Cenk hosting today. Americans for Prosperity ads are being responded to by Harry Reid and Democratic Super PAC ads like Senate Majority PAC. Videos of Joe Scarborough going off on Sen Reid and Democrats for criticizing the Koch Brothers and their extraordinary spending tactics. This move tells him that they are devoid of all ideas to win midterm elections. Morning Joe also brought up the money the Kochs gave to the arts and cancer research as a reason not to attack them. Videos of Conservatives calling the Obamas anti-American. Old video of Obama from 2002 talking about how he vehemently opposes a dumb war, the proposed war in Iraq. New video has Obama defending how America dealt with our invasion of Iraq as opposed to the way Russia is behaving with the sovereign country of Ukraine. The top Al Qaeda official we’ve ever pursued has been prosecuted in American court. He is also the nephew of Osama bin Laden. Scary Chart Time. The myth of trickle down economics. Since 1999 when business was booming from 1983, the rest of the country’s income has plummeted while the richest continue to do make record profits. The culprit was money in politics, which allowed these big businesses to rig the game. After Qatar got the rights to the World Cup in 2022, they began their plans to build massive, state of the art, air conditioned stadiums to accommodate the world. Since they don’t have enough workers to complete the task, the country brought in workers to fulfill the job, but many have been dying at an alarming rate. These workers were basically slaves, forced to live in horrific conditions, and not allowed to leave. Jimmy Carter spoke to NBC News about how he’s worried about his emails being monitored by the NSA, so he sends letters through snail mail. NSA head Keith Alexander denied the allegations, kind of. Carter also revealed that President Obama is the only president that hasn’t reached out to him for help or advice. Hillary Clinton is continuing her prep to run for President in 2016 by giving foreign policy speeches, going hard against Putin and Iran. The establishment continues to doubt the chances that Bill De Blasio’s Lib policies will work and be accepted. In reality, he’s already fulfilled a few progressive promises that help everyday New Yorkers.
Hour 1 source articles
Obama: Don’t compare Ukraine invasion to Iraq
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-ukrainian-invasion-not-iraq
‘Morning Joe’ Still Doesn’t Understand Why Harry Reid Is Going After The Koch Brothers
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/morning-joe-harry-reid-koch-brothers
Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law found guilty of conspiring to kill Americans
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/osama-bin-laden-son-in-law-found-guilty
NSA Head Fires Back at Jimmy Carter for Claiming the NSA’s Monitoring Him
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nsa-head-fires-back-at-jimmy-carter-for-claiming-the-nsas-monitoring-him/
Jimmy Carter believes the NSA monitors his e-mails
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/23/jimmy-carter-believes-the-nsa-monitors-his-e-mails/comment-page-6/
Comments
To be fair to the Koch brothers, I think Harry Reid calling them “un-American” is pretty stupid too. It’s a childish level of criticism, and besides, the Koch brothers are totally American, we’re a flawed, capitalistic, self-centered, materialistic country and people today. I think they’re appropriate representatives of our ethos.
The real problem re: Senator Reid and Morning Joe is all thisinformation sewage being pumped into people’s homes by network and cable television. Thank God for the Internet. As long as we don’t drive our civilization into an irreversible collapse before then, soon there won’t be Cable TV, there will only be Internet TV. Top-down news sharing systems are inevitably inferior to bottom-up and p2p news sharing systems.
I agree. The left gets so focused on the hypocrisy of the right that they end up condemning the same actions and beliefs of their opponents. Yes, it’s fun to point out that neocons engage in private sexual behavior that they may condemn others on the left for, however, I believe such people are reinforcing those criticisms by using them back against those who criticize in the first place.
I’m unequivocal on the issue, for instance, that the private behavior and/or beliefs of politicians and store owners is of no concern of mine nor any of my business. I DO vote with my pocketbook, but I rather look at the way a business operates rather than the way the owners exercise their basic human right of free speech and association.
If those on the left are going to assert that it is not right to accuse somebody of being un-American because they disagree with their own position, they shouldn’t ape that poor behavior.
Mika Brzezinski’s visibly growing disgust at Joe’s bullshit is my favorite part of Morning Joe.
Shut the fuck up about Crimea being mostly ethnically russian, it doesn’t mean you can go and take it by force or excuse it in any way. So unless you’re trying to excuse it even a little stfu about it.
Let’s be real here, did Osama bin Laden’s nephew stand ANY chance of not being convicted? He was guilty until proven innocent as soon as they heard his last name.
Of course not, I personally believe the trial and the underlying charges to be absurd. However, the thing that the right is concerned with a standard jury is the appeals process. Now that a jury of his “peers” has convicted him on weak evidence, groups of lawyers can come forward and restore fairness after the fact.
You could also argue (re: US vs Russia) that what the US did by going through the UN was more destructive than what the USSR… sorry, Russia did, by undermining the legitimacy and authority of the UN. But these are meaningless distinctions.
Both were equally wrong in what they did.
Cenk is mostly right on Obama’s Iraq to Ukraine comparison. Slight corrections:
1) The fact that Crimea reunited with Russia (unlike Iraq, which did not become 51st State) is difference, but in positive way, because people were waiting for this for decades. People finally had direct democracy on their future. Desi Doyen’s co-host Brad Friedman has made research that get through incredible spin and propaganda on claims about referendum being “rigged” — claims coming mostly from this air — in his “How Legitimate is Crimea’s ‘96.7%’ Referendum Result?” article (honest conclusion: of course, it was not anywhere perfect referendum, but it was mostly fairly accurate, basing on actual field reports). I am not posting link because I am not sure this comment system allows it.
