In a year of highs and lows, and plenty of circus like atmosphere and drama, two of the biggest pleasant surprises for MSNBC in 2010 were the late blooming success of The Ed Show, and the immediate success of The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell. Let’s take a look at two of MSNBC’s bright spots for the year.
Anti-choice advocates in Mississippi have begun to advance so-called Personhood Amendments to attack birth-control, abortion, cloning, and stem-cell research.
In response to the federal investigation launched into the allegation that she used $20,000 of campaign funds to pay for her own living expenses, Christine O’Donnell has lost the last thread of sanity that she had left. O’Donnell did her best to keep the cash flowing by claiming that the left is out to get her, while forgetting that it was her own Republican campaign staff that outed her for misuse of funds. In short, Christine O’Donnell is bat shit crazy.
The latest Gallup poll on President Obama’s job approval rating contained an interesting nugget of information. After two years on the job, Barack Obama’s approval rating is higher than that of two recent presidents who had big reelection victories, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. One term Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, and post-9/11 president George W. Bush had higher ratings than Obama at the halfway mark.
In an interview with Rolling Stone about receiving the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement, outlaw country legend Merle Haggard reflected on meeting President Obama. He blasted “the media,” for making up and spreading lies about Obama, “It was also nice to meet Obama and find him very different from the media makeout. It’s really almost criminal what they do with our President.” It is obvious that Haggard was talking about Fox News.
According to the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll, President Obama’s latest string of legislative victories including the ratification of the START treaty and repeal of DADT have resulted in people coming back to the President. The number of Americans who want the Democrats to renominate Obama is at its highest level of the year, while the number of Americans who want someone else has dropped.
The bad news keeps coming for MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. The 2010 ratings data is starting to trickle in, and the news is not so great for the Countdown host. In a down year for cable news where all three networks registered a decline in viewers, Keith Olbermann lost 11% of his total audience, but what is most troubling is that among the coveted age 25-54 demographic Olbermann lost 25% of his audience.
Senior White House adviser Valarie Jarrett was on NBC’s Meet The Press today where she offered up an interesting New Year’s resolution for President Obama and the White House. Jarrett said they are going to get the president out more to listen and engage with the American people, “It’s really what gives him his energy and his strength, and so we’re determined in the new year to make sure that his schedule reflects that priority.”
President Obama seems to have a hint of President Theodore Roosevelt in him, here. President Theodore Roosevelt stood with American families and small business when he took on the monopolies and trusts. It seems that President Obama is doing the same with health insurance companies. We must hold these companies accountable.
Every year, the President of the United States delivers a Christmas message. Some are good. Some are bad, but on this Christmas Day we take a look back at the 5 best presidential quotes about Christmas. In the spirit of the season, these quotes aren’t ranked. Please enjoy them, and have a Merry Christmas.
Even though women lean towards the Democrats more than any other party, a small minority of the left has become embroiled in a conspiracy theory regarding the accusation of sexual assault against Julian Assange. This radical group has sought to trample decades of Democratic Party advocacy on behalf of women by smearing the two possible victims of Assange. These Assange Truthers believe that the women are not victims but part of an international plot to bring Assange down.
On her MSNBC program last night Rachel Maddow highlighted an often overlooked fact concerning the presidency of Barack Obama. Maddow said, “By my estimation it is halftime, right, in the first term and with this vote tomorrow they will have gone 85% of the distance they said they wanted to go in the first term of the president.”
According to the new CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll, confidence is growing among Americans that President Obama’s policies will move the nation in the right direction. 55% of those surveyed believe that Obama will lead us in the right direction compared to 51% who believe that Republican policies will lead the US in the WRONG direction. Most importantly, the poll revealed that Obama, not the GOP is being given the political credit for the tax cut deal.
Main Street conservatives need to wake up to the fact that, the Republican politicians do not fight for you. They fight for Wall Street and Big Corporations who throw your neighbors onto the street. Wall Street has a plan to make working class Americans, whether your liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican economically irrelevant. The point is, if your working class, Wall Street doesn’t need you or better yet DOESN’T WANT YOU and neither does Corporate America.
