Tag Archives: Anderson Cooper

February 8, 2013 · 5:48 AM

Ex-cop and murder suspect Christopher Dorner references journalists in manifesto

It will be interesting to see how this saga plays out.

Yes, he’s a very bad guy who shot innocent people and should be held accountable.  Yet, in reading about this guy I just wonder how he made it on the LAPD force to begin with.

He sounds like he is at least….mentally unstable.

Politico

Fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner — wanted in connection with a deadly shooting rampage in Southern California — wrote a rambling manifesto referencing a number of TV hosts and journalists.

In the document attributed to Dorner, the man accused of killing three people promises to “bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty” and also praises several journalists:

Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s lead. I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Cooper, stop nagging and berating your guest, they’re your (guest). Mr. Scarborough, we met at McGuire’s pub in P-cola in 2002 when I was stationed there. It was an honor conversing with you about politics, family, and life.

Willie Geist, you’re a talented and charismatic journalist. Stop with all the talk show shenanigans and get back to your core of reporting. Your future is brighter than most.

Revoke the citizenship of Fareed Zakaria and deport him. I’ve never heard a positive word about America or its interest from his mouth, ever. On the same day, give Piers Morgan an indefinite resident alien and Visa card.

Dorner also picks out dozens of celebrities and other figures in the document. The LAPD believes Dorner wrote the manifesto because of details in it that only he would know, The Associated Press reported on Thursday. A copy of the manifesto can be found at KTTV-Fox 11 News, the Fox owned-and-operated television station in Los Angeles.

And on Thursday, CNN reported that Dorner also sent a package to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Inside the parcel was a hand labeled DVD with a post-it note reading in part “I never lie,” and a souvenir LAPD medallion shot through with bullet holes. The package arrived Feb. 1, but Cooper said it was not opened by him and he first learned of it today.

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December 7, 2012 · 2:13 PM

Watch Anderson Cooper Slam Republicans For Putting Politics Ahead Of The Rights Of The Disabled

Very few news commentators actually call politicians out on their hypocrisy, their callousness toward humanity and their very transparent lies.  Apparently, CNN‘s Anderson Cooper was one of the few who did, recently…

Think Progress

On Thursday, CNN host Anderson Cooper shone the spotlight on Republicans who voted against a U.N. treaty protecting people with disabilities, highlighting lawmakers who backed away from supporting the measure in response to conservative misinformation and opposition.

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) featured prominently in Cooper’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment. He reported that Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), formerly a co-sponsor of the motion to ratify the treaty, suddenly backed out even after meeting with former GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole, a proponent of the measure.

The lawmakers declined an invitation to come onto the show to explain themselves, leaving Cooper to condemn their dishonesty:

COOPER: And keeping them honest, they used arguments that just frankly did not square with the facts. They weren’t true. [...] We can only guess their motivations, and frankly, some of this is just so baffling that we’d be taking wild guesses, and we just don’t want to do that.

Watch Cooper’s full segment here:

Prominent conservative groups, rallied by Rick Santorum, denounced the treaty on the false premise that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would strip parents with disabled children of their rights. As a result of their efforts, though, the treaty failed by a mere five votes.

The Republicans who changed their votes have drawn widespread criticism from disabilities rights groups and Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to bring the treaty up for a vote in the next session of Congress.

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September 16, 2011 · 1:06 AM

Cooper Tears Into Bachmann

The Huffington Post

Anderson Cooper highlighted what he said were the “dangerous falsehoods” that Michele Bachmann has been pushing on the campaign trail.

Cooper has often used Bachmann as a target for his daily “Keeping Them Honest” segment, debunking her statements about everything from American history to the cost of President Obama’s foreign tripsto her denials that her clinic runs so-called “ex-gay” therapy services.

