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CNN's Ali Velshi will be hosting a new business show on Al Jazeera America this summer. Here's to hoping we've seen the last of interviews like this one from his final show, where regular Stephen Moore from the Wall Street Journal was there to dumb down the conversation as usual.

Ali Velshi Joining Al Jazeera America As Host:

Ali Velshi is getting a primetime business program on Al Jazeera America, the network announced on Thursday.

"The as yet-to-be named 30-minute magazine-style program will initially launch in a weekly format but is expected to move to a five-days-a-week schedule by year’s end," the network said in a statement.

The host's last day at CNN will be Friday. News of his departure broke on Wednesday. At the time, he said that he was leaving to pursue a project "he couldn’t pass up."

Velshi said in a statement that he was "thrilled" to join Al Jazeera America. “It’s a tremendous opportunity and I look forward to taking advantage of the extraordinary U.S. news-gathering capabilities the channel is building and working with such a diverse and talented group of colleagues to tell compelling stories that matter to Americans," he said.

As they noted, Al Jazeera America is going to replace Current TV's programming soon and they're still hiring staff and searching for on air talent. I haven't read anything yet about whether they're going to keep any of Current's lineup or not. I'd be happy if we find out that Cenk Uygur and John Fugelsang will continue to be employed by the network once they make the change.

I'll be very curious to see how Velshi's show differs when he's no longer working for CNN and if he's got some better guests than those who regularly appeared on his weekend show, Your Money, like Moore, who his network decided to inflict on the public just about every single stinking weekend.

And naturally every wingnut blog that posted anything about this has their comments section full of hate filled posts attacking Velshi for the move. I'm sure we haven't seen anything yet compared to the vitriol we'll be treated to once they actually bring the network on the air in America.

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(Chuck Todd: Republicans will give Democrats all the revenue they want, if they just agree to raise the retirement age. Trust them.)

I don't know about anyone else, but as someone who has actually worked at one of those jobs where you take a shower at the end of the work day and not before you go in, I'm sick to death of watching these overpaid television pundits and their counterparts in the Congress, nonchalantly discussing raising the retirement age. It may not matter much to them, but there are real economic hardships involved when you force the average wage earner out there to continue to work until they drop dead if the retirement age is raised any higher than it already is now.

If our beltway Villagers and politicians really believe that it's no big deal to raise the retirement age for the rest of America, how about we ask them to walk a mile in our shoes? I wonder if any of them would decide that maybe it's not such a great idea to be doing physical labor well into your late sixties if they were the ones actually having to do those jobs?

I wonder if Chuck Todd would be a little more worried about when he might be able to retire if he were say, some migrant worker picking berries and in need of daily visits to the chiropractor he can't afford because his back is screaming all day from being bent over?

Or how Mrs. Greenspan would feel if she were working at Mickey-D's flipping burgers and serving fries and standing on a ceramic floor, with her varicose veins getting worse by the minute?

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After discussing the pick of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate and whether or not the columns at either the Wall Street Journal or the National Review might have pushed Romney into choosing Ryan or not, host John Roberts asks Bill Kristol about the likely attacks coming against Ryan from Democrats. And even Bill Kristol had to wonder if Republicans are going to be able to defend the tax cuts for the wealthy.

KRISTOL: I think taxes are the tougher attack ads. They combined, obviously, they're cutting Medicare. Why do they have to cut Medicare and gut education and do all these other horrible things when they insist on giving those tax cuts to the wealthy. But actually, if you look at polling, it's a pretty close call. People do know that entitlements have to be reformed. Even President Obama has said so. Hasn't done much about it. I think Republicans can pretty easily, honestly hold their own on that.

It's the tax cuts for the wealthy where Republicans have not done a particularly good job of defending it and I think you'll see the Democratic attacks really focus on that side of the equation.

ROBERTS: Steve Moore?

