Tag Archives: Rachel Maddow

An NRA parody video of the NRA self-parody video

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The NRA has an actual ad in which they attempt to portray the President as an elitist hypocrite for protecting his daughters with armed Secret Service agents. To those of us with a functioning brain, that just sounds pretty reasonable.

Rachel Maddow called the NRA’s ad ‘trolling.’ She said,

“Trolling is a key part of the conservative-entertainment/media business model,” she said. “These guys say stuff all the time that they do not intend to be persuasive. They’re not trying to explain something, or bring people along to their way of thinking, they’re just doing something to attract attention, and hopefully condemnation and outrage from the mainstream, and particularly from liberals. They want to offend you. They seek to offend you. That is the point.”

Maddow said that “trolling” was a “tried and true schtick” for conservatives. Not just for media figures, but for politicians as well. She described Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as a “permanent troll.” [...]

“Trolls have a purpose in our politics,” Maddow said. “They help niche, unpopular positions and people fund themselves and promote themselves as pseudo-political actors by tricking people who ought to know better into punching down at them.”

We just all need to remember to not feed the trolls. Especially when their most serious arguments are devolving into self-parody.

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“To talk about the president’s children or any public official’s children who have, not by their own choice, but by requirement, protection and to use that somehow to try to make a political point I think is reprehensible. You know, the President doesn’t have a choice and his children don’t have a choice of whether they’re going to be protected or not. I think it’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t deserve to be there. For any of us who are public figures, you see that kind of ad and you cringe.” — Chris Christie, Jan. 17, 2013

Meanwhile: Security Guard At Chatfield School In Lapeer Caught Leaving His Gun Unattended – The school decided to up their security by adding armed guards in the wake of the mass shootings over the past few weeks. This morning, a security guard accidentally left his gun in the bathroom unattended for a few moments. Someone’s going to need to remind us why “more guns” is the answer to this nation’s gun problem. (via current)

MSNBC Primetime is killing Fox “news” in ratings

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Rachel Maddow Beating Hannity: Are People Finally Catching on to FOX News’ BS? | Alternet

“Particularly impressive were the results of the two powerhouse programs on the MSNBC lineup: Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. Maddow won seven of the eight days against her Fox competition, Sean Hannity. For the 8-day run Maddow beat Hannity by 18% and her 544k average was second to only Bill O’Reilly in all of cable news. O’Donnell won all eight days against Fox’s Greta Van Susteren. His margin of victory over Van Susteren was 17% for the eight days.

This can no longer be considered a temporary blip on the ratings scales. With two weeks having elapsed, the MSNBC programs are showing steady strength against competition that was once thought insurmountable. Only Bill O’Reilly is holding his top position for Fox in primetime. This may indicate that Sean Hannity is wearing thin with viewers who are likely disappointed with his overly confident (and harebrained) assurances that all the polls were wrong and that Mitt Romney would emerge victorious.

Hannity is perhaps the most stridently partisan host on the Fox News network and frequently augments his analysis with that of the pundit world’s most notorious nutcase, Dick Morris. As for Van Susteren, she never had the cult-like following of her Fox comrades, but she has been closely associated with her good friend (and client of her husband), Sarah Palin… “

One also has to factor in all the non-believers / anti-fans who watched Fox prior to the election because of the OMG Factor or, in other words, the rich vein of comedy material and/or outrage one could always find there. Now that the election’s over, people can just relax and watch what they really enjoy… So Fox has not only lost the anti-fan progressive audience, but perhaps it’s also losing people who are waking from their comas.

Rachel Maddow and David Corn: Sneering Plutocrat caught on tape!

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Here is a link to some of those videos that Maddow is talking about: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChMTCCC6dzR-VkgTDWo7H_A/videos?flow=grid&view=0 (thanks John Roach!)

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Steve Benen reports that last night, the Republican candidate delivered a brief statement, hoping to quell the controversy:

“…the full transcript of his comments is available, but the key part of the statement is the fact that Romney simply endorsed everything seen in the clip. He conceded his recorded comments were “not elegantly stated,” and were delivered “off the cuff,” but nevertheless recommitted himself to the underlying sentiment.

