The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 13th, 2010
Observations:
1) Just an astounding conversation with Joe Scarborough and Andrew Ross Sorkin today where JS felt compelled to ask for 100% assurance of immediate containment of any spill prior to there being more drilling. Now far be it from me to feel like Scarborough needs a reality check, but in this case this was an absolutely egregious and selective personal optimization choice. Let’s list our components:
· Drove V8 forever
· All of his Florida and DC neighbors drove V8 forever
· Suddenly a “surprise” attack of an oil spill creates mea culpa
· Wants oil, but only with assurance
· Wants green overhaul of economy if no assurance is available
Now, this has all the hypocritical connotation of ‘clean coal’ or ‘natural gas’. We know the truth, that we are dependent on oil and have the world’s biggest consumer economy for it and are thus responsible not just for the consumption of, but logistics of transporting the 25% of the global oil supply.
In our haste to grow GDP quarter over quarter, we promote the recklessness that is BP’s environmental record in order to not have the supply of oil be any inhibition to our free enterprise system. The national economic security implications of the oil supply assure that the most profitable American companies are oil companies. It is known.
So with oil fueling the nation and its economy along with it, the pressure to grow the economy means eventually an anomaly will occur in that supply and we will have either a price catastrophe, security catastrophe, financial catastrophe or environmental catastrophe, wait, we’ve had all of these happen already.
And Mr. Scarborough loudly beckons for certainty? Quaint.
2) I understand that we on the left have empowered minor leaguers to run the country and are now facing a hefty mid term election task to keep these guys in place until they get the speed of the game. I understand that their inability to master their skill at national governance is being exploited by the right and the old guard left and that status quo continues to rule the day one maneuver at a time.
But are you really ready to send any part of this government back to the Iraq invading, Patriot en-Act-ing, Medicare “D” initiating, Cheney Energy Commission-ing, torture-ing, fear-baiting, mandate intolerance by law cronies that we all so desperately conspired to usher out over the last 40 months? You would give these guys the keys so that you could better afford Chinese socks from Wal-mart?
As you can see by some of my previous rants, I’m hard up to find who to trust. I trust myself, Elizabeth Warren, Nassim Taleb, Matt Taibbi, and get this: Joe Scarborough. I trust that Obama and Axelrod mean well but are currently outclassed and out framed in their governance. I don’t know anything about Rahm Emmanuel, and that’s a problem at this point.
But the list of people I don’t trust is long and growing. I learned not to trust most of them years ago, but every day another person makes the perp walk, not to jail, but to the microphone to lay out a doublespeak demonstration why they cannot support the middle class against the ruling elite for whatever hollow reason suits them that day, and today that was Tim Kaine (yikes!).
But I can tell you one thing, if Joe Barton is a committee chairmanship next year, it’s pitchfork time, if Boehner is in charge of anything other than the detention of the Breakfast Club, it’s pitchfork time.
You need to make an appropriately proportionate decision, immediately.
3) Thad Allen was not convincing in his reaction to Willie Geist’s well timed grenade about containment ship operations. The amount of unexplainable nonsense coming from the spill site is literally JFK-assassination-level unsavory. No one will ever convince the American people that there aren’t two stories, one told (sometimes) now, and one that will come out in 40 years talking about ‘the American people would’ve never accepted the real story’.
The earnings date, the Libya thing (that everyone knew already), the missing details on the containment, the press blockade, the scope of the disaster. These are all things that continue to amalgamate into a story of a disaster where everyone panicked.
I’m happy that we are seeing the story on the Morning Joe show after a long gap. It seems like it’s only on the show now because the good news is starting to show up, and it was too hard when the news was only bad. Stuff we learned when Iraq stopped getting covered in 2005.
If you’re serious, we need to get an environmental expert on the show who is willing to talk about the toxicity of the dispersants, who is willing to talk about the real fallout, willing to show the computer predictions of 15 years of oil flows. We need someone who can explain, like you got on PBS yesterday, that all of the animals that live in oceans drop down to the line of perpetual darkness to feed: whales, turtles, dolphins, fish, and that is likely where they will find a blinding pool of oil that no one has the courage to enumerate.
Can you find that courage, or are we just here to try and put a fake wrap on this story which will be with us like a generational plague? Mika seems really involved, but honestly, she appears to be an unwitting agent of distraction by finding her focus on the smaller parts of the story to the complete absence of the 150 million barrel guerrilla in the room, and to the complete absence of the 25 billion barrel apocalypse one geological anomaly away from replacing it as our nation’s disaster.
It seems like you’re making it harder than it already is, the question is why?
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Dollar Votes Extend To Corporations, Too
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 9th, 2010
Observations:
1) From both sides, the Senator Menendez interview was the crux of the show today. it wasn’t a watershed of new ideas, it was the crux of the dispute. Question 1: from John Heilmann went something like ‘Wall Street is abandoning you, what would you say to them to regain their trust so that they might embrace your candidates and programs going forward”? Answer, They will realize they should thank us at some point. What is going on here? Menendez has gone ostrich on us and just dove in the sand rather than answer the question. If I was Wall Street, I would say AHA, these guys are pandering at our expense and can’t even look us in the eye.
Question #2: 'your stimulus policies are largely a failure how can you expect the people to trust you' (paraphrased from Mort Zuckerman)? Answer: I think you're wrong, and Wall Street should be more to blame than the stimulus. Wrong answer. Why does Democrat after Democrat feed their own disdain? It is simply ludicrous for the Democratic party to on one hand talk about how the stimulus had any effect at all on the financial crisis, while on the other hand ask the taxpayer to fund a second correcting program. Your administration made a drunken sailor prediction on the high water mark of unemployment, using a wishful thinking, algebraic cause and effect rationale relating a truckload of disjointed handouts to a macro economic phenomenon. You have proven that you will play the dysfunctional middle and blunt any program that might resolve the nation’s ills. And today, with stimulus a bad word, you are as guilty as the other side of doublespeak for your inability to be a believable critic of your own work.