On Thursday, he turned to her recent crusade against rival presidential candidate Rick Perry, whom she has attacked repeatedly for mandating that young girls be given the HPV vaccine. Cooper playedfootage of Bachmann on the “Today” show, where the Minnesota Republican said that a woman told her the HPV vaccine gave her daughter “mental retardation.” He didn’t mince words when describing what he thought of Bachmann’s decision to relay that story, calling it “incredibly irresponsible.”

As Cooper (and many others) pointed out, the Centers for Disease Control has found that there is absolutely no evidence that the vaccine causes any kind of mental disability.

“Bachmann is spreading all-out falsehood here,” Cooper said. “A dangerous falsehood at that. And it is not the first time she’s done this by any stretch of the imagination.” He then played a series of clips of what he called “just flat-out factually incorrect statements.” After the clips played, he wondered if the misstatements would have any effect on her campaign.

“Do voters care about the truth?” Cooper asked.

See video here…

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August 15, 2011 · 1:17 PM

GOP Rep. Louie (“Terror Babies”) Gohmert: Pelosi’s face on golf balls will put `oomph’ into your game

GOP Representative Louie Gohmert, the man who went around inventing “terror babies” stories, until Anderson Cooper eviscerated him on national TV for making such an absurd statement, has now focused his insanity on House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi.

This guy is a prominent member of the Tea Party Caucus and he’s a real piece of work…

The Plum Line

GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert told a conservative talk show host earlier this week that having Nancy Pelosi’s face on golf balls would put “oomph” into your game, and joked with the host that he would help him find a sleeve of Pelosi-stamped balls.

Earlier this week, Politico reported that a fundraiser attended by House Speaker John Boehner had featured golf balls with Pelosi’s face stamped on them.  After Boehner’s office denied the story, Politico retracted the claim.

Gohmert, however, appears not to have heard about the retraction. Here’s the exchange he had with conservative host Lars Larson on Tuesday:

LARSON: My producer is from Ohio. He noticed that John Boehner was apparently using Nancy Pelosi golf balls at a recent fundraiser, and my producer wants to get a whole sleeve of those things. He thinks it might make him hit better.

GOHMERT: [laughs] I’ll bet you it’ll put a little extra oomph in it. No kidding, yeah. Well, I’ll have to check on that. I’ll have to see where we get those.

The exchange was first flagged by TruthTicker.com, which posted audio:

Continue reading here…

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April 27, 2011 · 9:22 AM

Breaking: The President Releases His “Long Form” Birth Certificate

In my opinion, this will settle nothing with the “birthers”…

Huffington Post

On Wednesday morning, the White House released President Barack Obama’s long form birth certificate.

The president is expected to address the disclosure at 9:45 a.m. ET. Below, an image of the document put out by the White House.

This is a developing story… More information to come…

The New York Times

Obama’s Long-Form Birth Certificate Released

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
 

President Obama posted a copy of his “long form” birth certificate from the state of Hawaii, hoping to finally end a long-simmering conspiracy theory among some conservatives who asserted falsely that he was not born in the United States and was not a legitimate president.

The birth certificate, which is posted online at the White House website, shows conclusively that Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and is signed by state officials and his mother.

“The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country,” Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, wrote on the website Wednesday morning. “It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country.”

Mr. Obama is expected to address questions about the birth certificate in a briefing with reporters Wednesday morning at 9: 45 a.m.

The contention that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore did not meet the Constitutional requirement for election as president, has been around for years and has long been refuted, but has recently gained public attention after Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, repeatedly raised questions as he explores whether to run for president.

Mr. Pfeiffer said in the statement on the website that the president authorized officials in Hawaii to release the document broadly.

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February 6, 2011 · 5:42 AM

Anderson Cooper Leaves Egypt

Huffington Post

Anderson Cooper announced on Saturday that he is leaving Egypt after a week in which he and his crew were repeatedly targeted by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak.

He tweeted, “It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to leave #Egypt. CNN continues to have many teams in place. It was a hard decision to leave.”