MOORE: Well, Bill is right. We know, we've known this for two years that the Democratic attack line would be we're going to cut entitlements and give tax cuts to the rich, because that's what the Democrats always do. Bill what I think is really exciting about having Paul on the ticket now is, who's better to defend those policies than Paul is and he knows this stuff better than anyone.

As the Think Progress post linked above noted:

Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result. To avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.”

But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”

Later in the segment Moore called anyone who dares to point out that Republicans want to do exactly that, gut our social safety nets while giving tax cuts to their rich friends, running on the politics of fear and envy. You hear that all you lazy moochers out there? You're just jealous of those job-creating achievers.... yeah, that's the ticket.

Here's to hoping things work out for Mitt Romney as they did for the last person who took Bloody Bill Kristol's advice as to who to choose for a running mate.

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This Sunday's Up With Chris Hayes was not quite as annoying as when they brought in Michael Steele for the entire hour to ruin the show, but I'm really not sure what arguing with supply-side economics, Club for Growth, professional liars like Stephen Moore brings to the table, especially when a lot of the lies he was spewing went unchallenged.

Note to Chris Hayes. If I want to hear Stephen Moore spout B.S. I can turn on any one of about a dozen shows that he's regularly on week after week, day after day. I watch your show because I don't want to listen to anyone having inane arguments with lying wingnuts.

Hayes did get Moore to admit, begrudgingly, that Romney might end up facing enough public pressure that he's forced to release more of his tax returns in the weeks to come. I am not holding my breath to see that happen any time before the election, but I'm happy to see Republicans having to admit it's a real problem for Romney.

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On CNN's Your Money, host Ali Velshi brought in the Wall Street Journal's resident hack, Stephen Moore so he could pollute not just one, but two segments in a row on his show, because heaven forbid the viewers could be allowed to hear what either of the other two guest had to say without someone like Moore talking over them, lying, obfuscating and muddying up the waters or filibustering when he had the chance so the other guest doesn't get a chance to talk.

CNN always seems to do this to liberals or anyone that even leans to the center-left and makes sure they've got a right-winger like Moore on there for "balance," especially if that person is going to talk about something they don't want to allow a clear message on. In this case, it was the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka talking about income disparity and the fact that we shouldn't be going after workers' pensions and benefits when those at the top are making hundreds of times more than their employees.

Trumka also did a good job talking about the record income disparity we've got in the United States and the fact that as union membership has declined, that disparity has gone up and for his part, he refused to allow Moore to dominate the conversation or for Velshi to get him off point by interrupting him when he wasn't done talking yet.

And then we had Norm Ornstein, who has a new book out talking about the fact that Republicans are the problem with the gridlock we're seeing in our government right now, which doesn't fit into CNN's game of "both sides" are equally terrible and to blame for not cooperating with each other. So heaven forbid he can't be allowed to speak without Moore hogging up the better portion of the entire interview.

Moore sadly is a regular guest on this show week after week and brings nothing but intellectual dishonesty week after week as he did here. His presence on this show is just another example of CNN doing their best to be Fox-lite. Stephen Moore, we let him lie, you decide.

Ornstein's segment below the fold.

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote a terrific column today on how completely irresponsible Newt Gingrich's new tax plan he just released is, so naturally CNN apparently wouldn't put him on the air unless he was forced to argue with The Wall Street Journal's resident hack, Stephen Moore.

Here's Reich's column -- Newt’s Tax Plan, and Why His Polls Rise the More Outrageous He Becomes:

Newt Gingrich has done it again. With his new tax plan he has raised the bar from irresponsibility to recklessness.

Every dollar estimate I’m about to share with you comes from the independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Center – a group whose estimates are used by almost everyone in Washington regardless of political persuasion.

First off, Newt’s plan increases the federal budget deficit by about $850 billion – in a single year!

To put this in perspective, most forecasts of the budget deficit cover ten years. The elusive goal of the White House and many on both sides of the aisle in Congress is to reduce that ten-year deficit by 3 to 4 trillion dollars.