What needed to happen right there is more of the Elizabeth Warren ‘People Vs. Companies' stuff where you make your antagonist come to the table via a position of confidence. What happened instead is a guy who seemed a lot like Jimmy Carter, I have no answer and will mumble that same old ‘the American people’ desperation plea and hope people like me with or without substance.
Did Menendez go rogue to be this lacking in credibility? I think the Rahm Emmanuel quotes during the show answer that. This is Bambi wondering why the guys in the militia outfits are shooting at him, folks.
2) Wall Street influenced as much as possible on the financial regulatory reform. They kneaded the process and had a plan to fix the entire bill at the end, ala’ health reform, so that it was a dog and pony show with no teeth. This would make it like every other piece of legislation in the last quarter century. In the ‘people vs. companies’ equation, the companies have won every time.
Financial regulatory reform did not accomplish 90% of what it set out to do, just like health reform. But Wall Street and the health care industry don’t care about their short term victory of influence over the legislative branch of government. Their positon is "we cannot take the risk of having this morph into an organic reform where our market power is diminished and competition erodes our price controls. We may not have lost here, but the existence of something that said we got reformed could enable further challenges and we have to put a stop to any of that momentum."
Thus, these industries are now on the other side. It doesn’t matter what the balance of the Republican agenda is, the pro commerce Barton, Tauzin, Liebermann types need to be re-seated to preside over the government or the landscape is uncertain. You listen to CNBC and all day its ‘uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty’ as it relates to the business environment and Obama is to blame for that. Businesses are choosing to horde cash and not invest.
This is business making dollar votes. They are establishing their power over government in what amounts to an economic coup. "We won’t tolerate any ‘for the people’ populism at our expense. We will operate unencumbered free to pursue profits with as few obstacles as possible. If our profiteering results in social costs like oil spills, 40 million Americans without health coverage, 45 million unemployed, or financial panics, the government needs to clean that up at no cost to us and assist in our recovery first."
"Obama, when making deals with us, needs to understand that it will never be enough, and meeting us halfway is seen as a delaying tactic more than any compromise by our side as we wait out the political cycle’s inevitable turn and expect that the other party will return us to the status quo at godspeed."
US commercial interests have now, thanks to Barack Obama, seen the precipice of a return to populism, and they have seen enough. It’s dark comedy in the face of it that the Obama people are looking for ways to placate business rather than reading the double cross writing on the wall. It’s dark comedy that the remaining constituency of the Obama administration, the middle class, sees this first overture go to business rather than people, again.
On the show today, you have a billionaire Mort Zuckerman essentially saying this exact thing out loud, valuable and terrifying at the same time, and you have Pat Buchanan connecting the dots on the Obama administration alienating both sides, then stunningly Mika counts backwards 5.4.3.2.1 and fades to black quickly, as if that wasn’t in the script, cutting to two pre-recorded segments and signing off. Disturbing, to say the least.
3) I find it on the ugly side of convenience that after effectively sequestering the hate filled extremism of Anne Coulter for the better part of 2 years, now that she has fired a fractious shot at the Republican party she is trending again. I wish this didn’t seem like the hypocritical equivalent of ‘the benefits of brown on brown crime’, but it is. If you are to abandon hate, you have to even when it might be to your short term advantage to show how the other side is shooting at each other.
I wish I could’ve believed Joe Scarborough when he rejected any discrediting of Coulter by saying 'we don’t normally allow her any credence, but this time she has a point'. But convenience ruled the day and like Hitler walking into a bar in New York this past Tuesday while the Germans prepared to play World Cup soccer, Coulter gets to parade around as an example of the kind of extremist right wing anger that used to be OK with 90% of Republicans as recently as 2 years ago.
Back to the bunker, both of you.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) From both sides, the Senator Menendez interview was the crux of the show today. it wasn’t a watershed of new ideas, it was the crux of the dispute. Question 1: from John Heilmann went something like ‘Wall Street is abandoning you, what would you say to them to regain their trust so that they might embrace your candidates and programs going forward”? Answer, They will realize they should thank us at some point. What is going on here? Menendez has gone ostrich on us and just dove in the sand rather than answer the question. If I was Wall Street, I would say AHA, these guys are pandering at our expense and can’t even look us in the eye.
Question #2: 'your stimulus policies are largely a failure how can you expect the people to trust you' (paraphrased from Mort Zuckerman)? Answer: I think you're wrong, and Wall Street should be more to blame than the stimulus. Wrong answer. Why does Democrat after Democrat feed their own disdain? It is simply ludicrous for the Democratic party to on one hand talk about how the stimulus had any effect at all on the financial crisis, while on the other hand ask the taxpayer to fund a second correcting program. Your administration made a drunken sailor prediction on the high water mark of unemployment, using a wishful thinking, algebraic cause and effect rationale relating a truckload of disjointed handouts to a macro economic phenomenon. You have proven that you will play the dysfunctional middle and blunt any program that might resolve the nation’s ills. And today, with stimulus a bad word, you are as guilty as the other side of doublespeak for your inability to be a believable critic of your own work.
What needed to happen right there is more of the Elizabeth Warren ‘People Vs. Companies' stuff where you make your antagonist come to the table via a position of confidence. What happened instead is a guy who seemed a lot like Jimmy Carter, I have no answer and will mumble that same old ‘the American people’ desperation plea and hope people like me with or without substance.
Did Menendez go rogue to be this lacking in credibility? I think the Rahm Emmanuel quotes during the show answer that. This is Bambi wondering why the guys in the militia outfits are shooting at him, folks.
2) Wall Street influenced as much as possible on the financial regulatory reform. They kneaded the process and had a plan to fix the entire bill at the end, ala’ health reform, so that it was a dog and pony show with no teeth. This would make it like every other piece of legislation in the last quarter century. In the ‘people vs. companies’ equation, the companies have won every time.
Financial regulatory reform did not accomplish 90% of what it set out to do, just like health reform. But Wall Street and the health care industry don’t care about their short term victory of influence over the legislative branch of government. Their positon is "we cannot take the risk of having this morph into an organic reform where our market power is diminished and competition erodes our price controls. We may not have lost here, but the existence of something that said we got reformed could enable further challenges and we have to put a stop to any of that momentum."
