NBC Ignores Todd Grilling President Over ObamaCare 'Train Wreck' to Hit From the Left on Gitmo

While NBC's chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd pressed President Obama during a Tuesday news conference on the possibility of ObamaCare being a "train wreck," the network coverage of the presser completely avoided any mention of the question, instead seizing on Obama being pressured from the left to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Anchor Brian Williams lead off Tuesday's Nightly News by declaring: "The hunger strike at Guantanamo that's now gotten so bad prisoners are being force fed, as the President faces tough questions." Introducing a report on the topic, Williams lectured: "We don't get to see them or know their names, and most Americans actually prefer not to spend a whole lot of time thinking about the men who've been rounded up as enemy combatants and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."

Williams sympathetically added: "And tonight those prisoners are back in the news because a hundred of them are on a hunger strike, apparently preferring to take their own lives and do it slowly to the life they have under heavy guard at Guantanamo Bay." Correspondent Andrea Mitchell explained: "Their lawyers say they're protesting years of detention, most without being charged, and no release in sight."

After Mitchell's Nightly News report on the terror detainees, Williams did speak with Todd, noting: "Those Guantanamo comments you just saw, part of a wide-ranging news conference today." However, the only other topic Todd spoke to was Obama's statement on the conflict in Syria.

Mitchell laid the blame for Obama failing to close the prison on Congress: "The President promised to close Guantanamo as soon as he took office, but years later he has been blocked by Congress, the military court system, and now facing that hunger strike by the prisoners, he's clearly frustrated."

During a report on Wednesday's Today, Mitchell included a sound bite of Lieutenant Colonel David Frakt of the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General Reserves Corps fretting: "The fact that we have kept these men at Guantanamo for years makes them essentially political prisoners. And there's no place for political prisoners in the United States."

7:00PM ET TEASE:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: The hunger strike at Guantanamo that's now gotten so bad prisoners are being force fed, as the President faces tough questions.

7:01PM ET SEGMENT:

WILLIAMS: We don't get to see them or know their names, and most Americans actually prefer not to spend a whole lot of time thinking about the men who've been rounded up as enemy combatants and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We think of them when they become an issue, like when candidate Obama vowed to close the facility. And tonight those prisoners are back in the news because a hundred of them are on a hunger strike, apparently preferring to take their own lives and do it slowly to the life they have under heavy guard at Guantanamo Bay.

Some of them are being force fed now, and now the President is facing some tough questions about what to do. Our chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, watching it all from our D.C. newsroom today. Andrea, good evening.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Good evening, Brian. The President promised to close Guantanamo as soon as he took office, but years later he has been blocked by Congress, the military court system, and now facing that hunger strike by the prisoners, he's clearly frustrated.

Guantanamo Bay, where 100 of 166 prisoners are on a hunger strike, some since February. Their lawyers say they're protesting years of detention, most without being charged, and no release in sight. Today President Obama agreed the prison needs to be closed.

BARACK OBAMA: The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.

MITCHELL: Extra doctors and nurses arrived today to help force feed 21 of the detainees. This despite the American Medical Association's protest to Defense Secretary Hagel, that force feeding, quote, "violates core ethical values of the medical profession" once a prisoner makes a rational decision to refuse food.

LT. COL. DAVID FRAKT [U.S. AIR FORCE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL CORPS RESERVE]: The administration seems to be more worried about the bad publicity from a detainee dying than they are from the bad publicity of force feeding the detainees.

OBAMA: I don't want these individuals to die. Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can. But I think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this?

MITCHELL: The military says dozens of prisoners clashed with guards two weeks ago and were hiding makeshift weapons.

COL. JOHN BOGDAN [U.S. ARMY]: We hit the point where, you know, I felt we were accepting too much risk, and it was time to take action.

OBAMA: By the authority vested in me as president.
MITCHELL: The President tried to close Guantanamo two days after he took office. What happened? Congress fought him at every turn, blocking a plan to build a supermax prison in Illinois, or try prisoners, like alleged 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in lower Manhattan, or send them home. Eighty six prisoners, low-level detainees, mostly from Yemen, were cleared to be sent back three years ago, but either Yemen won't take them or can't satisfy U.S. security demands for their transfer. Guantanamo costs taxpayers $800 million a year, with no solution for the prisoners or for the President. Brian.

WILLIAMS: Andrea Mitchell starting us off from D.C. tonight. Andrea, thanks.

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Fox News Virtually Ignores Portman’s Evolution On Marriage Equality

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) — who was considered a frontrunner for the GOP vice presidential nomination in 2012 — came out in support of marriage equality on Friday morning, becoming the only sitting Republican senator to support same-sex marriage. But you wouldn’t know that from watching Fox News, since the network virtually ignored the story.

A ThinkProgress analysis using TV Eyes found that the right-leaning channel mentioned the word “Portman” just three times from 6:00 AM to 11:59 PM on Friday, while competitors MSNBC and CNN — which broke the story early that morning — covered the senator’s evolution extensively, mentioning “Portman” 27 and 40 times, respectively:

Fox News has a habit of ignoring pro-LGBT news that does not appeal to the conservative base. For instance, the network offered slim coverage to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the passage of New York’s historic same-sex marriage law, and failed to report that former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman — who had orchestrated President Bush’s gay-bashing 2004 re-election campaign — had come out as gay.

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New York Times Puff Piece About Focus On The Family Ignores Its Regular Anti-LGBT Rhetoric

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly

On Friday, the New York Times ran a puff piece about Focus on the Family, claiming that under the leadership of its president Jim Daly, the organization is softening by becoming one that “invites civil dialogue” and “turns down the rhetorical temperature on the debate.” It goes on to claim that Daly is “attesting to the divine love and grace that he firmly believes saved his life.”

Jeremy Hooper and David Badash have already penned extensive retorts, outlining the many odious anti-LGBT positions that Focus on the Family still holds. As a simple test of whether Focus on the Family and its political arm CitizenLink are engaging in more “civil dialogue,” here’s a look at some of the rhetoric they’ve put out over just the past six months:

Marriage equality will “shut down businesses” and is actually about “silencing Christian voices in the public square.”Marriage equality is a “pernicious lie of Satan.”Gender and sexuality are determined by procreation, not anybody’s own sense of their identities.Homosexuality isn’t a “super sin,” but it’s still a sin, just like adultery, lying, cheating, and gossiping.There’s no such thing as being gay; it’s just a “political statement.”Marriage equality passed in November because voters are “unchurched” and care more about themselves than about children.Transgender identities are unhealthy disorders that result from childhood trauma.Trans people should pursue ex-trans therapy to rectify their “confusion” with their “God given gender identity and destiny.”Gay people are in “pain” and at battle with God.Heterosexuality is society’s ideal because affirming homosexuality would be “normalizing brokenness.”“Satan roams the earth like a lion, using sexual and relational brokenness to destroy individuals, families, churches, groups, businesses.”Parents should be able to prevent their children from learning that gay people exist.There are “a variety of roads into homosexuality” including molestation, parents’ divorce, and trouble conforming to gender roles.

And that was just the rhetoric that ThinkProgress happened to cover since last September. Of course, Focus on the Family also sponsors the annual “Day of Dialogue,” which encourages Christian students to condemn their gay peers — a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” which is designed to bring visibility to that very kind of bullying.

The New York Times should better clarify that not a single position has changed at Focus on the Family. As the article inadvertently demonstrates, the organization has simply achieved better PR when individuals aren’t paying attention to what they actually believe.

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