Cooper was attacked twice by pro-Mubarak forces. On Tuesday, he was punched in the head repeatedly. On Wednesday, the window of the car he was in was smashed through by a rock. He was forced to go into hiding and report from a secret location.

Cooper is the latest high-profile American journalist to leave Cairo this week. Katie Couric and Brian Williams both returned to the U.S. earlier in the week.

 

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February 4, 2011 · 12:15 AM

Anderson Cooper Reports From Dimly-Lit Room In Egypt: “I’m A Little Bit Scared”

Although it was not the peaceful marchers that harmed Anderson Cooper, it was President Mubarak’s thugs, I wondered about his safety when Cooper was standing in the middle of the peaceful crowd on the day of the Million Persons March.  I felt that Cooper exhibited a bit of hubris, standing in the middle of a tens of thousands of Egyptians at the time and probably thinking that everyone knew him so he had nothing to worry about.  

I know that Anderson Cooper is always in the midst of a major crisis, but in my mind, he may have been a bit too cavalier, just to get his up close and personal reports to CNN.  I might be a bit harsh on Cooper given the eventual result of what happened to him, but sometimes the story is not worth the risk, in my opinion.

Mediaite

Anderson Cooper is not a rookie journalist when it comes to dangerous situations, but it’s difficult to remember a time in which he has faced more personal danger than during his coverage of the Egyptian revolts. Reporting from an undisclosed location in Cairo tonight, Cooper gave an update on the situation on the ground to the best of his ability– apologizing for reporting from a dimly-lit room, admitting some fear, and explaining that the media in Cairo is being systematically shut down.

Cooper, speaking live via what appeared to be a computer, reported that his only method of broadcast at the moment was from the room he occupied, an “undisclosed location,” the anonymity of which was, “frankly, for our own safety.” Acknowledging that the physical attacks on him had made headlines this week, he admitted that “journalists don’t like to become part of the story, but unfortunately, they have been made part of the story.”

He then detailed the situation regarding actual broadcasting. While he noted that Tahrir Square was currently full of protesters, many of them, he predicted, “scared for their lives,” there were no live cameras allowed on the ground, and absolutely no way of broadcasting live from the area. Their cameras, he explained, were “systematically taken down.” He did not exclude himself from the national climate of fear, either. “I don’t mind telling you I’m a little bit scared,” he admitted, though he noted that “there’s a lot of people who are scared right now in Egypt,” likely more than he is.

Cooper appeared entirely genuine in his fear, and his broadcast, somber and surprisingly collected for the situation, provided a chilling reflection of the current state of the nation through the eyes of what amounted to a blindfolded journalist– but one still able to speak. The report via CNN below:

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February 3, 2011 · 7:29 AM

Anderson Cooper Attacked, Punched In The Head By “Pro-Mubarak Mob” In Egypt

Huffington Post

Anderson Cooper and his crew were attacked by supporters of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Wednesday. CNN’s Steve Brusk tweeted that Cooper was punched in the head ten times.

The incident came as pro-Mubarak supporters attacked protesters calling for the Egyptian president to step down. Speaking on “American Morning” after the attack, Cooper said that he and his crew had been trying to go to a neutral zone between the two groups.

“We never got that far,” he said. “We were set upon by pro-Mubarak supporters punching us in the head.” Cooper said that he and the crew tried to escape, but that the crowd only grew: “the crowd kept growing, kept throwing punches, kicks…suddenly a young man would look at you and punch you in the face.”

A CNN update said that “no one was seriously hurt” in the attack.

A pro-Mubarak group also roughed up a Washington Post editor on Wednesday.

Cooper spoke to The Huffington Post from Cairo on Monday.

Video here…

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January 11, 2011 · 9:15 AM

Bill Maher: Jared Loughner’s Chalkboard Likely Looks Like Glenn Beck’s Chalkboard

Mediaite

Anderson Cooper took a very different tack last night in trying to make sense of the Arizona shooting tragedy from the weekend. While many on cable news were turning down the partisan rhetoric, AC360 producers booked comedian Bill Maher, who was unafraid to compare the imagined mindset of alleged assailant Jared Loughner with Fox News host Glenn Beck, while at the same time calling for responsibility in the media. Huh?