Thus, these industries are now on the other side. It doesn’t matter what the balance of the Republican agenda is, the pro commerce Barton, Tauzin, Liebermann types need to be re-seated to preside over the government or the landscape is uncertain. You listen to CNBC and all day its ‘uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty’ as it relates to the business environment and Obama is to blame for that. Businesses are choosing to horde cash and not invest.
This is business making dollar votes. They are establishing their power over government in what amounts to an economic coup. "We won’t tolerate any ‘for the people’ populism at our expense. We will operate unencumbered free to pursue profits with as few obstacles as possible. If our profiteering results in social costs like oil spills, 40 million Americans without health coverage, 45 million unemployed, or financial panics, the government needs to clean that up at no cost to us and assist in our recovery first."
"Obama, when making deals with us, needs to understand that it will never be enough, and meeting us halfway is seen as a delaying tactic more than any compromise by our side as we wait out the political cycle’s inevitable turn and expect that the other party will return us to the status quo at godspeed."
US commercial interests have now, thanks to Barack Obama, seen the precipice of a return to populism, and they have seen enough. It’s dark comedy in the face of it that the Obama people are looking for ways to placate business rather than reading the double cross writing on the wall. It’s dark comedy that the remaining constituency of the Obama administration, the middle class, sees this first overture go to business rather than people, again.
On the show today, you have a billionaire Mort Zuckerman essentially saying this exact thing out loud, valuable and terrifying at the same time, and you have Pat Buchanan connecting the dots on the Obama administration alienating both sides, then stunningly Mika counts backwards 5.4.3.2.1 and fades to black quickly, as if that wasn’t in the script, cutting to two pre-recorded segments and signing off. Disturbing, to say the least.
3) I find it on the ugly side of convenience that after effectively sequestering the hate filled extremism of Anne Coulter for the better part of 2 years, now that she has fired a fractious shot at the Republican party she is trending again. I wish this didn’t seem like the hypocritical equivalent of ‘the benefits of brown on brown crime’, but it is. If you are to abandon hate, you have to even when it might be to your short term advantage to show how the other side is shooting at each other.
I wish I could’ve believed Joe Scarborough when he rejected any discrediting of Coulter by saying 'we don’t normally allow her any credence, but this time she has a point'. But convenience ruled the day and like Hitler walking into a bar in New York this past Tuesday while the Germans prepared to play World Cup soccer, Coulter gets to parade around as an example of the kind of extremist right wing anger that used to be OK with 90% of Republicans as recently as 2 years ago.
Back to the bunker, both of you.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Whackamole’
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 8th, 2010
Observations:
1) With the welcome reinsertion of the BP oil spill into the agenda today (who knows if it was an anomaly), the cast attempted to re-learn the dimensions of the crisis. Pat Buchanan smartly doubled the show back to Erin Burnett’s game changer yesterday, but then did it for the wrong news item all while the show forgot to go back to Erin today.
It’s not the size differential between BP and Exxon, it’s the net effect of the oil spill is that it’s an acquisition opportunity for offshore interests to own an even bigger profit potential for the continued sale of oil to the United States. Still missing, still the biggest story. Andrew Ross Sorkin sort of tried to bring the equity sale into the conversation, but had a tourist’s understanding of the details and described it as a non-issue. Will he seem like an expert’s expert if he writes its memoir after the fact?
And as all the conversation waged in the realm of the political implications of BP’s earnings call being coincidentally named the new ambitious target date for the well’s sealing, of the Photoshop scandal with the Economist, and the afterthought treatment of the severely dampened containment reaction thus far to the catastrophe, it was an ever so slight grenade from England that got by the group today. ‘In the trashing of BP, America refuses to acknowledge it’s infinite demand for oil as an equal culprit in the disaster’.
Your V8 engine is likely more responsible for the oil spill than the company known as BP. It is inevitable that this disaster can be festooned upon 10 middle managers that will likely face prosecution at some point, but this will serve as little restitution for the nation as it seeks to blame away the responsibility for the spill. Those managers acted the same as any managers asked to mesh profitability with safety where profitability is accounted for with 100 times the acumen.
You, America, caused this disaster. What you do next will determine the next disaster. If we do nothing about the oil situation, we will certainly have this happen to us again, as the for profit companies get more and more desperate to feed monolithic worldwide oil consumption without squandering any opportunity cost.
If we were to devalue the per barrel oil price by any marginal activity, the first thing that goes is the riskiest extraction. The last thing that goes is the availability. America is doing the math of a society bent on extinction, and the status quo barons are all too happy to be there to own the treasure once the society is vanquished.
2) Mark Halperin has velcroed himself to the set. I have had others come to me and say negative things about his often prominent role in the show, but I have mainly considered him a non entity who occasionally offers credence to the Scarborough led conversations with fair compliment. There is no discounting his book wins political journal of the year accolades everywhere, but I’m far more prone to credit John Heilemann for turning over the rocks that made the book news. I also find more of a stature to the Heilemann debate on items, right or wrong, finding that he has a take beyond evaluation of optics.
Evaluation of optics appears to be Halperin’s 5 degrees of expertise. I don’t know whether there was a shift in the MSNBC matrix as it relates to Chuck Todd, but Todd is perpetually up there with Chris Matthews in their ability to look at possible scenarios playing out and explain them. With Halperin, it just feels like he is describing what the caption should be on an existing picture. It’s a new situation and everyone should be allowed to find their way over significant time, so hope continues for a bit. This is a give and take world though, and today Mr. Halperin’s newness steered an entire conversation the exact wrong way.
Is it weakness optically to make a recess appointment? Are you kidding? It is a strength, a show of power of the Presidency. To allow the gridlock of the legislative branch to turmoil over this, to re-avow their positions, is to allow the legislative branch to derelict the real job of governing and make sales calls for the November election.
