CNN Releases Audio Of Phone Conversation Contradicting Fox News Bill O’Reilly’s Oswald/de Mohrenschildt Story

Secular Talk

According to Media Matters, Bill O’Reilly has repeatedly claimed in his books and on Fox News that while he was reporting for a Dallas television station in 1977, he was directly outside the home at the moment that George de Mohrenschildt — an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald — shot himself in Florida.  The police report filed at the time makes no mention of him.

Media Matters also reported that several former colleagues and journalists at the time have disputed O’Reilly’s story.

Adding to the mounting evidence against O’Reilly’s tale are tape recordings of a phone conversation between O’Reilly and a congressional reporter who was interviewing de Mohrenschildt before his death, states Media Matters.

The recording was recently released by CNN on Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter. 

“On the tapes, O’Reilly can be heard asking the congressional reporter about the details of the suicide, and adding that he is not yet in Florida — a claim that is at odds with O’Reilly’s statements that he was near the home where de Mohrenschildt killed himself.”  Secular Talk takes a look at it.

(Updated post)

Mika Brzezinski On New Morning Joe Female-Focused Half-Hour and Ratings Race

Mika Brzezinski has become something of a poster child for navigating the rocky terrain of being a working mother.

After three best-selling books — the most recent, 2013’s Obsessed, explores her struggles with food and body image — Joe Scarborough’s able foil is expanding her brand on MSNBC with a series of conferences and her own female-focused half-hour on Morning Joe. The latter has been up and running unofficially at 8:30 a.m. for several weeks.

Guests booked for March include D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Bobbi Brown and Arianna Huffington. And in April Brzezinski will hit the road with a series of conferences that dovetail with her book Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You Want. The Know Your Value Tour will kick off in Philadelphia, followed by Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston and Orlando, and feature panels of experts, keynotes and workshops designed to help women achieve the lives they want — at home and in the workplace.

The tour will be featured on MSNBC and also will have a robust internet extension (msnbc.com/know-your-value) that will include video streams of the conferences.

Last year, Morning Joe was overtaken by CNN’s New Day, which has bested Joe in the adults 25-54 demographic for seven months. CNN recently taunted the show with a full-page ad in The New York Times, but Scarborough brushes off the competition: “The people who watch our show run the world.”

Brzezinski and Scarborough reveal how the new segment came together, the ratings race and booking high-profile guests.

Hollywood Reporter:  How did the 8:30 segment evolve?

Brzezinski: It was Joe’s idea and something we’ve been talking about for years in different ways. Knowing Your Value really resonated, and still people come up and talk to me about it: the impact of women’s success, women breadwinners, on their lives and relationships.

Scarborough: Everywhere we went people would go, “Let Mika talk more!” So we have really reversed roles here. Mika runs it, [and] I’m Mika’s sidekick. This is a great format for her to own, to grow, and one that she didn’t ask for, [but] one that [executive producer] Alex [Korson] and I wanted her to take on because we knew how great she is.

Why didn’t you want it?

Brzezinski: We actually had different ideas for the half-hour, and I didn’t think of myself [for it], which is funny because now I am asking women who get promotions, “How did you do it? Did you step up and ask for it?” This is just something that evolved and seemed like we needed to do it; it’s interesting and it’s time. These conversations keep popping up. We’re meeting more and more women who are confronting these issues.

There are several female panel shows in daytime now. Are you mindful of differentiating what you’re doing?

Brzezinski: It’s going to be a challenge, and we’re a work in progress and we’ll be transparent about that. I think the risk is to pander and to go for the low-hanging fruit and to do stuff that’s talky. We want to address substantial issues that impact women.

Scarborough: [At 8:30] Mika is coming on and she’s running it and I’m either in the control room or I’m her co-host. And we’ll have more of a focus on women’s issues, but it has to be consistent with the smart talk that we have the first two and a half hours.

Al Jazeera Journalist Back In Australia

Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste has returned to Brisbane, Australia, following his release from an Egyptian prison and has been reunited with his family following his release from an Egyptian prison.  At a news conference he praised the long campaign to free him and his colleagues and expressed relief.

Mr. Greste and two colleagues were arrested in 2013. They were convicted of spreading false news and aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

The jailing of the journalists sparked an international outcry.

The three al-Jazeera journalists were arrested in 2013, after the military toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government, led by President Mohammed Morsi.

The men were convicted in 2014 of aiding the Brotherhood, which had been banned by Mr Morsi’s successor, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

Mr. Fahmy and Mr. Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison and Mr Mohamed to 10. Their convictions were overturned on January 1st, but the men remained in custody pending a retrial.  All the defendants denied the charges against them and said their trial was a sham.

Alex Jones “Defends” Rand Paul On Vaccines By Attacking “Whore,” “Trash, Tramp, Filth, Scum” CNBC Anchor

Alex Jones defended Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) from media attacks over his controversial vaccination remarks by lashing out against a CNBC anchor who challenged Paul, according to Media Matters.

Jones, who helped Paul get elected to the Senate in 2010, called CNBC’s Kelly Evans a “whore” and a “pimp” for “signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman!”

Paul has been criticized after he said recently that vaccines should be voluntary because there are purportedly “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”

Jones later added that the government is trying to “bully us into medical tyranny. That’s what Obamacare is.”

“They don’t have the moral authority to tell us anything with their history of secret testing and the rest of it! It’s sick! It’s a sick joke! Man — these people make me want to throw up.”

Jones proceeded to attack the CNBC journalist with misogynistic language for challenging Paul about vaccines during her interview on February 2nd.  Jones called her “a media whore. She’s there to whore out the American people and sell us lies. She’s not a whore, she’s a pimp.”

Jones concluded that people like Evans – a “dumb lady” – are “signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman! You arrogant piece of garbage!

“I’m sick of all you people up there lecturing us. She’s the type of woman that wants Super Bowl ads to say, ‘Sorry you had a boy.’ All a bunch of pinhead cult members.”