You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1478)

PLAYS: (3696)

ThinkProgress has the transcript:

SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you disagree with Rush Limbaugh that Colin Powell should leave the Republican Party?

PRICE: Look, it’s not up to Rush Limbaugh to decide who ought to be in the Republican Party. There are all sorts of wonderful folks across this land who hold dear the fundamental principles that we, as Republicans — [...]

SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you believe that Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney are better, quote — I’m just using terms that we hear every day on TV and radio — that they are somehow better Republicans than Colin Powell?

PRICE: No. Goodness.

How long before Rep. Price grovels before the Flaming Gasbag? It may be tough for him to beat some of the recent records.

And while he's at it, Limbaugh is probably due to call out Scarborough, too.

Dunno about the rest of you, but I'm only a little ways through this bowl of popcorn.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1998)

PLAYS: (4481)

Liz Cheney went on Morning Joe today and tried to defend her father's recent media appearances, in which he attacked the Obama administration's policies in the war on terror, and moreover his role in enacting the torture regime that he's now so vigorously defending as having saved "thousands of lives."

To which Eugene Robinson responded in the Washington Post:

The fallacy lies in the fact that it is impossible for Cheney to prove that anti-terrorism methods within the bounds of U.S. law and tradition would have failed to prevent new attacks. Nor, for that matter, can Cheney demonstrate that torture and other abuses were particularly effective.

Liz Cheney, of course, thinks that's all wrong: These "interrogation methods" kept us safe -- and that's all the justification they need. She thinks having the OLC write up an excuse as paper cover is justification enough, and said so to Robinson, after he compared their lawbreaking to a bank robbery:

Robinson: But look, efficacy isn't the only thing we should be talking about here. We should also be talking about legality. We should be talking about whether what was done was legal. If I rob a bank and get away with it, there's a lot of efficacy there, but it's not legal.

Cheney: Yeah, but that's not a fair comparison. That's not fair. Because this program was very responsibly and carefully done. And if you look at the history of it, with the CIA coming to the NSC and saying, 'We need to know what we can do legally.' And the very legal opinions that the administration has released are in fact the documents that set out in great detail, this is what you can do, and this is what you can't do. If you cross this line, it becomes illegal. If you cross this line, it becomes torture. It was very, very clear. So I think it does a real disservice to the people who ran the program to equate it with robbing a bank or with criminal activity. You have to look at the very specific and important legal restrictions that were put in place.

Robinson: I do not think that's the case. Torture is a war crime. It is a war crime.

Cheney: That's right. And this wasn't torture. Those legal memos demonstrated where the line was, and where it would become torture.

Robinson: Waterboarding was torture during the Spanish Inquisition, it was torture when Pol Pot did it, and I believe it was torture when we did it. But that --

It quickly devolves into crosstalk, and Cheney spends a lot of time filibustering with her talking points, but she never is able to effectively respond to Robinson's chief point: Legal paperwork is not adequate cover for committing torture, one of the most heinous of all crimes. As he points out at the end:

No, you don't have to make that choice. You don't have to choose to act in an illegal manner. You don't have to.

Continue reading »

March 30, 2009 News Corp

Dave N: I'm sure Glenn Beck will take comfort in the serene knowledge that his own ratings are kicking those of Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe," but it must still be somewhat disconcerting for him to see the conservative Republican ex-congressman break into uncontrollable gales of laughter upon viewing a compendium of Beck's greatest hits of the past couple of months at Fox.

On the other hand, it's comforting to know we aren't alone in being astonished by the bizarre, slow-motion train wreck that has been Beck's show. Indeed, no one on the "Morning Joe" panel seemed inclined to defend Beck's bizarre behavior, except to note that his ratings speak for themselves.

Scarborough tries to ameliorate his derision once he regains control, but the damage was done. Anyone want to wager whether Beck responds?

DOWNLOAD (65)

PLAY (207)

Erin Burnett hides behind a viewer email to question whether or not the United States should be extending unemployment benefits for workers who have lost their jobs since so many people are "asking about it". I guess in Burnett's world, our country would be better off if we were more like China.

I'd like to know if Burnett has ever questioned whether these overpaid Wall Street a-holes she sucks up to every day deserve the golden parachutes they're walking away with - after destroying our economy. How about that for a random thought to come out of that head of yours?

And of course Scar can't help himself, trying to one-up her for the day's biggest "compassionate conservative" - he even manages to get a shot in at single mothers before the segment is over. These people have no souls.