Nope, a recess appointment is just what the doctor ordered, and as infuriating as it was when George W Bush did it to avoid re-debating the war and torture in his tenure, Obama must be selectively brutal with the power he owns to force compromise anew amongst the warring sides. He should look at whether he can force Republicans to disavow ideological parades or face a charge of politicking rather than governing. And that’s just what he did.
We have crushed our President with the charge that he is a patsy to the faux virtues of bipartisanship. Now we have to live with the consequences that he will look at each new challenge he faces and give more credence to crushing back.
3) I look forward to the midterm elections. The Republicans are energized, they have benefited greatly from our administrations missteps. Our administration has been humbled by the speed of the game.
But fortune is not had until the day after the day of determination. We have won late every time in Washington, and should that ability to close out be propagated to the DNC’s management of it’s candidate’s elections ever, we could have a surprising success.
I like to think that, like with Whitman and Fiorina in California, this is a bloodletting operation. The opponents are furiously spending money and making new slogans and talking points. Those talking points are being refined to energize their base like never before. Sell the disillusionment. Sell the blame for disasters. Sell the misstep of going harder at Afghanistan. Sell the blame for the job loss.
It’s simple math really, if you are pro business you are pro jobs. If you don’t want your kids to be destitute you are for austerity. Why didn’t Obama fix and contain the spill faster. Afghanistan is unwinnable. Your stimulus did not deliver jobs as promised and is now a fiscal eyesore.
Go ahead pile on. But look again, look hard, and find a new idea anywhere in that platform.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) With the welcome reinsertion of the BP oil spill into the agenda today (who knows if it was an anomaly), the cast attempted to re-learn the dimensions of the crisis. Pat Buchanan smartly doubled the show back to Erin Burnett’s game changer yesterday, but then did it for the wrong news item all while the show forgot to go back to Erin today.
It’s not the size differential between BP and Exxon, it’s the net effect of the oil spill is that it’s an acquisition opportunity for offshore interests to own an even bigger profit potential for the continued sale of oil to the United States. Still missing, still the biggest story. Andrew Ross Sorkin sort of tried to bring the equity sale into the conversation, but had a tourist’s understanding of the details and described it as a non-issue. Will he seem like an expert’s expert if he writes its memoir after the fact?
And as all the conversation waged in the realm of the political implications of BP’s earnings call being coincidentally named the new ambitious target date for the well’s sealing, of the Photoshop scandal with the Economist, and the afterthought treatment of the severely dampened containment reaction thus far to the catastrophe, it was an ever so slight grenade from England that got by the group today. ‘In the trashing of BP, America refuses to acknowledge it’s infinite demand for oil as an equal culprit in the disaster’.
Your V8 engine is likely more responsible for the oil spill than the company known as BP. It is inevitable that this disaster can be festooned upon 10 middle managers that will likely face prosecution at some point, but this will serve as little restitution for the nation as it seeks to blame away the responsibility for the spill. Those managers acted the same as any managers asked to mesh profitability with safety where profitability is accounted for with 100 times the acumen.
You, America, caused this disaster. What you do next will determine the next disaster. If we do nothing about the oil situation, we will certainly have this happen to us again, as the for profit companies get more and more desperate to feed monolithic worldwide oil consumption without squandering any opportunity cost.
If we were to devalue the per barrel oil price by any marginal activity, the first thing that goes is the riskiest extraction. The last thing that goes is the availability. America is doing the math of a society bent on extinction, and the status quo barons are all too happy to be there to own the treasure once the society is vanquished.
2) Mark Halperin has velcroed himself to the set. I have had others come to me and say negative things about his often prominent role in the show, but I have mainly considered him a non entity who occasionally offers credence to the Scarborough led conversations with fair compliment. There is no discounting his book wins political journal of the year accolades everywhere, but I’m far more prone to credit John Heilemann for turning over the rocks that made the book news. I also find more of a stature to the Heilemann debate on items, right or wrong, finding that he has a take beyond evaluation of optics.
Evaluation of optics appears to be Halperin’s 5 degrees of expertise. I don’t know whether there was a shift in the MSNBC matrix as it relates to Chuck Todd, but Todd is perpetually up there with Chris Matthews in their ability to look at possible scenarios playing out and explain them. With Halperin, it just feels like he is describing what the caption should be on an existing picture. It’s a new situation and everyone should be allowed to find their way over significant time, so hope continues for a bit. This is a give and take world though, and today Mr. Halperin’s newness steered an entire conversation the exact wrong way.
Is it weakness optically to make a recess appointment? Are you kidding? It is a strength, a show of power of the Presidency. To allow the gridlock of the legislative branch to turmoil over this, to re-avow their positions, is to allow the legislative branch to derelict the real job of governing and make sales calls for the November election.
Nope, a recess appointment is just what the doctor ordered, and as infuriating as it was when George W Bush did it to avoid re-debating the war and torture in his tenure, Obama must be selectively brutal with the power he owns to force compromise anew amongst the warring sides. He should look at whether he can force Republicans to disavow ideological parades or face a charge of politicking rather than governing. And that’s just what he did.
We have crushed our President with the charge that he is a patsy to the faux virtues of bipartisanship. Now we have to live with the consequences that he will look at each new challenge he faces and give more credence to crushing back.
3) I look forward to the midterm elections. The Republicans are energized, they have benefited greatly from our administrations missteps. Our administration has been humbled by the speed of the game.
But fortune is not had until the day after the day of determination. We have won late every time in Washington, and should that ability to close out be propagated to the DNC’s management of it’s candidate’s elections ever, we could have a surprising success.
I like to think that, like with Whitman and Fiorina in California, this is a bloodletting operation. The opponents are furiously spending money and making new slogans and talking points. Those talking points are being refined to energize their base like never before. Sell the disillusionment. Sell the blame for disasters. Sell the misstep of going harder at Afghanistan. Sell the blame for the job loss.
It’s simple math really, if you are pro business you are pro jobs. If you don’t want your kids to be destitute you are for austerity. Why didn’t Obama fix and contain the spill faster. Afghanistan is unwinnable. Your stimulus did not deliver jobs as promised and is now a fiscal eyesore.