“As a reporter asked, “Governor, are all of the things you said in the video things you believe? Are those core convictions?” Romney walked off the stage.”

The myth of “trickle down” — helping rich people helps no one else but rich people

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Source: erosum

Maddow: The “Reverse Robin Hood” economics of the GOP: poor people have too much money (video)

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If you doubt Romney and the Republicans don’t want you to pay to extend Bush’s tax cuts or create new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, then you haven’t been paying attention.

“This man who would be the wealthiest American president in modern history, by a mile. His economic policies? Would raise taxes on poor people. On purpose.” A President Romney would raise taxes on households making less than $20,000 a year by 60 percent, Maddow reported, referring to an AP story from Thursday, whereas people making more than a million dollars per year would get tax cuts averaging 15 percent. It amounts to a kind of “Reverse Robin Hood” economic policy, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. “That’s the problem, according to Mitt Romney,” said Maddow, “Poor people in this country have too much money.”  – Rachel Maddow

 

Listen to me — everyone else is out to get you (and make you think)

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“I think the conservative media model involves this one really important step that liberals don’t use, which is, ‘listen to me, I am the light and the truth and the way, you have to believe what I say and everybody else is out to get you and you can’t listen to anybody else, don’t change the channel, they’re trying to kill you.’ Liberals don’t say that. Conservatives tell their audience that.” — Rachel Maddow on the conservative media model.

I imagine the “conservative media model” works hand in hand with its “ignorance Is bliss” audience base as well:

WASHINGTON—The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. 

And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware, according to a paper published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®. 

Read more: Ignorance Is Bliss When it Comes to Challenging Social Issues

To be fair, becoming well-informed requires some brain work (ouch!) while remaining unaware does not. The less you know, the less you want to know. “Fair and balanced” though.

Morning Bunker Report: Monday 4.30.2012

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——————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

LISTEN TO MITT ROMNEY, he’s telling you everything you need to know about him — “You will hear words from people running for office that sound great. But sometimes what people say is not a perfect example of what they’re going to do.” [...] Romney says he wants to put the nation on a path to a balanced budget while also cutting an array of taxes, building up the Navy and Air Force and adding 100,000 active-duty military personnel. He says he would slash domestic spending and reduce tax loopholes but has offered few details. Cut taxes for the rich, cut spending on investment in people and infrastructure, increase military spending and whammo: balanced budget. – Daily Kos

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GOV. JERRY BROWN: the Republican Party is like a cult – On CBS News’ Face the Nation Sunday morning, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said that politics had changed a “hell of a lot” since he started his career as a public official. “It’s more polarized, the money is more centrally collected and distributed by the two major parties, there is — particularly on the Republican side — an enforcement of discipline that’s ideological,” he explained. “And as was mentioned today in The Washington Post, it takes on the quality of a cult.” – Raw Story

REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST ALEX CASTELLANOS denied that women make 77 cents for a man’s dollar in the workplace and noted, “there are lots of reasons for that.”  “Now we know, at least from both of your perspectives,” [Rachel] Maddow said, pointing to Castellanos and Romney surrogate Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), “women are not fairing worse than men in the economy that women aren’t getting paid less for equal work.” “It’s about policy and whether or not you want to fix some of the structural discrimination that women really do face that Republicans don’t believe is happening,” she added. — Think Progress

  • The problem of ‘working from different facts’ – There’s simply no shared foundation of reality, which in turn shapes the policy debate in unproductive ways. The left sees gender-based pay disparity and looks for mechanisms to address the problem; the right rejects the existence of the disparity and sees no use for the solutions because, to them, there is no problem.