Adam Green wrote Burnett an open letter over at the HuffPo. As he noted you can let her know how you feel about this at: SquawkOnTheStreet@cnbc.com.

DOWNLOAD (34)

PLAY (92)

It looks like becoming a WH reporter for NBC has really gotten to Chuck Todd's head. He actually had the nerve to say this to Joe Scarborough about Howard Dean.

Todd: One one hand, you gotta hand it to the White House. They wanted to elevate Rush...
With Michael Steel, this has been as rough of a start, you know he is bordering on becoming a version of Howard Dean on the Republican side. When Howard Dean stopped having the respect of the party insiders---Steele, if he's not careful will not have the respect of party insiders and I don't care how much the grassroots might like, and I don't want to offend Mr. Steel, who's coming on. He's gotta be careful..

Howard Dean actually won an election and became the governor of Vermont before he was elected to run the DNC. I think that trumps being a Lt. Gov and then Michael Steel lost his bid to become a Senator. Also, Howard Dean's fifty state strategy while running the DNC helped the Democratic Party to make incredible gains in the House and the Senate and gave them huge majorities there even when "party insiders" made fun of that tactic. Just because some party insiders do not like Howard Dean does not mean he's been ineffective.

Can Todd name us some of Dean's failures that have made him a target of Chuck? Michael Steele has looked like a bumbling fool as he dealt with Rush that made him acquiesce and apologize repeatedly to the Limbaugh National Committee. Steele is in trouble with Republicans before he's even printed up his cards.

Apology to Rush Limbaugh aside, new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is coming under fire from his own GOP troops to shut up and focus on his job of organizing the party and raising money, not fighting with his own political kind. Several Republican advisers to Congress and the previous Bush administration told Whispers that they are worried that the war of words is fracturing the party when it should be healing the division between conservatives and moderates in the wake of the 2008 election.

"If his implosion continues, RNC members are likely to call a special session to dump him for an effective chairman. There is not much patience for failure."

DOWNLOAD (31)

PLAY (86)

Bill Adair came on the set of Morning Joe and obviously disappointed the cast there when he informed them that the right wing talking point from the GOP that there was money in the stimulus bill for San Francisco mice was a load of bunk. That didn't stop Joe and the gang from trying desperately to cling to the notion that they weren't misinforming the public with their "reporting" on the mouse story.

More on this from Adair's site PolitiFact:

To hear Republican House members tell it, you'd think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stuffed $30 million into the stimulus bill to benefit an endangered mouse in her district.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa called it an earmark and "a pet project" while pointing to a sign he made that said "Pelosi's Mouse slated for $30 Million."

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio opposed the bill and asked how money "for some salt marsh mouse in San Francisco is going to help a struggling autoworker in Ohio?"

And Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said on Fox News that there was "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

The tale of the mouse appears to have originated around Feb. 6, 2009, from Republican staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

"Appropriations Republicans, concerned with this irresponsible process and possible abuse of taxpayer funds, have asked various federal agencies how they intend to spend the windfall of cash that Congress may approve in the 'stimulus' bill," said a memo posted to the site. "One peek behind the bureaucratic curtain has yielded the following examples of hidden program information that is not included in the language of the bill or report . These are programs which various federal agencies have privately indicated they will fund with 'stimulus' money."

The memo lists a number of projects, including up to $37.5 million for "wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse."

That became fodder for a Feb. 11 e-mail from Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman. "Thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse," Steel wrote. "This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past. And it certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs."

That e-mail made it into a Feb. 12 story in the Washington Times headlined "Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese." The story stated, incorrectly as it turns out, that the stimulus bill "includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse."

And that story was then picked up by the Drudge Report.

That's when the mouse references exploded, morphing from a possible project of an unnamed agency to Pence's "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

We wanted to get to the bottom of this issue and find out what was up with the mouse.

Turns out the salt marsh harvest mouse is a previously obscure beneficiary of a major environmental restoration project for the San Francisco Bay area.

"A friend e-mailed me and asked me if any of the $30 million for the mouse was for us, and I was like 'What are you talking about?'" said Steve Ritchie, an engineer with the California State Coastal Conservancy, a state agency charged with preserving and restoring the coastline.

You can read the rest of the post here.

DOWNLOAD (32)

PLAY (101)

Joe Scarborough states the obvious after seeing President Obama's high Gallup poll ratings.

John Amato:

I have to agree with Morning Joe on this one. Hey Joe, you don't know what you're talking about when it concerns the American people and President Obama.

