Somtime during the morning, most of us need to do our business and clear the pipes for the day. Sometimes it's in the morning after you wake up, some may do their business after a early morning workout or run down by the wharf. Maybe after you've had your morning breakfast burrito from the roach coach down the street from work on your first break of the day, and it's not sitting well.... well I won't get into details, but some people need a lil extra push to help them get going but mine usually happens when I'm listening to Morning Joe in the morning. Read on if you dare....
I've recently been lucky enough to be given an abundance of time off by my ex employer so I'm up most days when when MJ comes on. I thought I might use my time in some manner to give my thoughts and comments about the 3 hours of the weekday morning our supposed Liberal Media spews out into the universe to those of you out there unlucky enough to be slaving away at a regular job.
Maybe you catch a few segments of it as your getting ready for work but don't catch the whole show and wondered to yourself what other outrageous things can Joe think of next. Well I'll be givin you a summary account of the latest crazy that spews out of Joe's mouth and anything else the other hosts and guests can say. He's been on a roll this week so far defending torture and trashing ex soliders/govenors claiming they know nothing about anything (see Jesse Ventura smackdown of fox Brian Kilmeade) Here we go down the rabbit hole.
6:00am EST
Show opens with video of Michael Steele's speech yesterday to the RNC. "We are going to take the President head on. The honeymoon is over. But there is a very important distiction I want to make here. We are going to take this President on with class. We are going to take him on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and I think marked contrast to the shappy and classless way the Democrats and the far left spoke of and treated Pres Bush the last 8 years."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA He's classic. I'm gonna miss him when he's gone. I think they might take away his piggy bank today at the RNC meeting and he's already swore he would quit cuz he won't be a figurehead chairman.
Mike Barnicle and Mika discuss Willy not being on the show today. They make jokes about it, Joe makes a gay joke about it being fleet week and Willy wanting to go see some sailors in town he hadn't seen in awhile.
They talk about Steele's speech. Joe comments he's been critical of his Repug party the past 8-10 years. (Really? Really?) Joe lies Steele talking about Reagan and his temperment but thinks he's had a terrible start and isn't sure he can be the leader of the GOP. But says it all comes down to organizing and raising money.
Mika lets us know they will be discussing Newts op-ed today on why Nancy should step down. They also had Newt on their radio show yesterday and are going to let us know more about what Newt thinks the Speaker should do.
6:05
Top Stories: Iran test fires missle/ Obama announces national auto mileage standards for better MPG / Credit card reform law is through senate and Obama is expected to sign it after the house votes / Joe lets us know he likes the work he sees from Obama on credit card reform, CAFE standards, GITMO and the torture photos. Joe says if only he could keep Obama away from his pocketbook, then he would be doing pretty well. Sen Dodd is on the show later. They want to ask him about his re-election campaign which the latest poll shows him being down 14. Pakistan Refugee Aid is pledged by the US at $110M. Plane crashed off Coronado Islands in San Diego. Old Fossil found.
6:10
Mika talks about Harry Reid backpeddeling on GITMO and says Joe predicted it 6 months ago. Mika and Joe say they should pull the tapes and see he was right. Joe says he laughed 6 months ago when he heard Obama wanted to close GITMO. Joe claims he predicted that Obama would see after he saw the reports when he became president that it wouldn't be possible and he would have to back down as any responsible leader would have to do. He says he said "Wait till it hits the President and the Democrats that they are releasing terrorists into the US." (Who the fuck is talking about releasing them into the neighborhoods? only joe fear mongering 10 min into the show.) Joe goes on to say even Sen Webb has back tracked. Joe know says Cheneys policys were the only way they could figure out how to interrogate terrorists after this new war. (Scary terrorist are coming to kill us and the only way to protect the babies is to fold our principles up and let Cheney rule our world. FUCK THAT) According to Joe if you look at ANY poll it shows americans are really divided on this issue of to close GITMO. Mika tells him he campaigned on this issue and people expect him to follow through. Joe turns his evil hatred towards Nancy and says her screw ups this past week haven't helped Dems and "People are starting to wake up and say why are they so excited about terrorists rights and going around on the other side calling the agents that protected America, Liars" (What People? Oh Joe and the repugs on the Hill, right. No mention of the reports that the CIA admits it's records are only recollections and not actual transcripts. Former Sen Graham says they said he was at 3 meetings he never attended. And what about Rep Hoekstra 6 months ago saying the CIA misled. No outrage from Joe back then. Hell if they are goin to pull the tapes to prove joe may have predicted something, lets' see if all his hypocricy can stand up to the tapes.) They then show a tape of Harry Reid spilling the beans that we don't want terrorits in America. Even though we have tons already in SuperMax prisons. Joe states that some Dems are in trouble, Dodd/Reid/ poll numbers are down in NY and maybe in PA the Repugs might gain a few senate seats. He says the Dems better start moving to the middle. Barnicle chimes in with his agreement that they better cuz that's where the country is, in the middle. (WOW that bubble is tight over these people)
6:20
Clip shows Newt on Daily Show last night slamming Nancy. They bring on a Politico hack Jim Vandenhei who talks about Newt's op ed on why Nancy should step down. He admits that Newt is smart. Why is Newt smart? because Newt knows if he pens the op-ed "we are going to write about it and we are going to talk about it and keep this issue alive", even though it will not get Nancy to step down, but it will get "us" to talk about it. He states that the GOP really feels that they finally have some traction on an issue after all this Obama momentum. They feel like they ahve a win here if they keep hammering away at Nancy because she "has been dishoneset about this issue and handled it poorly."(This guy is really unbelievable. Just on the air admitting to this stuff!) Jim says Dems hope Nancy can put this behind her so they can move on to energy and other important things besides investigating war crimes.