NEWT GINGRICH will drop out Wednesday — According to Fox News sources, the still technically in-the-running Republican — now without supporters or a security detail — will officially end his campaign on Wednesday. Earlier reports said he would call it quits on Tuesday, but apparently he needs our attention for just a teeny, tiny while longer. — Daily Intel

FLORIDA PASTOR TERRY JONES held another Koran-burning ceremony yesterday in a portable fire pit, despite a Pentagon warning that this could jeopardize American troops overseas… – Gainesville Sun

ROMNEY PERFORMS A TWISTING, DOUBLE, BACKWARDS FLIP FLOP: Romney top advisor Eric Fehrnstrom says that not only did Mitt Romney not oppose auto bailout but that President Obama actually got the idea from Mitt.  – TPM


image: Bob Cesca

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS————————————————————

SENATE DEMOCRATS will soon hold a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would update and strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a senior Democratic Senate aide confirms to me. “This vote is going to happen,” the aide says. The vote means this will likely be the next major battle in the war over women, and it could put Mitt Romney in a delicate political spot. It will force a choice: Either he supports the measure, which would put him at odds with the Senate GOP caucus (which voted against the bill two years ago), or he opposes it, which would put Romney at odds with his own rhetorical support for equal pay for women, potentially damaging him further among crucial female swing voters. — Greg Sargent

ROBERT GIBBS: Romney’s slogan is ‘Obama didn’t clean up our mess fast enough‘ — “I think sometimes you listen to the Romney campaign and they do think a lot people in this country are stupid,” Gibbs told NBC’s David Gregory. “Their message is: You didn’t clean up our mess fast enough.” “The last six months of the Bush administration, we lost three and half million jobs. We know this about Mitt Romney: He’s not a job creator. When he was governor of Massachusetts, they were 47th out of 50 in job creation. His experience is in downsizing, outsourcing jobs and bankrupting companies and walking away with a lot of money for himself.” Gibbs added: “His economic ideas are the failed economic ideas that we tried for eight years, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and letting Wall Street go back to writing the rules all over again. That is the policies that got us into this mess.”  – Raw Story

OBAMA SPIKES the bin Laden football — After taking a low-key approach to the killing of Osama bin Laden for most of the past year, the Obama campaign released a video on Friday taking credit for green-lighting the operation and questioning whether Mitt Romney would have made the same call. Conservatives scoffed, claiming that the raid was a no-brainer that any president would have approved. I don’t know who’s right, but if you want to decide for yourself you probably ought to know just how the entire operation was planned and what part Obama played. — Mother Jones

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WHAT SHOULD WE DO to help America’s young? Basically, the opposite of what Mr. Romney and his friends want. We should be expanding student aid, not slashing it. And we should reverse the de facto austerity policies that are holding back the U.S. economy — the unprecedented cutbacks at the state and local level, which have been hitting education especially hard. Yes, such a policy reversal would cost money. But refusing to spend that money is foolish and shortsighted even in purely fiscal terms. Remember, the young aren’t just America’s future; they’re the future of the tax base, too. A mind is a terrible thing to waste; wasting the minds of a whole generation is even more terrible. Let’s stop doing it. — Paul Krugman

The Republican party post-George W. Bush is the Republican party of George W. Bush

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“If they were called some other body’s tax cuts, they’re probably less likely to be raised. hehh heh…” (ACTUAL WORDS — see 00:59 in video below)

Morning Bunker Report: TGIF 4.6.2012

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———————————-THE SHORT BUS: YOUR 2012 REPUBLICAN (TEA)PARTY

imageDavid Gregory: Romney’s core is essentially Mormon – “This is a significant moment,” he told late night host Jay Leno. “I mean, we have the first Mormon Republican nominee, if everything gets formalized, in the country’s history. That’s a huge moment for religious tolerance.” “But I think it’s an issue,” Gregory continued. “I think a lot of people have questions about the Mormon faith. There’s a lot of ignorance about the Mormon faith, and lets be honest, this is the core of who Mitt Romney is. He was a missionary in France for two years, he has been a bishop in the church — which in the Mormon church is effectively like a priest — philanthropically he has made huge contributions.” “He’s had a big impact on the church and yet he doesn’t talk about it,” he said. “It’s the core of who he is, yet he doesn’t feel like it is safe to talk about it.”

