Rachel Maddow Interviews John Brennan

Rachel interviewed John Brennan, for Director of the CIA under President Obama, on Friday’s show.  Brennan lost his security clearance this week, when the current occupant of the White House revoked his clearance for being a big ol’ meanie.

Like Rachel, I have not been a great supporter of Brennan in the past (remember rendition?), however, I do support his current actions of speaking truth to power to this GOP/Russia-owned administration.

Anyhoo, if you have about 35 minutes, give this interview a listen.  I love it when, around the 25 minute mark, Brennan hesitates a moment, and then says the unstable orange chucklehead is “drunk with power.”  Don’t get me wrong, that statement is scary as shit, but seeing a man, who is normally so careful with his speech, produce those words on national teevee does my heart good.

Open thread, y’all. What’s on your mind?

Rachel clears the air

Plain and simple — Fox ain’t NEWS.

More plain and simple — MSNBC is not the liberal equivalent of Fox.

Critical thinking is a plus.  More Americans should try it.  Otherwise, we’re correct in calling them STUPID.

The McVeigh tapes

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder truck filled with a 7000 pound bomb in front of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and walked away, knowing that he was going to kill a lot of government employees and children in a day care.

This is McVeigh’s confession — chilling, sickening, and self-serving.

Part 1 of 12:

Part 2:

Part 3:

May 12th In a Hundred Seconds & The Eruption Over Miss California Decision

The David Schuster segment where he is talking about “Can I vomit right now,” pertains to the Miss California decision – she gets to keep her crown. The video is below the fold.

Schuster has a feisty discussion with Contessa & Tamron over the issue.  He furthers states:

“Doesn’t this represent everything that is wrong with the superficial nature of these pageants?  She talked about how woman can make a difference in the world, she lied, and avoided taking personal responsibility.  She blamed others – whether it was Perez Hilton or the photographers – and then she whined about all the attention she received.”

The ED Show Premiers

This is from The ED Show’s first show (last night).

What do you think?

GOP Fuming Over Budget Reconciliation

Several Republican Senators are threatening to go Nuclear!  You ever notice it’s okay if they use the Budget Reconciliation, but if the Democrats want to do the same thing, they want to grind the Senate to a halt?

Matthews Slams Harris: You Speak With A Forked Tongue

Chris Matthews calls B.S. on Todd Harris for the double standard Republicans have where they come in with slim wins and do exactly what they want and say they have a mandate, but expect Democrats to pussy-foot around and apologize for being there when they win by large margins. Todd replies by saying that acting that way will make Obama end up with an approval rating like Bush. Really Todd Harris? You think that’s what will happen if Obama pushes through a populist agenda against the will of the Republicans?  Todd Harris is a typical Republican Strategist – all that comes out of his mouth is garbage.

Great News! 4 More Years of Keith Olbermann

MSNBC sent out a press release heralding four more years of Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:  Huffington Post has the release.

MSNBC has voted for four more years of Keith Olbermann and the top-rated “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” it was announced today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC. The new four-year agreement calls for Olbermann to continue as host of “Countdown;” additionally, Olbermann will play a prominent role in MSNBC’s coverage of all major news events. He will also continue to co-host NBC’s “Football Night in America” studio show.

O’Donnell to Buchanan: GOP Embraces Ignorance

From Race to the White House Nov. 7, 2008 while discussing Sarah Palin’s future, Lawrence O’Donnell slams Pat Buchanan for the GOP embracing ignorance and asks him if he believes in evolution and Buchanan’s retorts back that if O’Donnell believes he’s descended from a monkey he would understand it. When you’re losing an argument, resort to insulting the other guy. Class act there Pat.

GOP Campaign Worker Lied About Being Attacked

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(MSNBC reported on this Breaking Story)

Pittsburgh Police Commander told KDKA investigator that the McCain campaign volunteer confessed to making up the whole story about being attacked.  The police say Ashley Todd, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report.

MSNBC: Ari Melber On ‘The Hate Talk’

Ari Melber: Secret service is investigating John McCain’s rallies because of the way he is running them and the threats that are being made. JP Freire from The American Spectator didn’t stand a chance against Ari. JP only had McCain talking points and Ari Melber challenged him on every single issue. What an outstanding job!

Ari Melber Smacks Down Lying GOP Hack

Ari Melber sticks it to Brad Blakeman with such finesse. This is about the issue of Obama wants to teach kindergarteners sex nonsense. The MSNBC commentator did a great job also bringing up that Obama’s intent was about “Stranger Danger” not teaching them about sex. It’s about sexual abuse, she reprimands Blakeman on the lie also. Great Video…

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Media Takes a Hard Right – Runs over Olbermann

MSNBC’s announcement that it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews with David Gregory as anchors for its main political events (the upcoming presidential debates and election) vividly illustrates several long-obvious facts. First, nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the Right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line. From today’s New York Times:

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left. . . . When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC” . . . . Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the criticism. . . . The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. . . . Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann.