Newt goes in the other direction, with gusto. Increasing the deficit by $850 billion in a single year is beyond the wildest imaginings of the least responsible budget mavens within a radius of three thousand miles from Washington.

Imagine what Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s or Fitch would do if it became law. We’d go directly from a triple-A credit rating to triple X – the veritable porn star of fiscal mayhem. Interest on our debt would become larger than most of the rest of the budget.

Most of this explosion of debt in Newt’s plan occurs because he slashes taxes. But not just anyone’s taxes. The lion’s share of Newt’s tax cuts benefit the very, very rich. Read on...

So of course, Moore just loved the plan since it benefits the interest of the 1 percent he's always looking out for. Transcript below the fold with Moore's hackery, touting the tired old lines about how trickle-down economics works and claiming that slashing taxes on the richest among us is going to create jobs and with Reich calling him out for how utterly ridiculous his arguments were. Blitzer wrapped it up, calling it a "great debate." Sorry Wolf, but there's nothing "great" about letting one of your guests come on and spew lies aimed at making the income disparity we've got in the United States worse.

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While most Americans were taking the day off for this Thanksgiving holiday, sadly the one thing we can count on is that the propaganda machine over at Fox, never, ever, takes the day off. Here's the Wall Street Journal's resident hack Stephen Moore with Megyn Kelly fill in Rick Folbaum, opining over the so-called "Super Committee" failing to reach a deal and calling unemployment insurance "essentially what's a welfare benefit."

Nothing like trying to paint unemployment beneficiaries as lazy slackers or "welfare recipients" - as though they haven't worked to pay into an insurance program that helps protect them if they can't find a job in these horrible economic times, and downplaying, as Moore did here, the effect that has on the rest of America's economy if those benefits are cut off.

Naturally Moore thinks that we should not "soak the rich" (as he claims Democrats want to do) in order to get the deficit under control. That's the same deficit he and his ilk never had one iota of concern over when Bush was breaking the bank with his two unfunded wars that were left off the books, the Medicare Part D giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry that wasn't paid for, and tax cuts for his rich buddies that they didn't need.

Leave it to Fox to continue to trash those who cannot find a job due to the same conservative economic policies that Moore has been supporting for years now, and for them to make sure that even on a holiday, they're going to stay live and keep misinforming their viewers. Sadly I can't do my monitoring of cable news for the site without seeing Moore's mug on the airways way too frequently, whether it be HBO, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, or Fox.

We'd all be better off if Fox had taken the day off like the rest of our corporate media did this holiday for the most part, but that goes for their coverage on a daily basis as well. As we've already written about here, those Fox viewers are less informed than those who watch no news at all.

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Jon Perr and Prof. Jeffrey Sachs already explained today why Rick Perry's flat tax is just a terrible idea. This Tuesday, The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner expressed some similar sentiments on the PBS Newshour, where they had him arguing with The Wall Street Journal's resident hack and flat tax fan, Stephen Moore.

As Kuttner explained, Perry's plan is nothing more than a tax cut for the affluent who are the ones now paying above the 20 percent rate and who of course are going to opt to pay the lower amount, that would nothing to create jobs or simplify the current tax code. Kuttner also went after Moore for doing nothing more than repeating "slogans" rather than actually addressing any of the points he made about the problems with Perry's plan.

As Kuttner also pointed out, Perry's plan would actually make our deficit problems worse, which would of course mean conservatives calling for cuts to Social Security and other government programs that help the working class.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Naturally since the National Labor Relations Board did something where companies cannot spend a whole lot of time fearmongering and scaring their employees over how terrible unionization might be for them, the panel members on Rupert Murdoch's The Journal Editorial Report on the Fox propaganda channel thought that this was just a terrible idea, because heaven forbid we can't have anyone in the United States standing up against our race to the bottom on wages and benefits going on right now.