Senate Republicans are scrambling to come up with excuses for why they once again filibustered against the 9/11 First Responders health care bill: There were other issues more pressing. There’s no deadline – the bill can be looked at next year. We need to concentrate on the taxes and the budget. The bill is too expensive. The spending needs to be offset. I had to go home (Sam Brownback). I don’t remember whether I’m for the bill or against it (really, Orrin Hatch?).
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh accused anyone who celebrated the repeal of DADT of hating the military. Limbaugh asked, “By the way, isn’t it revealing my friends, the same people who have only shown hatred and contempt for the US military are the ones celebrating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as a great historic accomplishment?”
In a charity campaign aimed at helping school lunch programs in the U.S.A, GAP is promoting FEED USA bags. These bags cost between $19.50 and $39.50. For each bag you purchase, GAP donates $5 to school lunch programs in the United States. It sounds good until you realize that GAP decided to sell bags “Made in China” for just under $40.00 and donate $5 to FEED USA.
Vice President Joe Biden was on NBC’s Meet The Press today, where he gave his own opinion on Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Biden said of Wikileaks, “I would argue that it’s closer to being a high tech terrorist than, than the Pentagon Papers.”
They call it Civil War Politics, and the death of it may be one of the only positive things to come out of the recession in Ireland. The term does not exactly conjure appealing images in the mind’s eye.
Rachel Maddow was on MSNBC providing analysis of the Senate’s vote to repeal DADT, when she pointed out that today’s vote is a huge victory President Obama, and one that the base should reward him for. Maddow said, “This was a difficult promise to keep, not just a promise kept, it was one that was hard to keep that cost a lot of political capital and a lot of work, and this is the President’s victory and his base will reward him for it.”
A lot has been said about our founding fathers in recent years. The tea party has all of a sudden become historical scholars. They have become the defenders of our Country and our Constitution. Glenn Beck is their proverbial historical professor. Unfortunately their knowledge is fairly limited to specifically what their Fox News comrade regurgitates, which inaccurately represents the true views of the Founding Fathers.
It is important that President Obama communicates to the American people his attempts at compromise and bipartisanship because it will expose the Republicans as the obstructionists they really are.
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh actually argued that the rich did not benefit from the compromise to extend the Bush tax cuts. Limbaugh claimed that the government never gives the rich anything, and, “the only giveaway is welfare. The only giveaway is our social programs. The rich are not given anything by our government.”
On his MSNBC program Keith Olbermann mocked the bomb that is Sarah Palin’s latest book America By Heart. Olbermann said, “Even if the book as sold as many copies at Walmart as it has everywhere else combined, you’re looking at 70% of a print run sitting in warehouses waiting to be returned to the publisher.”
In his 1960 work Presidential Power and The Modern Presidents political scientist Richard Neustadt came up with the classic concept that despite all of the formal powers and statutory and constitutional authority granted to the office, any President of the United States’ power is basically limited to the ability to persuade.
On her MSNBC program Rachel Maddow recently sat America down and tried to explain to them how Republicans have managed to break the US Senate by abusing the filibuster. Maddow said, “Since they lost the Senate they have turned it into a stronghold for their own party by using power the senate minority is usually entrusted not to abuse. They’ve used that power to break the institution.”
In the spirit of Christmas, Glenn Beck will be bringing his radio and TV shows to economically devastated Wilmington, Ohio tomorrow, and he is even inviting residents to join him at his radio show taping. Of course, Beck being the populist that he is, will be charging the residents of a county where unemployment is at 15.8% $125 to attend.
On the surface, the purpose of Sarah Palin’s visit to Haiti appeared to be to draw attention to the plight of Haitians, but the reality is that Palin is drawing attention to herself and her need of Graham’s evangelical religious-right voting bloc. If Palin was the Christian she claimed, she would give all her money to help the afflicted without asking for attention or recompense, but a pimp’s primary concern is making money and drawing attention to themselves.
On his MSNBC program Countdown, Keith Olbermann exposed how Rupert Murdoch and his New York Post have betrayed their own war on Christmas by turning their backs on baby Jesus in order to promote the worship of Santa Claus. Olbermann said, “William Donohue and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, traditional combatants in the war on Christmas have trained their yuletide guns on someone not for failing to put the Christ back in Christmas but for failing to worship Santa Claus.”