Go ahead pile on. But look again, look hard, and find a new idea anywhere in that platform.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Speedo Coverage Of The News
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 7th, 2010
Observations:
1) Loud applause for not thinking of the Lohan story as obligatory. I was curious, but I was curious yesterday afternoon. By yesterday afternoon anyone with a Twitter account had seen the pictures and video. The concept here is unless your changing the world or possess some exclusive angle, taking these stories and inserting them in hard news brings you one step closer to the generic, especially a day later.
But Mika made it a proud case one step further, she implored those who disagreed with her to change the channel. This is straight out of the happy subscriber, unhappy lowest common denominator, long tail argument of how to be a relevant media outlet in this day and age. On a channel that has to constantly fight against it’s old generic self, this kind of prickliness got Mika her gig on Morning Joe in the first place, and is why she is here to stay.
Yesterday, I called Mika’s priorities into question as a reason that she could not carry the show in Joe’s absence. Those priorities might be being too close to the White House to be objective, too far reaching in proposing obesity solutions, but do in fact include an absolute disdain for lowest common denominator news such as the Lohan story. Good with the bad, you may not be able to yell acknowledgment of a common truth out at the top of your lungs on the hard news issues of the day at a volume found by your co-star, but on your issues, everyone ducks. Nice.
2) The cast today acknowledged that they are off of the BP story. It was a subject they quickly made platitude from and exited, but it’s an important first step. Usually an alcoholic mumbles ‘I need help’ before seeking help, and this was that.
The supporting cast is unaware that the story is in the attic on this show. Erin Burnett put out some hugely relevant BP business analysis today, but was caught off guard that no one on the show was prepared to care. The fact that BP is larger than Exxon is something that I bet 90% of subscribers had not latched on to. The transfer of ownership of BP to Middle Eastern companies is an unknown complexity so large it becomes a national security issue that should involve Hillary Clinton.
Morning Joe has the pulpit that reaches the nation’s power structure the best. You have had two small side door mentions of two different news items, and you have handled them in 180 degree opposite fashion. You departed the BP story initially when in a side report someone mentioned the McChrystal occurrence and you took it and ran with it. You were widely acknowledged as the author of the sea change in that story.
This morning, Erin Burnett gave you another story about the logistical complexity of BP’s management of the spill crisis. The number of facts that were not what we all perceive to be the case were equally significant to the McChrystal story, yet you were under equipped to respond similarly, so it got by you.
It’s a job, you are like the Homeland Security Department, you did something right on McChrystal, but the first time you miss something like the Burnett BP angle, there is no similar safety net to catch it, unless you double back.
So double back.
3) For some time we have listened to ‘we cant afford it’ as the chief reason we shouldn’t be providing health care, education, police and fire services, or safe bridges to the tax paying population. Sometimes we sprinkle some ‘I believe in free enterprise solutions’ on top of that, but that is usually a smoke and mirrors angle to promote a profiteering angle on what should be a public good.
Defense is another public good. We have to protect the homeland from Osama Bin Laden and Mexican drug cartels. Both are negatively impacting our security. But the Barney Frank and Ron Paul take on the grossly out of proportion amount of our national treasure being sunk by the Department of Defense is a pitchfork moment on par or greater than the ‘Goldman Sachs engineered the financial crisis for profit’ story.
I have said previously in this column that ‘we can’t afford it’ is only a good objection when all things are on the table, and that it was being used to blind the taxpayer to the real wasted expenditure out there. You are being robbed of local services by disgusting back room contracts for unneeded and unnecessary defense expenditures. You could otherwise easily afford universal services and have your deficit replaced by a surplus.
These defense expenditures enrich a very few already rich people who vote against the middle class at every turn. Class warfare may be a loser political mantra for the middle class because it gets undermined in our current ‘paid-for’ election process, but it is in fact happening, just in the other direction.
You have to ask yourself, why do all those people in all those other democracies protest so often? Oh yeah, they actually control their governments.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Loud applause for not thinking of the Lohan story as obligatory. I was curious, but I was curious yesterday afternoon. By yesterday afternoon anyone with a Twitter account had seen the pictures and video. The concept here is unless your changing the world or possess some exclusive angle, taking these stories and inserting them in hard news brings you one step closer to the generic, especially a day later.
But Mika made it a proud case one step further, she implored those who disagreed with her to change the channel. This is straight out of the happy subscriber, unhappy lowest common denominator, long tail argument of how to be a relevant media outlet in this day and age. On a channel that has to constantly fight against it’s old generic self, this kind of prickliness got Mika her gig on Morning Joe in the first place, and is why she is here to stay.
Yesterday, I called Mika’s priorities into question as a reason that she could not carry the show in Joe’s absence. Those priorities might be being too close to the White House to be objective, too far reaching in proposing obesity solutions, but do in fact include an absolute disdain for lowest common denominator news such as the Lohan story. Good with the bad, you may not be able to yell acknowledgment of a common truth out at the top of your lungs on the hard news issues of the day at a volume found by your co-star, but on your issues, everyone ducks. Nice.
2) The cast today acknowledged that they are off of the BP story. It was a subject they quickly made platitude from and exited, but it’s an important first step. Usually an alcoholic mumbles ‘I need help’ before seeking help, and this was that.
The supporting cast is unaware that the story is in the attic on this show. Erin Burnett put out some hugely relevant BP business analysis today, but was caught off guard that no one on the show was prepared to care. The fact that BP is larger than Exxon is something that I bet 90% of subscribers had not latched on to. The transfer of ownership of BP to Middle Eastern companies is an unknown complexity so large it becomes a national security issue that should involve Hillary Clinton.
Morning Joe has the pulpit that reaches the nation’s power structure the best. You have had two small side door mentions of two different news items, and you have handled them in 180 degree opposite fashion. You departed the BP story initially when in a side report someone mentioned the McChrystal occurrence and you took it and ran with it. You were widely acknowledged as the author of the sea change in that story.