2) what is even more importantly — and, ultimately, this is what I care the most — Putin didn’t bomb Ukraine or Crimea, it was generally amicable to population (one of the reasons for that is swastika-happy Kiev’s junta members; people were scared to be at their mercy, including 35 000 Russia citizens). The only casualty exception was a week ago when a third-party sniper has killed one Cossack from Crimea self-defense and one Ukraine soldier; both parties were intentionally unarmed and say they did not shoot at each other.
As I always wrote, Cenk’s general point is correct: Crimea rejoining Russia is destabilizing and legally moot, just as Kosovo case. I am against both cases, but I have to admit that people’s wishes were granted in both cases, which have the same underlying general legal basis, UNO’s International Court: “No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to declarations of independence,” and “General international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence.” The Written Statement of the United States America of April 17, 2009 “Declarations of independence may, and often do, violate domestic legislation. However, this does not make them violations of international law.” (Before Crimea has rejoined Russia, their parliament voted for declaration of independence.)
On Carter interview segment: besides reasons why Obama does not contact him that Cenk listed, one major one he did not is that Obama in reality is right-winger, he has no interests in Carter whatsoever. By the way, the current right-wing Obama who defends war in Iraq is real one, not the one who was strongly against it many years ago (it was purely political, as well as most of Obama’s “progressive” stances).
It’s completely bullshit that “people where waiting to join Russia for decades”. Some few where, but not a majority. In fact, earlier polls showed that less than 40% wanted Crimea to join Russia. The referendum was of course a joke. But people fall for the russian propaganda. You know where 96.7% might have been an accurate result? In Chechnya. But it’s not like Putin would “listen to the people” there.
The comparison to Kosovo is absurd. The people of Crimea wasn’t slaughtered. There was no ethnic cleansing of Russians from Crimea.
1. By far majority; read Brad Friedman’s “How Legitimate is Crimea’s ’96.7%’ Referendum Result?” article. You field international media reporters called it: “The first vote against rejoining Russia that I’ve seen. History!” (UK’s Channel 4 by evening of referendum day) or “I haven’t found 1 person who voted against Russia” (Al Jazeera America). And no wonder since majority of Crimeans are Russians, and even Ukrainians there always thought Crimea was Russia. And since almost all of them only speak Russian, they hated Kiev’s junta attack against their mother language, too.
2. Chechnya got to vote back in 2003, and people decided to stay with Russia, because moderate Muslims and Putin have defeated head-chopping Wahhabi terrorist tyranny state that was in power there for years. The war was long and bloody, but now people feel much better with moderate Muslim rulers, and they are well finances as Russia has invested equivalent of tens of billions of USD in Chechnya.
3. Of course, every case is different, but initial Kosovo referendum was held long before any people were slaughtered and the West LOVED it. And UNO’s International Court’s statements have nothing to do specifically with Kosovo case anyway, as anyone can see from the quotes: it is about general prevalence of international law over local laws, as well as about general legality of unilateral declarations of independence. And THANKS GOD people were not slaughtered, because there was no way Crimea would recognize power of illegal junta, which has tried to subjugate the region to its power. With radicals and neo-Nazi in the junta, the concerns for possible bloody conflict was real, and it is good that it was avoided.
You can’t hold a referendum on occupied land and with the ballot looking like it did (no status quo option, etc.), so it’s irrelevant how many percent voted for what.
BTW. Interesting that the extreme right only get <3% in polls for the upcoming Ukrainian election. Wasn't Ukraine filled with Nazis?
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2014/03/26/7020392/?attempt=1
You're just regurgitating Russian propaganda.
1. Kosovo and Hawaii, among others, were “occupied”, as it was perfectly fine.
2. Exact status quo is not requirement for such referendums. Crimea’s second option was about 1992’s Constitution, which does not allow joining Russia (the more so Crimea has already lived under that constitution from 1992 to 1995 and it was not part of Russia then by any degree). And why anyone people have option to stay with Ukraine with LESS democracy than they could anyway? Finally, considering the ballot results, this matter is purely rhetorical; most of people wanted Crimea to reunite with Russia.
3. I never once wrote that “Ukraine is filled with Nazis”, so you just made up a point to win it against yourself. On the contrary, I wrote that Kiev’s coup d’etat was not only illegal and undemocratic to Ukrainian people, just 40% of whom support pro-EU route (as of December nationwide poll), but also undemocratic to most of Maidan protestors who were never violent and never wanted radicals and neo-Nazi taking so much power in the junta (Svoboda party only took 5% in the last elections).
1. Those referendums don’t have any similarities with the Crimea one. Besides, the “They did it first!” argument isn’t a very good one so you can stop using that.
2. Making sure the referendum is fair is a requirement if you want it to have any sort of legitimacy and to have it reflect true public opinion. In Crimea it was undemocratic to say the least. Statements like “most of people wanted Crimea to reunite with Russia” are pure propaganda, you can’t use a faux “referendum” as a base for such claims.
3. I never claimed that you wrote that. I wanted your comment on that article since you and the rest of the Russian propagandists claim Nazis are in control of Ukraine.
You don’t seem to know the slightest thing about democracy, and if you’re Russian that’s understandable, so here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
You have NO idea what you’re talking about. A lot of words and no truth.
I have provided concrete arguments, and you only a denial. How readers of this discussion suppose to take anything useful from such input?