The Plutocrat’s Plutocrat – There is a deeper problem for Romney. He seems a figure from the Great Depression, a combination of Daddy Warbucks and Old Man Potter. He celebrates creative destruction at a time when the destruction has been a bit too creative. He talks a lot about firing people. He just can’t help himself. In Wisconsin, he talked about his father firing people in Michigan. After he won the Wisconsin primary, Romney wandered incomprehensibly into the steel-plant closings on the South Side of Chicago in the 1970s. The President, he said, became a community organizer because “he saw free enterprise as the villain and government as the solution.” The man simply does not understand that most people do not see plant closings as progress. “You’re fired” may work for Donald Trump — and for the long-term strength of a compassionate and well-regulated free-enterprise system — but it’s a lousy way to introduce yourself to the American people. [image: christopherstreet]

Mitt Romney In 2004 Speech, Mitt Romney Attacked John Kerry For Flip Flopping – in a 2004 speech to the National Press Club, Romney attacked Democrat John Kerry: “His conflicted postions have been well documented, as have his tortured explanations of them.” Romney adds Kerry is “too conflicted to be President of the United States.”

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Romney was for Harvard before he was against it – Despite spending four years at the school himself, Mitt Romney slammed President Obama today for spending “too much time” at Harvard, where the president went to law school. And while Romney has twice as many degrees as Obama and an extra year at the school under his belt, this is not the first time Romney has attacked the president for attending the elite Massachusetts university. But Romney wasn’t always so down on his alma mater. He used to brag about his tenure there regularly, and so did his wife, Ann. [...] Just this week, he’s accused Obama of being out of touch and a flip flopper, two of the biggest narratives against Romney. But rarely are they so transparently and audaciously hypocritical as the Harvard line.


image: reagan-was-a-horrible-president 

GOP STRATEGIES: Lie, cheat, steal to win! Attorney: Fake Democrats in Wisconsin committing criminal election fraud – “Clearly, a candidate running in a Democratic primary for the purpose of disadvantaging that party and giving electoral advantage to the Republican Party and the Republican incumbent the Democrats seek to recall can do so only by falsifying his or her declaration of candidacy.” The fake candidates are committing felony election fraud, according to Levinson, a crime punishable by up to three and half years in prison. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R) and four Wisconsin Republican state senators all face recall elections on May 8 or June 5. But by running the fake candidates, the Republican Party forces primary elections to be held on May 8, ensuring that all of the incumbents will face an election at a later date, June 5. [...] The Republican Party of Wisconsin also ran fake Democratic candidates during last years recall elections.

Maddow mocks ‘war on caterpillars’: GOP needs to own up to its agenda – She mocked the idea that the Democrat’s huge lead among female voters in battleground states was the result of media bias, as RNC chair Reince Priebus had claimed. [...] “In this analogy what he’s missing is the part where the Republican party introduces hundreds of pieces of legislation all over the country attacking the rights of caterpillars, which in his analogy is in fact what the Republican party has been doing.The Republican party in this analogy has to be seen as a radically, what, anti-cocoon party?” Maddow noted that Republicans in state legislatures across the country have pushed for tighter restrictions on abortions, such as requiring ultrasounds before a woman can terminate her pregnancy or mandating a 24-hour waiting period.

—————————————————————–PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS

Is Mitt ALWAYS wrong about the President (or is he always lying)?

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Obama team slams Romney over financial records – The report said that the multimillionaire and former Massachusetts governor legally used an obscure exception in ethics laws to provide a limited accounting of his assets, making it hard to trace exactly where his wealth is invested. The paper said the strategy made it tough to determine whether there were any conflicts of interest, or if Romney’s assets were held offshore or invested in controversial companies. Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina complained that new questions were emerging every week about whether “Romney took unusual steps to avoid paying his fair share in taxes.” “Today’s report suggests that governor Romney is exploiting a loophole in order to shield his assets and investments from public review,” Messina said. “Mitt Romney has put his personal financial assets in a black box and hid the key, attempting to play by a different set of rules than any candidate in recent history.”

