s lengthy TSG report about Sharpton’s secret work as a paid FBI Mafia informant, the MSNBC host sought to blunt the story’s disclosures with a series of lies told at a pair of press conferences, on his nightly “Politics Nation” program, and in a report on Williams’s own NBC Nightly News (which was rebroadcast on NBC's Today show).

Sharpton, 60, cast himself as a victim who first ran into the FBI’s warm embrace when a scary gangster purportedly threatened his life. He was “an American citizen with every right to...

Already under fire from Iraq War veterans for making up events, NBC is taking new flak today from former military brass over a correspondent’s claim that sniper hero Chris Kyle was a “racist” on “killing sprees” while protecting troops in Iraq.

Some 22 retired generals and admirals, including a former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, joined with dozens of other officers and the press watchdog Media Research Center in a letter to demand an apology from NBC parent Comcast after the network refused to acknowledge the comments.

Kyle, the subject of the hit movie “American Sniper,” said a letter to Comcast provided to Secrets, “is a hero, not a talking point for a smug journalist.”

The comment came from Middle East reporter Ayman Mohyeldin January 29 on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. Ayman, formerly with Al Jazeera, said of Kyle:

“Some of what people have described as his racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these, you know, killing sprees in Iraq on assignment.”

His smackdown of Kyle, considered the nation’s most effective sniper ever, caught host Joe Scarborough by surprise. He immediately ...