According to a new poll released today by Bloomberg, Sarah Palin’s favorable rating continues to plummet, while her unfavorable rating skyrockets. Only 33% of Americans have a favorable view of Palin compared to 57% who hold an unfavorable view of her. The only other figure on the poll who was as unpopular as Palin was former president George W. Bush, and even Bush is more popular than Palin.
Tonight’s “special episode†of Sarah Palin’s Alaska focused on showcasing Sarah Palin rugged “outdoors woman†as she took novice camper/ fellow reality show diva Kate Gosselin on a camping trip, but what resulted was more evidence that Palin is as clueless about the outdoors as she is about politics.
Lately there has been a lot of talk in liberal circles about mounting a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012, but on CBS’ Face The Nation today, Howard Dean explained why primarying Obama is a terrible idea, “The history of people running against Presidents in their own party as the challenger, you lose and then the President is weakened and loses.”
The left and the left of left are at each other’s throats, locked in a battle of high minded principles versus bread and butter pragmatism. Divided over whether President Obama is a skilled negotiator who had to make a bad deal in order to protect the unemployed and the middle class, or a weak leader who caved in to hostage takers. If there was ever a time when we could use a common enemy, it’s now. Oh sure, Sarah Palin is still out there, fluttering and twittering around. But with her book sales flagging and her reality show ratings down, she just isn’t the polarizing figure we need right now.
A new McClatchy-Marist poll was released today and it contained some that should give both the White House and President a cause for concern as they implement the President’s new centrist strategy. According to the poll, Obama’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of 42%. This decline is being fueled by a near doubling in his disapproval rating among Democrats.
Recently, Congressman Steve King stood on the steps of the U.S. capital and accused a group of African American farmers of being frauds and drug addicts. He called their class-action lawsuits – which showed that black farmers were denied federal loans that were given to white farmers – “slavery reparations.” And he blamed it all on President Obama, for being so “very, very urban.”
President Obama was on NPR’s Morning Edition Friday discussing the compromise on the Bush tax cuts when in response to a listener’s question about how keeping the tax cut for the rich will create jobs Obama said, “It doesn’t, which is why I was opposed to it — and I’m still opposed to it.” Obama admitted that he had to compromise because if he didn’t he felt that the economic recovery would be endangered.”
After President Obama’s press conference announcing a deal with Republicans on tax cuts, the left exploded with such ferocity and divisiveness that it’s no wonder conservatives always win. While the left demonizes Obama as a sellout for making the best out of losing situation for the majority of Americans, and you can be certain that conservatives are licking their chops watching the left cannibalize President Obama for governing from the center; it is short-sighted and arrogant to believe otherwise.
Sarah Palin took to her Twitter account today to show her displeasure with the Obama/GOP compromise on the Bush tax cuts. The result was a bit of classic Palin Twitter gibberish where she both criticized Obama and urged fiscal conservatives to fight. Who or what they will be fighting is a mystery even to Sarah Palin.
While speaking in Virginia last night, Sarah Palin’s mini-me Christine O’Donnell compared the extension of unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans to Pearl Harbor. O’Donnell said, “Tragedy comes in threes, Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards’s passing and Barack Obama’s announcement of extending the tax cuts, which is good, but also extending the unemployment benefits.”
President Obama held a press conference to defend the compromise that he reached with the Republicans on a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts in exchange for a long term extension of unemployment benefits. In response to critics of the deal, the President dared Republicans to test his willingness to fight, “I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I’m itching for a fight on a whole range of issues. I suspect they will find I am.”
It has become a popular theme in the media lately that the presidency of Barack Obama is doomed because the coalition that supported him in 2008 has shattered under the weight of disappointment and anger, but the facts tell a different tale. Polling tells us that Obama remains wildly popular with African-Americans, Liberals, Democrats, Latinos, Voters 18-29, and women. In short, the Obama coalition is alive and well.