The Thank You Starbucks campaign, SumOfUs.org’s response to the National Organization for Marriage’s Dump Starbucks efforts, has gathered over 640,000 signatures from people grateful that the coffee company supports the freedom to marry. Yesterday, SumOfUs delivered a giant thank-you card on their behalf, which Starbucks vice president of Global Corporate Communications James Olsen gladly accepted… NOM’s Dump Starbucks campaign has only gathered 28,471 pledges, which means the Thank You Starbucks campaign has more than 22 times the amount of support. In fact, since NOM’s boycott began, Starbucks’ stock has only gone up. [ThinkProgress]


image: buzzfeed

Obama to hold forum on women and the economy – US President Barack Obama hosts a forum Friday on women and the economy, as aides warn of a “devastating” impact on the key voting bloc if the Supreme Court overturns his health care law. The White House said the forum would “examine the ways in which the administration has worked to ensure women’s economic security and create jobs for women, through all stages of life.” [...] The law, known as the Affordable Care Act, expands access to health care for millions of Americans and prevents insurance firms refusing care to patients with pre-existing conditions among other provisions. A senior Obama administration official said Thursday that if the law is repealed, women would find it harder to have their specific health needs addressed. “It would be devastating for women,” one official said on condition of anonymity.

Rachel Maddow on Rush Limbaugh’s apparent ignorance of how birth control works

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Here’s a tip, Rush. It’s not like Viagra.



“You’re bad at this, Rush Limbaugh. You don’t even understand how babies are made, let alone how people can have sex without making a baby, and you would like the government to take over decision-making on these issues on your say-so. And you don’t get it. You biologically don’t get it. You just don’t understand it. You were absent that day.” – Rachel Maddow

Source: laakeycharms 

Maddow Blog: What’s scary (and not) about Nebraska’s nuke plants

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The Maddow Blog comments on the ZOMG! JUST LIKE FUKUSHIMA!! Media Blackout ordered by the New World Order!!!-style blogging that’s currently flying around on the interwebs about Nebraska’s nuclear plants:

No, there was NOT a near nuclear meltdown in Nebraska on June 7. And no, there’s been NO radiation leak from Fort Calhoun Station, pictured notably above. The Lincoln Journal-Star today runs down the myths and rumors about Nebraska’s two nuclear plants at risk of flooding by the Missouri River — it’s well worth reading.

The Journal-Star also asks the two utilities involved what would happen in a worst-case scenario and gets not much of an answer.

Q: What is the likelihood that radioactive particles could enter the water or atmosphere from an accident caused by floodwaters?

OPPD: The fuel is safe and secure.

NPPD: Again, extremely unlikely. Cooper has physical and equipment barriers in place that would prevent any radioactivity from entering the water, the first of which is preventing the water from entering the building.

Q: If floodwaters do inundate Fort Calhoun, what is the risk to people living in the surrounding area?

OPPD: We feel that the plant is secure. The risk to the surrounding area will be provided by the flood, not our plant.

NPPD: We are taking the proactive and precautionary steps to minimize any risk.

In essence, don’t worry about what could happen because nothing will happen. Got it?

THAT’S scary — not the fiction and conspiracy theories.

See all related posts for Fort Calhoun & Cooper Nuclear Station »

The Osama-bin-Laden-Isn’t-Really-Dead conspiracy theory

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So who’s in on this conspiracy to fool the world?


  • Osama bin Laden (he was really taken to a farm where he’ll be able to run and play);
  • An anonymous Pakistan security official who took photos of 3 dead men, a wrecked U.S. helicopter and the Abbottabad compound about an hour after the U.S. military had left with Bin Laden’s body (CONVENIENT!!);
  • A senior al Qaeda member on Riyadh’s most-wanted list named Khaled al-Qahtani (ALSO WANTS TO GO TO A FARM);
  • And, of course, Pakistan — because, more than anyone else, they have SO MUCH  to gain in this situation. (WIN!!)

Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow discuss birthers and deathers [starting at about 3:33 mins]:

Rachel: “The idea that the birth certificate is the real story, and Osama bin Laden is the ‘distraction’ from it, tells you everything you need to know about the people who are really invested in the birth certificate story. If you think bin Laden is the DISTRACTION that America needs, I think that puts that in the proper perspective.”