This morning, Erin Burnett gave you another story about the logistical complexity of BP’s management of the spill crisis. The number of facts that were not what we all perceive to be the case were equally significant to the McChrystal story, yet you were under equipped to respond similarly, so it got by you.
It’s a job, you are like the Homeland Security Department, you did something right on McChrystal, but the first time you miss something like the Burnett BP angle, there is no similar safety net to catch it, unless you double back.
So double back.
3) For some time we have listened to ‘we cant afford it’ as the chief reason we shouldn’t be providing health care, education, police and fire services, or safe bridges to the tax paying population. Sometimes we sprinkle some ‘I believe in free enterprise solutions’ on top of that, but that is usually a smoke and mirrors angle to promote a profiteering angle on what should be a public good.
Defense is another public good. We have to protect the homeland from Osama Bin Laden and Mexican drug cartels. Both are negatively impacting our security. But the Barney Frank and Ron Paul take on the grossly out of proportion amount of our national treasure being sunk by the Department of Defense is a pitchfork moment on par or greater than the ‘Goldman Sachs engineered the financial crisis for profit’ story.
I have said previously in this column that ‘we can’t afford it’ is only a good objection when all things are on the table, and that it was being used to blind the taxpayer to the real wasted expenditure out there. You are being robbed of local services by disgusting back room contracts for unneeded and unnecessary defense expenditures. You could otherwise easily afford universal services and have your deficit replaced by a surplus.
These defense expenditures enrich a very few already rich people who vote against the middle class at every turn. Class warfare may be a loser political mantra for the middle class because it gets undermined in our current ‘paid-for’ election process, but it is in fact happening, just in the other direction.
You have to ask yourself, why do all those people in all those other democracies protest so often? Oh yeah, they actually control their governments.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Where Is The Howitzer?
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 6th, 2010
Observations:
1) Opportunism is the art of taking anything that impacts the middle class and making it some sort of ‘call to action’ to make that middle class vote in a way that benefits the barons of the status quo.
While it was Afghanistan today, it was also Wall Street and the donation revolt. It has also been the dearth of coverage of the oil spill so as not to upset the corporate advertising base of NBC. It has also been the health care debate.
In each case there was a back room talk. It was a coaching of how to frame a discussion where you’re the good guy, and the other guy is the bad guy, out of things that should be apolitical unless you have a genuine take. This is how a leech finds nutrients for life, not how a leader defines a national role.
First off, Michael Steel is nearing the status of Dan Quayle, the biggest idiot anyone could name who got a job way above god’s pay grade for him. Second, whether Steele has a point or not is beside the point, he wasn’t trying to teach a point, he was trying to teach opportunism. Those on the show who were trying to find the merit in Steele’s original argument, Pat Buchanan, were actually abandoned by Steele himself, because knowing he was just trying to teach how to profit from any political point, but not make a political point, Steele had already backtracked.
2) I am not as obsessed with the human cost of war in Afghanistan as Mike Barnicle. The armed forces are there by choice. In your life’s journey you decide at some point whether you would like to be a warrior and you pursue that path. It’s what you want to do. It is not a free choice. The risk of being a warrior is the honorable death of a warrior. These American kids in middle Asia are not victims. They are attempting to ascend to a level of enlightenment that they chose. If we had a draft, it would be different, these kids that were there because they had sworn to bear arms for their nation, but had not chosen the path of a warrior, would be victims.
I don’t want to get into victims of what, that discussion has been made by this column perpetually. But the size of the force we employ is indicative of the fact that there are many in this great land that heed a calling unto themselves to be our Army.
We might be doing some disservice to this segment of the population by not equipping them with all of the weapons and political will that they deserve, but overall, and especially in Iraq, they were given the ultimate chance to turn the campaign into a victory rather than have disinterested parties extract them for the opportunism mentioned in #1 above.
In Afghanistan, the disproportionate nature of the campaign is disconcerting, but at the end of the day, I am more concerned that the political will that handcuffs the soldier in the field is costing us the chance to finally solve an enormous global problem. No one wants to colonize Afghanistan, we just want the region to stop being a vacuum of lawlessness that exports tragedy and suffering to the rest of the planet.
Our guys on the ground want to be there, they want to finish the job, they want to prove the pundits irrelevant, and we owe them latitude towards accomplishment.
3) It’s a light week, the holiday shortened week, the forced vacation foisted upon Joe Scarborough, the innocuous repeat segments, we’re not gonna solve any problems in the next four days. Unfortunately, the problems are surrounding us, and we have to be equipped to connect them with solutions even when the lights are barely on.
Mika and Mike are perfectly qualified to make that connection, but just watching today, there will need to be an infusion of will. What are you going to do to make the powers feel forced to respond? It’s certainly not with a 3 hour long roast of Michael Steel.
I think the show needs a fire-breather to helm during the Scarborough vacation days. Not a pundit, not someone at great odds with Scarborough’s version of things, but someone who can make a credible statement on current events that antagonizes it’s subject to the point of engagement.
Whether it’s Buchanan’s niche, Halperin’s understated style, Mika’s prioritization issues, Mike’s resistance to engagement, none of the cast put into this had enough fight to bring the nation’s issues to the nation the way the Morning Joe subscriber has grown accustomed.
Lawrence O’Donnell got his own show on MSNBC recently, Spitzer went to CNN, and Hayes or Stein rep another brand. Oh I miss Lawrence, although he has lost it, an act Joe Conason just channeled last week, enough to wonder if he could last through a morning without a ray gun. But in the absence of any of the solutions that starts with the show’s absent host, and continues through a complete absence of lucid conservative moderates, you have to understand that it’s a light news week in part because your big gun is out of commission.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Opportunism is the art of taking anything that impacts the middle class and making it some sort of ‘call to action’ to make that middle class vote in a way that benefits the barons of the status quo.
While it was Afghanistan today, it was also Wall Street and the donation revolt. It has also been the dearth of coverage of the oil spill so as not to upset the corporate advertising base of NBC. It has also been the health care debate.
In each case there was a back room talk. It was a coaching of how to frame a discussion where you’re the good guy, and the other guy is the bad guy, out of things that should be apolitical unless you have a genuine take. This is how a leech finds nutrients for life, not how a leader defines a national role.