Gallup has released their 2010 poll of the most popular presidents of the last 50 years. While the two names at the top, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, should surprise no one, George W. Bush made his first appearance on the list, and promptly established himself as the least popular living former president.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was on Meet The Press today where he managed to take the rhetoric on Wikileaks and Julian Assanage to whole new level, by labeling Assange a terrorist. McConnell said, “I think the man is a high-tech terrorist. He’s done an enormous damage to our country.”
Despite standing up in front of the media and proclaiming their outrage over the possibility of compromising with Republicans on the issue of extending the Bush tax cuts, Senate Democrats again demonstrated their ineptitude by not being able to get the support of the entire caucus for limiting the tax cuts to total income of $250,000 or less. The all talk no unity Democrats have now forced the same compromise that they claim to hate.
On a day when the US unemployment rate rose to 9.8%, Rush Limbaugh used his radio show to argue that poor people should not be allowed to vote. While commenting about a piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about people lining up for housing assistance, Limbaugh asked, ” If people can’t even feed and clothe themselves should they be allowed to vote? Should they be voting?”
Money may not be able to buy Sarah Palin popularity, but it has bought her the illusion of popularity. As they did with her first book “Going Rogue,” Palin’s own PAC and right wing outlets like Newsmax have been buying Palin’s latest book “America By Heart” in order to push her up the bestseller list. Palin’s #2 New York Times bestseller ranking is a fraud.
The children of undocumented immigrants didn’t have a choice in where they would grow up. Their parents made the decision for them. But most children of undocumented immigrants who grow up in the U.S. love their hometowns and this country, even though we don’t treat them right. This is why the Dream Act is not only vital to the Hispanic community, but also an important first step towards true immigration reform.
Glenn Beck recently celebrated the fact that millions of people will lose their unemployment benefits by Christmas, by using his Fox News program to call the idea that the poor are suffering a lie. Beck labeled the poor greedy and said, “What’s poverty in America today? Well, we just want our stuff.”
It turns out that Joe Scarborough’s criticism of Sarah Palin in a column for Politico today was just the tip of the iceberg. On his MSNBC program Morning Joe, Scarborough exposed the truth about the right and Sarah Palin. Talk radio hosts and Republican leaders privately say they don’t want her, but they are afraid to take her on. Scarborough basically accused the talk show hosts, who defend Palin for 3 hours a day on the air but don’t really support her, of lying.
On his radio show today Glenn Beck and co-host Pat Gray made what could perhaps be labeled as their most fantastic claim yet. They claimed that Fox News is crawling with liberals, “How many liberals does Fox have on the network? Many. Not just guests either, there are some who actually host programs.”
While appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. John McCain continued to carry 2012 water for Sarah Palin by actually comparing her to former president Ronald Reagan. McCain said, “I think that anybody who has the visibility that Sarah has is obviously going to have some divisiveness. I remember that a guy named Ronald Reagan used to be viewed by some as divisive.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was discussing the latest conflict between North and South Korea on CNN’s State of the Union today, when he returned to the neo-con siren song of regime change, “I think it’s time we — yes. I think it’s time we talked about regime change in North Korea, and I do not mean military action.” Of course, McCain really means military action. How else could the most isolated regime in the world be removed?
So it has finally happened. It has been called the blackest day in Irish history and the fall of the Irish Republic: after a tumultuous series of denials, spin and secret discussions, the IMF and the European Union has intervened to try to stop the death spiral of the Irish economy.
In politics everything happens for a reason. There are very few coincidences, which has become evident once again by the furor over new TSA screening procedures and equipment. Beneath the emotional outrage there is a policy battle taking place on the battlefield of public emotion, and the Obama administration’s reluctance to engage in this realm has resulted in more criticism for the President.
As the furor and outrage boils over TSA security measures, it is interesting how the left and the right are in agreement over perceived intrusion and invasion of privacy. It doesn’t matter that the controversy is a conservative fabrication, it just matters that there is a reason to rail on the Obama Administration.
On his radio show today, Glenn Beck continued his assault on the liberalism of It’s A Wonderful Life by claiming that the Christmas classic has no liberal values. Beck said, “Progressive is about going past the Constitution, and having people at a government level babysit people because they’re all too stupid. That’s the opposite message…
Poor Glenn Beck just can’t let go of his jealousy of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Today on his Fox News program, Beck went on the attack against Stewart and Colbert by claiming that they keep people in denial. He said, “What better way to keep people sheep then making sure that people get their news from a comedian?….Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, that’s not news. That’s a monologue. That’s jokes.”