These cretins won't be happy until there's nothing left of the middle class in the United States before they're through with us and of course the group here pretended that if heaven forbid workers in the United States are paid a living wage with some benefits negotiated through their labor contracts, that means companies here won't create any more jobs. What of course was not discussed here is why our politicians are happy to be rewarding companies for outsourcing jobs and shipping them overseas and why we're not fixing our tax code and our trade laws to do something about it.

Here's more from Think Progress on what the panel here was trying to convince their lemmings who watch
Fox and actually take it seriously, and what they were trying to portray as some mortal threat to our economy recovering because heaven forbid companies can't scare the hell out of and intimidate their workers before they decide if they want to vote to join a union.

Republicans Call Rule That Would Make Union Elections Fairer An ‘Outrage,’ ‘Misguided,’ And ‘Reckless’:

Today, the National Labor Relations Board announced a new rule aimed at speeding up the process for union elections, in an attempt to prevent employers from using the various tactics they break out to delay and ultimately undermine unionization drives. According to research by John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford Business School, 35 percent of the time that workers file a petition for a union election, the election does not occur due to the many steps that employers take — including bringing in anti-union consultants — to delay elections for weeks, if not years. Currently, the average time between workers filing a petition for an election and the election taking place is 58 days, ample time for employers to engage in coercion and intimidation, or to fire pro-union workers (which happens in 25 percent of union drives). [...]

As the Center for American Progress’ David Madland wrote, the rule would simply “address the roadblocks that commonly are thrown up when the NLRB attempts to set up an election”:

The proposed rule would address the roadblocks that commonly are thrown up when the NLRB attempts to set up an election. There is currently no limit on employers’ or unions’ ability to demand a pre-election hearing on most any issue, including the eligibility of employees to vote, or the scope of the bargaining unit, which can be used to delay an election. Many of these issues could be resolved after voting, and others are manufactured for purposes of delay and don’t need to be resolved at all, ever. As former NLRB General Counsel Fred Feinstein explains, “The problem has been that a party in any election case has the ability to undermine the expression of employee free choice by manipulating Board procedures to create delay.”

And that's about 180 degrees from the takeaway these liars on Fox gave during this segment. In their world, it's the evil unions that have too much power and just want to wreck our economy because those damned American workers want to be paid a fair wage and make sure the company they work for doesn't kill them, or make them work for slave wages with no benefits. The nerve of them asking the CEO's running a company to want to share their wealth and treat their employees fairly and them having some voice in that.

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From the PBS Newshour, the Club for Growth, Wall Street Journal economics columnist and sadly for the rest of us regular guest on both Fox and CNN Stephen Moore debated the Center for American Progress' Heather Boushey about what if anything can be done to get the U.S. economy growing again and new jobs being created. Par for the course, Moore was touting his usual nonsense that tax cuts create jobs and that the stimulus plan didn't do any good at all or get us out of the massive whole that the Bush administration left us in where we were as Boushey noted, losing jobs at a rate of 20,000 a day.

I find it disgusting that this guy gets any air time on television at all to sound off like a broken record but I was pleased to at least see him get some push back on his talking points during this interview. As Boushey pointed out, the stimulus didn't work as well as it should have because of the Republicans insisting on including so many tax cuts in the package. And as she also pointed out, if those tax cuts Moore loves so much supposedly created jobs, "that's certainly not the way it looked in the 2000s. We cut taxes, and we saw the lowest employment growth of any [...] in the post-World War II era."

It's too bad that she didn't get a chance with Moore talking over her to point out that even his own paper did an article on how Bush had the "worst track record on record" when it came to job creation. Not that it's likely a few more facts would have gotten in the way of Moore spewing his talking points here.

Boushey did get Moore to agree with her that U.S. businesses sitting on record profits and not reinvesting that money was a problem but of course Moore's solution was... you guessed it, more tax cuts.

Transcript via PBS below the fold.

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