First off, Michael Steel is nearing the status of Dan Quayle, the biggest idiot anyone could name who got a job way above god’s pay grade for him. Second, whether Steele has a point or not is beside the point, he wasn’t trying to teach a point, he was trying to teach opportunism. Those on the show who were trying to find the merit in Steele’s original argument, Pat Buchanan, were actually abandoned by Steele himself, because knowing he was just trying to teach how to profit from any political point, but not make a political point, Steele had already backtracked.
2) I am not as obsessed with the human cost of war in Afghanistan as Mike Barnicle. The armed forces are there by choice. In your life’s journey you decide at some point whether you would like to be a warrior and you pursue that path. It’s what you want to do. It is not a free choice. The risk of being a warrior is the honorable death of a warrior. These American kids in middle Asia are not victims. They are attempting to ascend to a level of enlightenment that they chose. If we had a draft, it would be different, these kids that were there because they had sworn to bear arms for their nation, but had not chosen the path of a warrior, would be victims.
I don’t want to get into victims of what, that discussion has been made by this column perpetually. But the size of the force we employ is indicative of the fact that there are many in this great land that heed a calling unto themselves to be our Army.
We might be doing some disservice to this segment of the population by not equipping them with all of the weapons and political will that they deserve, but overall, and especially in Iraq, they were given the ultimate chance to turn the campaign into a victory rather than have disinterested parties extract them for the opportunism mentioned in #1 above.
In Afghanistan, the disproportionate nature of the campaign is disconcerting, but at the end of the day, I am more concerned that the political will that handcuffs the soldier in the field is costing us the chance to finally solve an enormous global problem. No one wants to colonize Afghanistan, we just want the region to stop being a vacuum of lawlessness that exports tragedy and suffering to the rest of the planet.
Our guys on the ground want to be there, they want to finish the job, they want to prove the pundits irrelevant, and we owe them latitude towards accomplishment.
3) It’s a light week, the holiday shortened week, the forced vacation foisted upon Joe Scarborough, the innocuous repeat segments, we’re not gonna solve any problems in the next four days. Unfortunately, the problems are surrounding us, and we have to be equipped to connect them with solutions even when the lights are barely on.
Mika and Mike are perfectly qualified to make that connection, but just watching today, there will need to be an infusion of will. What are you going to do to make the powers feel forced to respond? It’s certainly not with a 3 hour long roast of Michael Steel.
I think the show needs a fire-breather to helm during the Scarborough vacation days. Not a pundit, not someone at great odds with Scarborough’s version of things, but someone who can make a credible statement on current events that antagonizes it’s subject to the point of engagement.
Whether it’s Buchanan’s niche, Halperin’s understated style, Mika’s prioritization issues, Mike’s resistance to engagement, none of the cast put into this had enough fight to bring the nation’s issues to the nation the way the Morning Joe subscriber has grown accustomed.
Lawrence O’Donnell got his own show on MSNBC recently, Spitzer went to CNN, and Hayes or Stein rep another brand. Oh I miss Lawrence, although he has lost it, an act Joe Conason just channeled last week, enough to wonder if he could last through a morning without a ray gun. But in the absence of any of the solutions that starts with the show’s absent host, and continues through a complete absence of lucid conservative moderates, you have to understand that it’s a light news week in part because your big gun is out of commission.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 2nd, 2010
Observations:
1) Seems distressingly odd that John Heilemann would ask the question about whether the lowering of the nominal unemployment rate would be trotted out as a positive by the White House. It’s distressing on two fronts: one is that they might actually do that despite as Savannah said it is a quirk that fell the other way 2 months ago and two, there is a simple mathematical reason why the rate fell that is a very negative piece of news. Over 600,000 people fell out of the workforce counted in the unemployment number, so the rate went down because the denominator in the equation went down. Those people went somewhere when they fell out of the workforce, they went to a category best described as hopeless.
So if you make the mistake of trotting that number out there, someone is going to damn you doubly for doing it, but it’s often difficult to resist for political types, which is why it caught the eye of Heilemann.
Tread carefully lest you be seen as trumpeting a false positive indicator for short term gain, very short term gain, with a backlash.
2) Norah O’Donnell unwittingly continued the anti Boehner campaign by adding chain smoking, poorly named a ‘love for butts’, and reinforced the boozing charge. In a public relations war, contrary to what the Wall Street Journal guy says, you want John Boehner on TV right now, because he is a trainwreck not seen since Jimmy and Tammy Fay Baker.
The late night shows had a field day with Boehner. A monster of a point was made with little fanfare by Willie Geist earlier this week, that Saturday Night Live being out of production right now is a huge break for the the Ohio congressman. Otherwise, he might get the kind of permanent roast that moves into the ‘more famous than the actual guy’ category.
I’m still stuck on ‘Breakfast Club’: “could you describe the ruckus, sir?”
3) In violation of the Morning Joe ban on any coverage of the BP oil spill, the skeleton crew took liberty today to show a 2 ½ minute clip of the oil in the gulf with some generic news sprinkled on top by Norah.
I hope they don’t get in too much trouble. I mean, it’s been decided right? This show is about politics and the most important story of the new decade can be shoved aside in the pursuit of a pure agenda. I haven’t seen such a plan Fox covered the inaugeration.
Not even the top of the hour news is certain to even mention the spill. The Boehner story got all the coverage that wasn’t the pregame on the unemployment number or the Week In Review.
I am thoroughly appalled that the Morning Joe show has completed another week in absolute ignorance of the Gulf oil disaster. I don’t know how it is happening, it’s confusing, and I wish it would correct.
That’s all for today, see you Tuesday.
Observations:
1) Seems distressingly odd that John Heilemann would ask the question about whether the lowering of the nominal unemployment rate would be trotted out as a positive by the White House. It’s distressing on two fronts: one is that they might actually do that despite as Savannah said it is a quirk that fell the other way 2 months ago and two, there is a simple mathematical reason why the rate fell that is a very negative piece of news. Over 600,000 people fell out of the workforce counted in the unemployment number, so the rate went down because the denominator in the equation went down. Those people went somewhere when they fell out of the workforce, they went to a category best described as hopeless.