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh suggested that President Barack Obama prove that the new TSA screening procedures are safe by taking his daughter to the airport and, “How about Obama take his daughter to the airport, and have a TSA groper go through the exact routine for Obama’s daughter that everybody else’s daughter goes through?”
On his radio show today, while responding to Jimmy Carter’s claim that Glenn Beck and Fox distort the news, Beck stated that Comcast has marked MSNBC and Keith Olbermann for death. Beck said, “MSNBC is marked for death. Comcast is going to run it like a business…It won’t feature Keith Olbermann and they know that.”
Former President Jimmy Carter was on CNN’s Reliable Sources today where he took aim at both Fox News and Glenn Beck for what he described as deliberately distorting the news. Carter said,”The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news.” Here is the video courtesy of…
Yet another example of how Fox News is revving up their Republican campaign machine for Sarah Palin occurred on Hannity last night when Sean Hannity claimed that, “I think Gov. Palin, if they keep up with this radical agenda will clean Obama’s clock.” That’s a nice fairy tale for Sean Hannity to spin, but let’s take a look at what will really happen if Barack Obama meets up with Sarah Palin in 2012.
It was only a matter of time before the culture of paranoia and fear that dominates the Republican Party turned inwards and started attacking its own, as it seems that Glenn Beck’s weeks of fear mongering about George Soros have come home to roost in the form of allegations that Sarah Palin is really a sham candidate. She is a puppet set to do Soros’ bidding if she wins the Republican nomination in 2012.
After a tough six months which culminated in Republicans taking control of the US House and picking up Senate seats in the 2010 election, many started to ask if President Barack Obama was destined to be a one termer, but something interesting has happened. Instead of crushing Obama the defeat has resurrected him, and according to the new NBC/WSJ survey, Obama is at his most popular point since May.
First, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann returned from suspension, and now the most popular segment on his Countdown program The Worst Person In The World will make its return this evening. In response to a question about the segment Olbermann Tweeted, “We haven’t done the segment in three weeks. It returns tonight.”
John McCain is a war hero, and advocates permanent wars regardless the cost in lives and drain on the economy. He also knows that allowing gays to serve in the military is wrong, regardless that a majority of Americans, the Pentagon, and service members support repealing DADT. McCain also doesn’t want an end to the war in Afghanistan because he has gross memory loss regarding the Iraq war.
On her MSNBC program last night Rachel Maddow took on one of the great myths of American politics that banning earmarks is the same as cutting spending. Maddow called the Republican position on the earmark ban what it really is. According to Maddow the Republican earmark ban is an, “epic quest to seem fiscally responsible without actually being fiscally responsible.”
American defense spending in 2007 alone amounted to just over half of what was spent in the entire world. In 2008 it was close to 70%. It hasn’t declined appreciably since. I will ask again: Who is going to attack the United States?
With the NBC/Comcast merger on the horizon and reports about the infighting at MSNBC surrounding Keith Olbermann becoming more numerous there is real danger lurking on the horizon for Keith Olbermann at MSNBC. If Olbermann fans thought their job was done after the Countdown host returned from suspension last week, they best get prepared because the battle has just begun.
It is just days before TLC’s heavily hyped Sarah Palin’s Alaska debuts, and Gallup released a new poll today which showed that 52% of Americans have a negative view of Palin. She has a negative rating of 83% among Democrats and 53% with Independents. Republicans gave Palin an 80% approval rating, but it is awfully tough to be president or even a reality TV star, when over half of America hates you.
Sure, 113 GOP women challenged incumbents compared to 80 Democrats but the Democrats had a 46 percent success rate compared to only 28 for the Republicans. And Democrat women still far outnumber Republican women in Congress.
Jon Stewart sat down for a great interview with Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show. Stewart described to Maddow what he thinks is the brilliance of Fox News, “I think the brilliance of fox news, and they delegitimized the idea of editorial authority while exercising incredible editorial authority.” How Fox News has managed to take any criticism and label it as persecution.