Gregory, the veteran Washington hand, will anchor MSNBC’s coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates and election night, said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. Gregory is nothing more than a talking head for the right-wing agenda to placate NBC and John McCain.

The tipping point appears to have come during the Republican convention. When Olbermann, after the network aired a 9/11-themed video prepared by the Republicans said; “I’m sorry, it’s necessary to say this,” he began. After saying that the video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he said it was “probably not appropriate to be shown.”

The anger in the blogosphere was palpable. Most couldn’t believe that the Republican Party, whose goal posts are now subterranean, managed to stoop even lower and politicize the worst attack on American soil for their own gain. Liberals and progressives alike, agreed with Keith’s statement, he was absolutely right that it shouldn’t have been shown in that kind of manner.

How NBC Changed ‘The Facts’ To Block Dennis Kucinich From The Nevada Debate

via: AfterDowningStreet
By Matthew Lasar, Media Channel

Nevada’s Supreme Court upheld NBC’s exclusion of presidential contender Dennis Kucinich from MSNBC’s Democrats’ debate. But the TV network’s own appeal to the court reveals that its managers changed the program’s qualification rules — a move that threw Kucinich off the program.

An NBC Emergency Petition’s “statement of facts” filed today admits that Kucinich may have qualified for the debate under the rules outlined by Democratic party consultant Jenny Backus. Those guidelines said that a candidate had to finish in at least fourth place in the New Hampshire primary or Iowa Caucus to participate in the January 15th debate.

A candidate could also qualify by being included “in the top four in one of six credible random-sample telephone national news media polls conducted since the Iowa Caucus.”

NBC’s statement acknowledges that in a Gallup Poll completed soon after the Iowa Caucus, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama received the support of 33 percent of those polled, John Edwards obtained 20%, and Kucinich won 3%. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson picked up only 1% of those surveyed.

Read entire article…

This was wrong and should not have happened.
Contact NBC/MSNBC:
(212) 664-4444 Ask for the Comment Line Email: letters@msnbc.com

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

Tonight American Democracy loses

via: Raw Story

Nevada Supreme Court Says MSNBC Can Bar Kucinich From Candidate Debate

That is all I am going to say about it. We will not be live blogging this debate. It seems the MSM and MSNBC have already decided for us who will be the candidate, and so there is no point.

The democracy of this country has been silenced and the process has been given a black eye.

Welcome to Corporate Fascist Amerika. I am at a loss for words…

UPDATE: from The Las Vegas Sun

Kucinich decries GE-media conspiracy

At 5:25 p.m., shortly after the Nevada Supreme Court refused to give Dennis Kucinich a seat at the debate, a small band of his supporters marched to a far corner of a parking lot outside the Cashman Center, where supporters of the three major candidates.

Spectators soon realized that Kucinich was among them. He said:

“The fact of the matter is, NBC is owned by General Electric. General Electric makes power plants. General Electric wants to make sure there is a place to dump the waste.”

He was talking about nuclear waste and the now shuttered Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site northwest of Las Vegas. Kucinich has joined the state of Nevada in opposing the dump. Thus, he said, GE is trying to keep him off the air.

“Now the media has become an issue in this campaign by trying to determine who should be in this debate,” he said.

The Cleveland congressman said he will fight for changes to Federal Communications Commission law to ensure that future candidates can participate in debates. “This underlying corruption is something that undermines our democracy. I’m asking you to continue our efforts to stand up and speak.”

Kucinich has been allowed to participate in all but one of the Democratic debates. He was barred from the Las Vegas debate by NBC after poor showings in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests.

UPDATE II: Dennis Kucinich is LIVE WEBCASTING HERE! If its right, it starts in a couple minutes. (8:05 PM PST)

“The last Soldier killed”

A follow-up to this TPZoo story and this duplicate one on Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee).

Here’s a way for a Congressperson to bring even more attention to their callousness:

Staff for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who could not name the last soldier from her district killed in Iraq during an appearance on MSNBC, acknowledged they sought a retraction from the network after the incident occurred.

…

David Shuster challenged Blackburn to name the last soldier killed in the Iraq War from her district. After naming Private Jeremy S. Bohannon, many conservative media outlets slammed Shuster for broadcasting inaccurate information because Bohannon had actually been a constituent of Democratic Tennessee Rep. John Tanner.

Dan Abrams, general manager of MSNBC, demanded that Shuster apologize for something that apparently wasn’t an error after all.

But perhaps we should expect this type of behavior from Abrams.

HT: Atrios, twice.

~ Egreggious