Cooper opened by asking about the soul searching and finger pointing that came almost immediately after the news of the shooting took place. To his credit, he went straight to the heart of the matter, asking Maher “Is it fair to place blame at the feet of anyone other than the shooter at this point?” Maher answered with the long and rambling rant:

Yeah. I mean, not direct blame. No, this guy was clearly a nut. I mean, a schizophrenic, a paranoid. I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. Nut is the layman’s term. But he was very anti-government. If you read some of the stuff that we have, that we know he wrote, i mean, it’s sprinkled with things, anti-government ideas, treason, tyranny, the gold — get back to the gold standard, that kind of stuff that seems like, you know, I don’t know who else but Glenn beck talks about that stuff. I’m not saying he was specifically listening to Mr. Beck or anybody else. But Glenn Beck is also a little nutty. I mean, you know, this Jared guy’s chalkboard in his basement, I’m not sure it would look that different than Glenn Beck’s chalkboard. I think it’s disingenuous for the right wing, as I’ve heard them say today, that we can’t make any connection here or else the — or the false equivalency argument that I hear, you know.

There’s a lot of nuts on the left, too. yeah, there are nutty people on the left, too. They don’t make threats. They don’t talk about guns. I heard someone on NPR today say, well, when Bush was president, there was Bush equals Hitler signs. From who? Not from someone in Congress.

Yeah, there’s always going to be some nut out there. I don’t know who had that sign, but Sarah Palin put the cross hairs up on her website. That’s a person in a position of authority. Her other example was, you know, Keith Olbermann says worst person in the world.” Well, first of all, it’s comedy. It’s tongue in cheek. And it’s very different than what Alan West talks about, what Michele Bachmann talks about. I want to, you know, keep my opponents scared to come out of his house. I want Minnesotans armed and dangerous. Sharron Angle with 2nd amendment remedies. Nobody on the left is saying it would cause a rational person to do something crazy. We’re saying it goes out to the borderline cases, the nutty people. but it’s always from the right.

Later in the interview, Maher further clarified on whether a Democrat played any role in the tragedy. No he doesn’t:      More…

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December 1, 2010 · 2:15 AM

Anderson Cooper Shellacks Texas Birther With Torrent Of Facts

TPM Muckraker 

CNN’s Anderson Cooper took Texas birther and state Rep. Leo Berman (R) down a whole bunch of pegs last night over Berman’s birther bill. “You’re basing legislation on stuff that’s just rumors and stuff that’s been proven to be false,” Cooper told him.

Earlier this month, Berman introduced a bill in the Texas House that would “require any candidate for president or vice president of the United States to show his or her birth certificate to the Texas secretary of state,” because, as Berman put it, “we have a president whom the American people don’t know whether he was born in Kenya or some other place.”

Berman, who has also called President Obama “God’s punishment on us today,” went on AC360 to talk about his bill, but ended up fumbling through his notes when Cooper hit him with, you know, facts.

One representative exchange came after Berman asked why no one has access to any of the President’s school records. “Why don’t we know anything about a president who has such a radical agenda?” he said.

Cooper asked him: “Have you seen George W. Bush’s transcripts from college?”

Berman replied: “I can see anything I want from George W. Bush.”

“Actually sir, you couldn’t,” Cooper fired back. “Under federal law the schools cant release that information.”

Berman, unable to respond to this, soon moved on: “Where are the president’s passports and his travel records that got him to Pakistan in the early 90s, when no U.S. citizen could get to Pakistan at all?”

Cooper replied: “What you just said is factually incorrect,” adding that Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981 when Americans could still go there. “That’s just an internet rumor that you’re spreading,” Cooper said.

Note: I can’t post the video but here is the link.  

H/t MsDaisy

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