DOWNLOAD (63)

PLAY (220)

Paul Krugman debunks Joe Scarborough's talking points on how the Republican party has actually governed as compared to their rhetoric. It would be nice if we had more progressives than just Paul Krugman who actually know something about economics allowed on our airwaves to shoot these guys down when they tell such obvious lies.

Scarborough: Let me just say though, George Bush over the past eight years had the most disastrous spending policy. They decided to cut taxes. They decided to increase the deficit. They decided to increase entitlement spending while they were fighting two wars. They made no tough decisions what so ever. You can't say that that's the traditional conservative approach to economics. It was a disaster and I think we can all agree with that can we not?

Krugman: You've got some mythical image of what a modern conservative is. Reagan increased spending while cutting taxes. Bush increased spending while cutting taxes... Who is your ideal here?

Krugman follows with giving us a dose of reality from Scarborough's talking points about how we were just so full of bipartisan love and that worked so well while Clinton was in office.... and calls what happened while he was President and Republicans controlled the Congress what it was...gridlock. He manages to get Scarborough to admit that we need some bold steps now if we're going to fix the mess we're in. I don't think bold is what we're going to get as long as the Republicans feel obstructing is better for them for political purposes than actually fixing our economy.

DOWNLOAD (28)

PLAY (88)

Joe Scarborough during part of his daily freak out on Morning Joe. He looks like he's slowly coming more and more unhinged on there by the day from the little I can stand to watch of the show. Where was Joe Scarborough's concern over deficits when George Bush was throwing billions down the toilet with his invasion of Iraq? And he has an utter lack of concern over what high unemployment rates mean to average Americans or anyone else for that matter.

DOWNLOAD (42)

PLAY (72)

Rudy Giuliani stopped by the set of Morning Joe. Bob Cesca has more on this:

(Giuliani): It's very, very strange that on the day the president announced this, they discovered a guy that was released, who was killing people. (laughter) I follow this situation pretty closely and just talked to someone who's been to Guantanamo and looked at the conditions there. This is not an unusual occurrence. There have been arguably 30 or 40 situations like that where people are released from Guantanamo have killed innocent people -- have killed American soldiers.

What the hell?! First, laughing and smiling after saying the words "who was killing people" is very simply insane. But also, who released those detainees? Not President Obama who was sworn in on, you know, Tuesday. No-one's talking about shutting down Guantanamo and then letting everyone go. We're shutting down Guantanamo and moving the inmates to other prisons.

And Andrew Sullivan notes that...

As an addendum to Patrick's post, the following are just a handful of other convicted terrorists currently held in Florence, Colorado

Zacarias Moussaoui, Conspirator in the September 11, 2001 attacks
Omar Abdel-Rahman, "The Blind Sheik"; involved in 1993 WTC bombing
Richard Colvin Reid, Islamic terrorist, nicknamed the "Shoe Bomber"
Wadih el-Hage, Conspirator in the 1998 US embassy bombings
Mahmud Abouhalima, Islamic Mujahideen leader, 1993 WTC bombing
Jose Padilla, Convicted of aiding terroristsMohammed A. Salameh, 1993 WTC bombing

But that's not going to stop Rudy from throwing out a big heaping helping of good old Republican fear mongering bright and early in the morning. Oh no, say it ain't so Joe. The savior of 9-11 says be afraid, be very afraid. I thought you were supposed to be some tough guy Rudy?

DOWNLOAD (37)

PLAY (62)

From Morning Joe, Nov. 24, 2008.

You guys [Team Obama] own the economy at 12 o'clock eastern time today, correct? When Senator Obama announces his Treasury Secretary, announces the Larry Summers position. It is now Barack Obama's responsibility on the economy, is that not correct?

h/t Bob Cesca, who has more here.

On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews interviewed his daughter, Caroline, as one of the student members of the group Concerned Youth of America, and just didn't bother mentioning the familial relationship. Apparently his daughter had asked not to be identified as such and, rather than interview another member of the group and thus preserve his journalistic integrity (heh), Matthews went right ahead anyways.

It's such a small-beer breach of what passes for journalistic ethics nowadays as to go almost un-noticed, although in the halcyon days of journalism it would probably have gotten him fired or at least earned the censure of his peers. It simply doesn't compare, though, with the likes of Andrea Mitchell reporting on the bank bailout plan - and blaming Obama for its failure - while married to Alan Greenspan and not making full disclosure of that fact before every report.

