Ben and John hosting. Tensions are beginning to lessen with Putin saying that he is moving his troops away from the Ukraine border. A reported 162,402 deaths has occurred in the latest civil war in Syria as an upcoming election is nearly at hand. The Balkans is undergoing record flooding with water reaching up to 2-3 meters in some areas with the possibility of unexploded land mines being forced to the surface. In Libya, Gen Hifter has defected from the military along with the suspension of the Libyan parliament. In Mississippi Political blogger, Clayton Thomas Kelly,was arrested after allegedly trespassing at a nursing home where Senator Thad Cochran’s wife lives and posted a picture of Cochran’s wife. Cochran’s wife is bedridden and suffering from dementia. In Georgia the latest ad from Republican ,Phil Gingrey, says that his opponent, Karen Handel, supports gay couples and that Phil will repeal Obama care. Senator Ted Cruise’s father gives tips from the Bible on how to vote and says to make sure you don’t “vote for the village idiot.” President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia gives violent anti-gay statements making the African country the latest in anti-gay rhetoric. Video of conservative candidate Jody Hice of Monroe Georgia tries to find the correlation of gay marriage and civil rights.
Hour 1 Source Articles
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Kremlin again says Putin has ordered troops from Ukraine
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/19/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-military-idUSBREA4I04I20140519
Death Toll in Syrian Civil War Tops 160,000: Human Rights Group
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/death-toll-syrian-civil-war-tops-160-000-human-rights-n108831
Floods affect over 1 million in Balkans, destruction ‘terrifying’
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/19/us-balkans-flood-idUSBREA4H04B20140519
Ted Cruz continues to be outcrazied by his dad: ‘The Bible tells you exactly who to vote for’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/19/ted-cruz-continues-to-be-outcrazied-by-his-dad-the-bible-tells-you-exactly-who-to-vote-for/
Activist arrested after photographing Thad Cochran’s bedridden wife
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/activist-arrested-photograph-thad-cochran-wife-106793.html
Comments
With Kingballs, once is not enough.
Jon looks fucking good, better than ever. Don’t know why he was getting so much flack about the haircut.
I know its summer and slow news, but there is plenty of stuff out there to cover with more importance… than Syria.. which yah. it sucks to be Syrian, but it does not mean much .. or anything at all to the average listener of you news..
Please no more Syria or Ukraine.. JUST STOP!
Where was the report on the massacre in Odessa when pro-Maidan activists and Ukrainian nationalists attacked an Occupy type encampment on May 2nd, killing some 40 people; one a pregnant women, another raped and set on fire afterwards. Photographs exist if you want to look as well as video. Was there a single mention of this on TYT? Nope. The worst violence since the Maidan itself, perpetrated by the same nationalist/fascist groups that overthrew the elected government in Kiev by sniping police and protesters alike and TYT says NOTHING about it. If all you watched was TYT for news (don’t be that person) then you would have heard about how Putin won a hockey match 21-6 or something nonsensical.
You guys are honestly TERRIBLE on Ukraine and foreign policy in general, quite disappointing, but hey I love the rest of the show.
On Syria, you guys consistently overlook reports from journalist Seymour Hersh reporting that British intelligence, using samples giving to the Porton Down defense lab, concluded that “the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal..”
There were reports in 2013 that rebel fighters crossing into Syria from the 500-mile Turkish border were caught with sarin gas. We also know that Turkey is very much involved in the conflict in Syria and we know some top officials wanted to do a false flag in Syria so that they could finally militarily intervene. Is it really much of a stretch to think that Turkish military officials could have taught Islamic militants how to make chemical agents since it was very public at the time that that was Obama’s Red Line and told them to start using them and blame it on Assad?
Not so much of a stretch. A US intelligence official is quoted in the article in the London Review of Books (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line) as saying, “We knew there were some in the Turkish government who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.”
If you can bother to read the article, it’s a very interesting read, and includes letters from critics of Hersh (one being the Turkish ambassador to London) and supports alike. Hersh is the reporter credited with breaking the story on the My Lai massacre during Vietnam and the widespread abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib during Iraq.
I enjoyed this berry pie hour. Thanks, John Ben.
If you are going to cover news, give me something interesting I’m not getting from the BBC or CNN. I’d rather hear about Operation American Spring, something funny. I don’t think Cenk would have invested as much time in some of these stories.
If anyone is interested in learning more about Christian evangelists and their influence on governments – like the one in Africa Ben and John were discussing, there is a good book on the subject called “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” by Jeff Sharlet. Here is a link to find it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-American/dp/0060560053/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1400600614&sr=8-4&keywords=the+family
On segment on Ukraine:
While admitting that there is real unrest in the South-East of the country, TYT continues to avoid actual context of what happens there and why, mostly just following Department of State talking points. Also, TYT supports all of USA-supported rebellions everywhere, but condemns Russia-supported rebellion even in case which is dramatically more obvious like in Ukraine, where was USA-supported bloody coup against elected authorities, and people just do not recognize the junta (yes, it is junta, though not military one), and they have EIGHT neo-Nazis that are in there, including all but one force-related positions. AND that junta has sent its neo-Nazi fighters to murder people in Odessa, Mariupol and Krasnoarmeysk.
On Syria:
condemnation of elections there is also DOUBLE STANDARD, because USA have held countless rigged elections in territories it invaded or otherwise controlled, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and now finance crooked “elections” in Ukraine on 25th May, to position that is not even vacant (Ukraine’s legal president was never impeached — not enough votes — and obligatory Constitutional Court hearing were never held as junta cracked down against it). You will NOT find any video of TYT condemning those “elections”.
So it would be more accurate to critique Assad regime only on those issues where you can be consistent. There are such issues, because TYT supports illegal right-wing junta in Ukraine cracking down against people of South-East of Ukraine, while condemning legal and recognized Assad (John Kerry loved to dine with him just few years ago) for cracking down against Syria’s militia.
God I can’t stand Ben. Always with the unfunny and he keeps obnoxiously driving his non-jokes home, or tries to make some unnecessary point about something he thinks he noticed but which he’s always wrong about (correcting someone’s grammar ad nauseam when it’s not wrong, or in this case screaming about how the numbers in the mug shot are wrong even though one set of numbers is obviously a separate sequence). Sheesh.
Wrong again, Bob.
I think Ben is funny. I was really happy to see Ben and John do the first hour. Lighten up richorosai.
I had fun once, it was awful