Poor Glenn Beck can’t stop being bested by Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. First, Colbert and Stewart blew Beck’s rally on the National Mall out of the water with the Rally to Restore Sanity, and now they are beating Beck in Time magazine’s reader poll for 2010 person of the year.
You hear a lot of talk about the evils of big government and federal regulations but damned if both groups don’t like a healthy dollop of regulation as well. Ultra-conservatives want the government to regulate our sex lives and ultra-liberals want the government to regulate what we can eat.
The pre-2012 presidential rumblings continue to come from the direction of reality television star Sarah Palin, as last night in Bucks County, PA when asked about running for president, Palin stole a line from Hillary Clinton and said, “I would be in it to win it.” Sarah Palin has moved on from being the reincarnated Ronald Reagan to now pretending to be Hillary Clinton.
Keith Olbermann returned from the world’s shortest indefinite suspension tonight, and he delivered a very professional and classy apology on Countdown. Olbermann said, “I owe you three apologies. Foremost for having subjected you to this drama. Another by having not known by observation since it is not in the contract for not making political donations although any rule like that probably isn’t legal.”
According to a new Gallup poll released today, President Obama has been helped by the midterm election that his party suffered. Obama has actually seen his approval rating rise by 4 points to 47%. Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton saw their approval ratings fall after their parties lost control of Congress. Obama could…
Despite managing to anger Keith Olbermann’s audience by suspending the Countdown anchor, MSNBC actually reaped the benefits of much higher than normal Friday night rating for Countdown. 1.2 million viewers tuned in to MSNBC at 8 PM on Friday night. This represents a 20%-33% increase over Countdown’s usual Friday night performance.
The soap opera of the suspension of Keith Olbermann ended with a whimper as MSNBC President Phil Griffin put out a Sunday night statement announcing that Olbermann will be back on Tuesday. Once again Keith Olbermann showed everyone who the real powerful force at MSNBC is, and it isn’t Phil Griffin.
Republicans belie their belief in fiscal responsibility when they insist on giving unfunded tax cuts to the wealthy. Enter the poor, unemployed, and working-class Americans. Republicans and teabags label unemployment benefits an entitlement just like they call Social Security and Medicare welfare. Their goal is to privatize Social programs so Wall Street can prosper, and take away unemployment benefits to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
The twist and turns keep coming in the saga of Keith Olbermann’s suspension, with the latest being that Countdown was suspended for refusing to apologize on the air for his political donations. Instead of a rules violation, what we have here is a power play between MSNBC and their top anchor. If the network holds firm, Olbermann could be sitting at home for a long, long time.
Joe McGinniss is now suing Sarah the pedophile hunter, or rather, the network promoting Sarah’s public image as a 2012 candidate, TLC, a subsidiary of the Discovery Channel for invasion of privacy and is demanding to be removed from the reality show over due to “unauthorized videotaped images of Mr. McGinniss which were obtained without his knowledge or consent.” Who can miss the irony of “discovery” in this context? Discovery will be had if TLC doesn’t back down after infringing upon Joe’s privacy rights.
Emboldened by their midterm victories, Republicans are already back to warmongering. Having invaded and conquered Iraq (where 50,000 U.S. troops remain to buttress the new government) and mired down in an endless war in Afghanistan, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) now wants to attack Iran.
News of Keith Olbermann’s indefinite suspension has been met with a show of support for the MSNBC anchor from both the worlds of news and politics. Not only have MSNBC colleagues Rachel Maddow and substitute Thomas Roberts voiced their support, but also Sen. Bernie Sanders and former CNN anchors Rick Sanchez and Aaron Brown have chimed in on Olbermann behalf.
These ideologically-motivated refusals are perhaps not such a bright idea when you stop to think about it. The problem being of course, that not many people stopped to do any thinking leading up to these midterms and Republicans seem to be doing less thinking than most. It all became about rage and ideology. Nobody was thinking in practical terms. So they all decided to have a group foot shoot instead.