He talks about how Obama is caught because the left wants the torture photos, GITMO closed, tribunals, etc. The speech will try to placate some of his critics. They also talk about a GOP strategy memo that Politco has that says the GOP's big strategy to defeat cap n trade is to blame Dems for catering to Big Business and Big Polluters. (Wow surprise surprise on that strategy) Jim thinks this is a good one and a fun one to look at to see how the Dems react. (let me take a wild guess, if it comes from Reid it'll be "Democrats will never allow Big Pollution to release any CO2 into America, EVER Period! Full Stop!~ Paragraph!)
6:30
Top Stories: Senate Dems withhold $80M in funds to close GITMO. They want Obama to give them more detail before they go further./ Indonesia plane crash/ Michael Vick released today to home confinement/ Joe is amazed Vick spent 1 1/2 years in jail and child rapist are allowed to walk free into neighborhoods or given small sentences. He's concerned Vick was sent to jail for political correctness. Joe states that PETA's view is Vick should go to jail, but old men who rape little girls or little boys don't deserve to go to jail. They value dogs more than they value children. After that outrageous statement Mika says that message translates on a number of levels. (WTF?!?! Seriously sometimes she is so empty headed. IT HURTS THE STOOPID!) They move onto financial news then go to break.
6:40
The first guest of the morning is a semi regular, editor in chief of the Daily Beast.com Tina Brown. She has Don Rumsfeld responding to the GQ report of his Daily SECDEF briefings with the religious verses on the cover. Don says he didn't at any time have anythin to do with it. She talks about how all these ghosts from the Bush admin keep coming up. Joe snaps up quickly from his coffee to interject that "except for the fact that people in this admin keep trying to pull them back in for political purposes like nancy but it blew up in her face" Mika thinks the GOP has a great opportunity now. Joe jokes about how KSM might end up in a prison in San Diego. Tina disagrees with that sentiment and states that we have lots of murderers locked up. Barnacle agrees with Tina, Joe immediatley says there is a difference. "If John Gotti is in Colorado, it doesn't put the Denver landmarks at risk of terror attacks. If your the gov and you are told we are moving KSM to your facility, they you better hear you are getting alot more Homeland Security money because people are going to blow up buildings in Denver cuz we have their leader" HA HA HA HA HA HA HA CRAZY RATIONAL I'VE EVER HEARD! and nobody on set challenges this ridiculous statement. Barnicle mentions the mayor of the small town in montana who volunteered to take the prisoners from GITMO saying it would create jobs for them. But he notes the two Montana senators quickly squashed that idea.
Mika moves onto some op-eds. One from the WaPo by Michael Gerson titled Democrats Assault on the CIA basically bashing Obama and the Dems for not believing everything the CIA tells them. Even after the EPIC FAIL of the pre 9/11 inteligence and not to mention the American people have been lied to soo many times in recent memory. Joe proves my point by admiting he talked to CIA directors and people there on the ground and everyone admidts we had no idea what we were doing and who we were up against. Tenet flew to Pakistan because "we got good intel" that Osama might have a nuke. Tenet also got another intel briefing from the CIA that said there are 60 sleeper cells right here deep in the USA! Joe says any of us sitting here with those two facts in front of them would do anything to save NY, Boston, LA, Philly from being nuked! It was a dark time and they moved as aggresively as they could. He also starts to suggest that if we all really knew the exact tecniques and the disipline they had to follow, we would be ok with it. (So we got faulty intel that led us the wrong way that we then used to tortue people to find out plots of nukes blowing up major cities that never ever hapened. Got it? Great! If you love running around in circles chasing your tail, you will definitley get Joe's logic)
Joe mentions Colin Powell's COS Lawrence Wilkerson's "tale" about the tortue system being implemented to find a link to Al Qaeda and Iraq. Joe states he spoke with a few people yesterday and they ALL laugh and say it's fantasy. (but note nobody he mentions by name. Nobody willing to go on the record) Joe let's us all know about Wilkerson's real motives, he HATES the CIA cuz they didn't give his boss Powell good info before he went to the UN so now Wilkerson is dropping BAD INFO on the WaPo so they print it and the whole world digests it. (HA HAHA HA So which is it Joe? Does the CIA give good info or not? And when is it OK to criticize them if they give info so bad that it causes a country to go to an unneccesary war and lose thousands of souls?) Joe also states that alot of people in the CIA thought GWB politicized them so they started leaking out documents over 5 years that bled Bush dry. Bush learned it and now Nancy is learning it. (I love this view of the CIA, we've got to coddle them and make them feel like they are appreciated and won't be second guessed. The Pres has to go over and assauge their fears and concerns. WTF? I thought they would follow the leader of the country in order to protect her from harm, not look to see how they can cover their ass)