So if you make the mistake of trotting that number out there, someone is going to damn you doubly for doing it, but it’s often difficult to resist for political types, which is why it caught the eye of Heilemann.
Tread carefully lest you be seen as trumpeting a false positive indicator for short term gain, very short term gain, with a backlash.
2) Norah O’Donnell unwittingly continued the anti Boehner campaign by adding chain smoking, poorly named a ‘love for butts’, and reinforced the boozing charge. In a public relations war, contrary to what the Wall Street Journal guy says, you want John Boehner on TV right now, because he is a trainwreck not seen since Jimmy and Tammy Fay Baker.
The late night shows had a field day with Boehner. A monster of a point was made with little fanfare by Willie Geist earlier this week, that Saturday Night Live being out of production right now is a huge break for the the Ohio congressman. Otherwise, he might get the kind of permanent roast that moves into the ‘more famous than the actual guy’ category.
I’m still stuck on ‘Breakfast Club’: “could you describe the ruckus, sir?”
3) In violation of the Morning Joe ban on any coverage of the BP oil spill, the skeleton crew took liberty today to show a 2 ½ minute clip of the oil in the gulf with some generic news sprinkled on top by Norah.
I hope they don’t get in too much trouble. I mean, it’s been decided right? This show is about politics and the most important story of the new decade can be shoved aside in the pursuit of a pure agenda. I haven’t seen such a plan Fox covered the inaugeration.
Not even the top of the hour news is certain to even mention the spill. The Boehner story got all the coverage that wasn’t the pregame on the unemployment number or the Week In Review.
I am thoroughly appalled that the Morning Joe show has completed another week in absolute ignorance of the Gulf oil disaster. I don’t know how it is happening, it’s confusing, and I wish it would correct.
That’s all for today, see you Tuesday.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
New Month, Same Empty Set
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 1st, 2010
Observations:
1) It is with great joy that I witness the Morning Joe cast go for John Boehner’s head, and crack down on anyone in the Republican party who defends him as acting in deference to status quo interests.
While it may seem like theater, there is a permanent record of open criticism happening that will haunt the minority leader forever into the future. Everything from work ethic to a dearth of new ideas are all cataclysmic charges.
Now the softball interview with Paul Ryan was a step back. But I don’t want to belittle his ideas, he does in fact put moderate merit to what used to be the Republican consensus financial platform. The problem, and you know how big of a problem it is, is that even Paul Ryan doesn’t get to criticize what he knows his party is incapable of. The modern Republican party does not have the ability to initiate solvency reform in the financial sector, environmental reform at the MMS, or health care reform. Both parties are entrenched with status quo special interest, but the record now shows that only one party has any ability, even if diluted, to be a genesis point for reform or governing.
So when Paul Ryan gets to launch grenades at Obama and his agenda, and Joe Scarborough can’t put the obvious check question “would your party, if in power, be able to enact any financial reform?’ into play, that’s softball.
2) But that’s it, that’s all that was accomplished today in three hours. The sheer void where oil spill coverage should be cannot be part of the program lest the program is ready to start bleeding credibility. Today's show was a majority coverage of features and human interest stories. Not like it was a slow news day either.
Make a spill status snapshot and report on it every day. These questions have to be asked every day from now on:
Where are the oil removal ships, and can they be mapped, and competitively analyzed to understand if there is a reason for their slow assignment?
Is there burning at sea going on and what is the impact?
Is the claims fund in place and what is its financial snapshot of claims paid?
What part of the solution both at sea and in affected communities is still being directed through BP as a defacto NGO?
What is the timeline for the spill being stopped?
Will there be a criminal prosecution for the BP managers who acted recklessly causing this disaster?
Will there be any clawback of compromised activity at the MMS?
I’m sure there are others, but we just can’t watch a show presided over by a man from Pensacola, Florida turn in the result Lebron 3, BP 0.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) It is with great joy that I witness the Morning Joe cast go for John Boehner’s head, and crack down on anyone in the Republican party who defends him as acting in deference to status quo interests.
While it may seem like theater, there is a permanent record of open criticism happening that will haunt the minority leader forever into the future. Everything from work ethic to a dearth of new ideas are all cataclysmic charges.
Now the softball interview with Paul Ryan was a step back. But I don’t want to belittle his ideas, he does in fact put moderate merit to what used to be the Republican consensus financial platform. The problem, and you know how big of a problem it is, is that even Paul Ryan doesn’t get to criticize what he knows his party is incapable of. The modern Republican party does not have the ability to initiate solvency reform in the financial sector, environmental reform at the MMS, or health care reform. Both parties are entrenched with status quo special interest, but the record now shows that only one party has any ability, even if diluted, to be a genesis point for reform or governing.
So when Paul Ryan gets to launch grenades at Obama and his agenda, and Joe Scarborough can’t put the obvious check question “would your party, if in power, be able to enact any financial reform?’ into play, that’s softball.
2) But that’s it, that’s all that was accomplished today in three hours. The sheer void where oil spill coverage should be cannot be part of the program lest the program is ready to start bleeding credibility. Today's show was a majority coverage of features and human interest stories. Not like it was a slow news day either.
Make a spill status snapshot and report on it every day. These questions have to be asked every day from now on:
Where are the oil removal ships, and can they be mapped, and competitively analyzed to understand if there is a reason for their slow assignment?
Is there burning at sea going on and what is the impact?
Is the claims fund in place and what is its financial snapshot of claims paid?
What part of the solution both at sea and in affected communities is still being directed through BP as a defacto NGO?
What is the timeline for the spill being stopped?
Will there be a criminal prosecution for the BP managers who acted recklessly causing this disaster?
Will there be any clawback of compromised activity at the MMS?
I’m sure there are others, but we just can’t watch a show presided over by a man from Pensacola, Florida turn in the result Lebron 3, BP 0.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
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