On her MSNBC program tonight, Rachel Maddow explained that Keith Olbermann was suspended for breaking a rule that forbids hosts from making political donations without prior approval, but she urged that Olbermann be put back on the air. She thought Olbermann should be held to the rule, but “I also personally believe that the point has been made and we should have Keith back hosting Countdown.”
After hearing from the masses of disgruntled Keith Olbermann fans, the general consensus is that MSNBC overreacted by suspending Olbermann for making political contributions, but a bigger problem for the network is that by announcing that his suspension is indefinite MSNBC freaked out their own viewers. MSNBC has mishandled this and created a massive PR headache for itself.
MSNBC announced today that Countdown host Keith Olbermann has been indefinitely suspended by the network for making political donations to three Democratic congressional candidates. Olbermann said that he didn’t encourage other to donate, but the network suspended him for violating their policy against political donations. This once again proves that MSNBC is not Fox News where the money flows freely to the GOP.
As former President George W. Bush gets set to make the media rounds to promote his memoir, he is being peppered with questions about 2012 and Sarah Palin, but Bush is no Palin fan. In fact, he blames the choice of Palin for losing the 2008 election. According to the New York Daily News, Bush thinks that McCain, “destroyed any chance of winning by picking Palin.”
Lewis Black popped by MSNBC’s Countdown tonight, and he had some thoughts to share on Sarah Palin. Black said that the idea that Palin could be considered a presidential candidate is epically insane, “The whole concept of her doing the reality show is more than — and then to hear them talk about her as a possible candidate for president is — we’ve now reached epic — it’s epically insane.”
On his radio show today Glenn Beck fantasized that Muslim extremists could assassinate President Obama while he visits India because, “If anybody thinks he was a Muslim over here, well God forbid, they think he was a Muslim over there because he left his religion for Christianity, death sentence, behead him.”
Many Americans are asking, “What happened?” In a wonderfully titled article, “What the #!%*?: The U.S. mid-term elections?†the National Post’s Peter Goodspeed asks and answers some very important questions about the midterms.
On his MSNBC program Countdown, Keith Olbermann was recapping some of the stranger moments from last night’s victory and concession speeches when he discussed John Boehner’s leaving his man pants at home and crying at the drop of a hat, “This was set against the context of a republican campaign filled with demands from conservatives about manliness and manning up. Ladies and gentlemen, the new weeper of the house.”
It was surprising to read the despair and shock from the left this morning. But what hurts more than all of this, my liberal friends, is how the liberal base stabbed themselves in the back while complaining about how the Democrats never handle power well.
During his press conference this afternoon, President Obama took responsibility for the Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives. He said, “So there is not only sadness about seeing them go but there is also a lot of questioning on my part in terms of could I have done something differently or done something more, so that those folks could still be here. It’s hard, and I take responsibility for it in a lot of ways.”
The finger pointing has already begun in the Republican Party due to their failure to win the US Senate last night. Republicans had a golden opportunity to take control of Congress, but they failed, and the blame for this failure should fall on the shoulders of one person. Sarah Palin’s meddling in the races in Nevada, Delaware, and Alaska likely cost the GOP the United States Senate.
A recently published study of male and female voters done by the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University revealed that while both men and women are likely to vote for the most competent candidate, men are more likely to vote for attractive female candidates, and women are likely to support the more approachable candidate.
Americans go to the polls today in spite of main stream media reports that Republicans and Tea Party candidates swept every race. Usually it is only Fox News that tells their audience what the results of elections will be in advance of an election, but in this election cycle, real journalists are jumping on the Republican bandwagon in a big way.
Today is the day we go to vote in the 2010 midterm elections. The results of this election will reverberate far beyond our localities; they will affect the entire country and indeed, the entire world.
On his Fox News program today Glenn Beck claimed that while Jon Stewart’s rally had been co-opted by the left, he still wished him luck with rally and then jumped on the Jon Stewart bandwagon by saying, “Jon we disagree on a great many things, but I don’t think we disagree of the type of people that we need to be as individual Americans.”
Jon Stewart managed to do something with his Rally to Restore Sanity that hasn’t been done in a long time. He confused the mainstream media to the point of a near collective nervous breakdown. The media couldn’t figure out what this rally was about, and it was only when Stewart explained it to them that they realized that it was about them.