Continue reading »

Larry Kudlow proves once again that he's nothing more than a right wing, free market, Milton Friedman hack that just lies at will. Doesn't he have a conscience? Nope...It's never the big money freepers that horde the wealth of this country and  have no restrictions on what they can do thanks in part to Mr Deregulation himself, John McCain. Jon Perr has more...

Download | play   Download | play (h/t Heather) (rough transcript)

Kudlow: It's time for the Congress, Republicans and Democrats to stop encouraging---exhorting and forcing banks to make low income loans with no documentation. Stop that---literally pushed these lenders to make low income loans

Scarborough: Hold on a second. You cannot blame this on low income people that are getting a house. 

Kudlow: I'm not blaming them. Kudlow: Sub prime, sub standard loans were a creature of the US Congress in the 90's and the 2000's.

Scarborough: Are you saying that poor people have caused this crisis?

Kudlow: Not poor people. Members of Congress who were rich people. But their Liberal guilt consciences forced banks and lenders to make lousy sub-standard loans and that has to be repealed...not everybody can afford a home, Joe. Some people have to rent."

What a crock.  Kudlow blames it all on the liberals. What a joke this man is. This is another case that proves conservatism is dead. Of course not everybody can afford a home. Sorry, the irresponsible lending practices went on because it kept Bush's economy chugging along for years before it crashed and burned. The ownership society Bush and conservatives called it. Morning Joe actually takes him apart for even suggesting that low income families are the root cause of our economic problems in the housing market. It's up to the lenders to qualify people for loans. PERIOD. 

I watched this crisis unfold and saw people walking into fairly expensive homes in Venice, CA with no down payments and either low or no interest loans. Yes, I'm a renter now. I couldn't believe my eyes when the property values skyrocketed (went up to 1 million) because of these lending practices. People can apply for a loan all they want, but that does not automatically mean they should be approved. That's up to the lenders. Liberal guilt is never an issue and a lie, Mr Kudlow. They aren't supposed to hand over thousands of dollars without knowing that they will be paid back. The predatory lenders made boat loads of cash at will with a conservative philosophy in hand. Just ask your best friend for a hundred bucks and see what happens...Naomi Klein writes: Disowned by the Ownership Society

Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Bush has turned out to be the ownership society's undertaker.

I hope these work....Contact Larry Kudlow here: Larry.Kudlow@cnbc.com  Larry.Kudlow@nbcuni.com Call 877-251-5685 up until 7 pm EST and let him know how you feel in a respectful way.

Logan Murphy says:

Continue reading »

On the same day Barack Obama met with the conservative water carrier Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, the McCain campaign made it clear that Sarah Palin won't be talking to any of the media any time soon.

In a jaw-dropping appearance on MSNBC Thursday, McCain aide Nicole Wallace told Time's Jay Carney that the press wouldn't get a chance to take shots at the hockey mom turned McCain running mate.

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

Given the highly combustible mixture that is Palin's reed-thin resume, radical right-wing agenda and mushrooming portfolio of scandals, Team McCain's effort to field the first stealth vice presidential candidate in history comes as no surprise.

But for conservatives so found of countdowns and ticking clocks, the question now is: when will "Disappearing Palin" meet the press? Apparently, "Sarahcoulda," but won't talk to the media.

The clock is ticking.

   Joe Scarborough goes after bloggers (I mean, who else is watching your show, Joe?) on a regular basis, denigrating us as Cheetos-eating Star Wars fans living in our mothers' basements.  Joe's court jester Willie Geist interviews bloggers in the DNC Big Tent, and finds very few bloggers who fit Joe's slurs. 

Download | play   Download | play  

As with most issues, what Joe says as opinion, is simply contrary to fact.   Surveys of top political bloggers (here and here) in 2006 found that most are male, white, well-educated, around 45 years old, and earning above-average income.  Kinda exactly like you, Joe.  We also have extensive activist experience (I shook Ted Kennedy's hand at 18 and haven't really washed under the nails since), and we have an addictive level of news consumption (which is the only explanation I have as to why we get up to watch Morning Joe).

As an Ivy-educated middle-aged mother-of-three homeowner who does not own any Star Wars memorabilia, I can see why you might be jealous of bloggers, Joe.  Few of us have to deal with little niggling details like dead staff in our office or having to carry the water of the Worst. President. Ever. 

Also, as a blogger, I can tell you in the presence of my considerable, well-educated audience, to kiss my liberal elite blogger ass.