Cenk has the recap. Look at the score in the screenshot.

And here's the full episode if you want to watch it.

Part 1

Part 2

Sam Seder filling in for Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks takes a call from a conservative who resents paying for health care for his fellow citizens, but doesn't mind paying for the Iraq War. Why in the hell is this man not on the radio every day of the week?

From The Young Turks. Cenk puts together a pretty good collection of the racist remarks coming from the right wing pundits over the last couple of weeks.

Cenk takes apart Pat Buchanan's op-ed at Human Events on Sonia Sotomayor.

Well, right now it looks like they may have gotten their wish. From The Young Turks before anyone knew the "outcome" of the election. Cenk takes the war mongers to task for hoping Ahmadinejad wins the election, because they want war with Iran.

As Cenk pointed out over at Daily KOS after he recorded this segment, the Iranian Elections Were Obviously Rigged.

It's going to be interesting to say the least to see how the neocons are reacting to the election "results" on the Sunday shows. As Spencer Ackerman points out though, the last thing the United States needs to be doing right now is getting into the middle of this, regardless of whether we agree with the election outcome or not.

As usual the blogosphere has done a better job of following this story than our sorry excuse for a "main stream media" in the United States. Example one being Andrew Sullivan , among others, who has done a very good job of following the events that have occurred over the last few days, and Tweets coming in from Iranians who were watching the events first hand.

I think democracy in Iran would be a wonderful thing, but I'm worried about what type of bloodshed may occur there in order for it to happen. My heart goes out to all of those young people there who are trying to do what they can to bring change to that country. I think in the long run even if they don't win this battle, the younger generation in Iran is going to bring change there eventually as long as the neocons don't get their way.

This really needs to be heard to be believed. Boston-area radio talk show host Jay Severin was suspended this week for making highly inflammatory and racist remarks on his talk show about Mexicans. TYT's Cenk Uygur thinks the station didn't go far enough and Severin should lose his job:

As you heard in the video above, Severin has been suspended by WTKK-FM in Boston. But that is not nearly enough. If you don't get fired for this, what do you get fired for?

Here are just some of his prize quotes from the show:

"So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico - women with mustaches and VD - now we have swine flu."

He described Mexicans as "the world's lowest of primitives."

"When we are the magnet for primitives around the world - and it's not the primitives' fault by the way, I'm not blaming them for being primitives - I'm merely observing they're primitive."

"It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America."

"We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of criminaliens already here."

He also said that emergency rooms had "become essentially condos for Mexicans."

And on a 2004 broadcast, he compared Muslims to a fifth column in this country and said in response to a caller who thought people should reach out to Muslims: "You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them."

But unfortunately calling for the murder of Muslim-Americans has become so commonplace and acceptable these days that he didn't even come close to getting fired for those comments. So, I guess he figured he had free reign to attack the other half of M&Ms.

Now before some of you start making a "Free Speech" martyr of Severin, be clear what free speech means. It does NOT mean that you have the right to spew any kind of ugly thought you have on public airwaves. It means that the government cannot curtail your right to speak your mind. It doesn't mean that you do not have to deal with the repercussions of what you say. In this case, Severin's boss is not the government and they must assume the responsibility for allowing such unmitigated hate on the air. Avoiding Godwin references, how similar was Severin's rant to Radio Rwanda? Is that the kind of allusions with which WTKK wants to be associated?

I am very glad to hear this. The Young Turks are going to be live on XM Radio 8-9pm Eastern and on XM and Sirius on the weekends. Now if we can get Randi's contract issues worked out and Sam Seder back on the air I'll be a happy camper.

Seriously, why the hell isn't there more than one progressive talk station on either of these services? There are enough shows out there to fill two channels. We get about eight stations of right wing talk and one lousy progressive station. It's pathetic. Anyway I'm glad Cenk is back and not just on You Tube.

Cenk takes Erin Burnett to task for her appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time last Friday and her defense of Wall Street.

LA Times:

Television network executives looking for new talent are accustomed to getting pleas from agents urging them to check out their clients.

But in the last few weeks, MSNBC has experienced a different kind of onslaught: a flood of unsolicited endorsements from fans of liberal radio hosts touting them as the network's next potential big star.

The grass-roots campaigns were triggered by the news that the cable channel is contemplating creating a new show for its 7 p.m. time slot, currently occupied by a repeat of "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." That prompted the launch of independent Facebook groups extolling the merits of two radio hosts: Cenk Uygur of the Internet show "The Young Turks" and Sam Seder of Air America.

The lobbying efforts have drawn thousands of supporters and led fans to pepper MSNBC with e-mails in support of their favorite personality. Hundreds of people have posted messages of support online, some even creating their own video spots. (Give the time slot to "The Young Turks," warns one, "or I'll switch back to CNN.") Liberal bloggers on sites like MyDD.com have also weighed in.

They all hope that MSNBC will choose a host cast from the same left-leaning mold as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, who have helped power the cable channel's ratings.

"You have a block with two unabashedly progressive voices that doesn't exist anywhere else on cable news," said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos, who urged his readers to back Seder for the spot. "We want to take advantage of locking up that third hour, if we can."

MSNBC President Phil Griffin said he's not necessarily looking for someone who shares the political leanings of Olbermann and Maddow, but is delighted by the response.

"If people identify with us, I'm thrilled," he said. "Obviously, we're going to have flow between our shows," Griffin added. "But it isn't going to be ideology that drives it. I want that hour to be edgy, to be smart, to be a little snarky."

Both Sam and Cenk are good friends of the site and John's appeared on both of their programs, so we're not taking sides on this one. We'd be thrilled if either one gets the nod. But it's also nice to know that Griffin is sensing which way the wind blows and is receptive to listening to us instead of throwing yet another moronic right winger to spoon feed conservative talking points.

So good luck to both Sam and Cenk. Hope we see one of you (or both, dare we hope!) on the air really soon.

From The Young Turks. MSNBC wants to add a third prime time show and Cenk would like to fill the slot. I like the idea as long as he has John Amato as a regular guest. I've got a long list of others I could suggest as well.

From The Young Turks Dec. 29, 2008.

From The Young Turks Nov. 26, 2008. I agree with Cenk. We're going to see Joe the Plumber doing a reality show before he finally goes away. And the McCain campaign is going to go down as one of the worst in history for relying on someone like guy this to keep their campaign alive.

From The Young Turks Nov. 13, 2008 some good news for AIDS patients.

Firedoglake: 

The FISA Cloture vote just passed. The Senate will now consider the motion to proceed with the bill, then they'll head to the bill itself (corrected procedural details, h/t and thanks to CBolt). Various motions will be put forward to strip immunity, odds are they will fail. Then a number of the 80 who voted to restrict debate will vote against FISA so they can say they were against the bill. However this was the real vote, and the rest is almost certainly nothing but kabuki for the rubes.

Obama and McCain were both absent, as was Clinton. Unimpressive, but unsurprising, though I suppose I'm disappointed by Clinton (Obama has made it clear he didn't intend to try and stop the bill.) Clinton and Obama will claim there was no point since it wasn't close. But, with their leadership, it might well have gone the other way.

Cenk Uygur and Ben Mankiewicz of The Young Turks interview Russ Feingold on how egregious all this FISA posturing is for Democratic values. 

Continue reading »