7:00
Mika goes through the Top Stories again. She reads a GE statement on Spitzer's comments about their financial situation. Barancile wonders if that's the first time Spizer has been spanked. Joe says Mika gets uncomfortable when he comes on set. She says if he runs for office again she wants to grill him a lil better. Joe thinks she just wants to ask about the prostitution. (repugs with sex on the mind) She says she would ask him other questions as well, abuse of power, law breaking etc... Joe sticks up for Spitzer saying he knows where all the Wall Street bodies are buried he doesn't care about the personal sex stuff, Joe just wants to help the people who are hurting and we still don't know what happened to Wall Street. Joe accues Mika of just wanting to question him on the tawdry sex scandal and letting everyone know he was caught with a hooker. Joe says "BIG DAMN DEAL". (HAHAHAHAHAHA what's consensual sex between two people have to do with anybodys business? too rich for words)
Joe states the audience doesn't want to hear about what happened with Spitzer and the prostitue, they are worried about their jobs. (What about Family Values!!!)
7:25
Savanah Guthrie reports from the WH on the GITMO prisoner musical chairs conunderum. Barnacile asks about Pelosi spat, she says they are staying away from it. Back to Obama's speech tomorrow on GITMO, everyone wants to know the plan for the prisoners, (but nobody wants to step up and say we can handle the job Mr. Presidient?)
Sen Dodd comes on and talks about the credit card bill. He's been trying to get this passed forever, talks about kids and babies getting credit cards. Talks about 30 pages of agreements that state at the end you have no rights and they can change anything at anytime. Ask about his re-election. he never moved to Iowa. always been in CT. Joe asks about an OLD controversy about Dodd putting in a exemption for bank exec bonuses.
Dodd says he's gonna keep doing his job and the politics will work itself out.
7:45
Harold Ford Jr. joins the desk while the crew interviews Sen Richard Shelby. Joe asks about the amendment to strip out the GITMO prisoner relocation money, that it was first thought up by the GOP but the Dems jumped on it. Joe asks why is Obama back tracking on his promise to close Gitmo. Shelby says he's glad Obama woke up to reality and heard the America people saying they don't want terrorits in America. Joe says Conservative Dems like Harold agree with him that this is the responsible move instead of following the far-left. Mika and Joe agree that Obama is now being a realist. Harold asks Shelby what to do with GITMO. Here are some of his lines.....Don't close it. It's modern and state of the art and that NOBODY has escaped from it. We have a big navy presence there and we will be there a long time. We should try them or send them back to where they came from. But we better be careful cuz some of them that Bush let out came back to kill. One thing we can't do is bring them back to the US and try to rehabilitate them and put them back in with our own people. These are not ordinary criminals, they are not our people. They will never be like us.
7:53
Jeff Rubin's new book "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller". Talks about oil price fluctuations, cars we buy. He says there is no recovery for Detroit automakers. They built too many cars. Gas prices will go back up.
8:04
Sen. Stabenow comes on to talk about CAFE standards, Obama's national MPG plan. She talks about new developmments on fuel cells for Michigan automakers.
8:08
Back to video of Reid saying Democrats will never release terrorits into the US. Ford agrees that Reid is acting responsibily in waiting for Obama to come up with a plan for the prisoners and says the Dems would have looked embarrassed if Shelby made them vote for it. (Better to retreat at the first sign of the enemy right Harold? Glad we have you on our side of the fight. You are fighting right? cuz all i see is a whole bunch of yellow running down your back.)
8:12
Joe plays a tape of Rachel Maddow interviewing Pelosi back in Feb. Joe starts going off on how horrible this makes Nancy look. Mika tries to reign him back but he states with a big smirk on his face. "We report. You Decide"(Nice Fox motto reference you puke. Go work for them. You will fit right in. Let the Young Turks have a go in your stead)
Ford states what is very obvious to him and what he believes most americans believe which is if they kidnapped your child, and there was a chance to find out where your child was based on enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture or whatever you want to call it, Dems and Repugs would do it. So everyone should step back and let Panetta do his job. He doesn't believe we need a truth commission because we are still in the middle of it, and all he cares about is catching the guys who hurt America. Just do whatever it takes, no matter what. Barnacle states EVERYONE, congress, senators, average americans, wanted to do whatever it takes in 02 and 03 and now they are hypocrites for not admitting it. Joe and Harold quickly agree and say he is right.
Joe screams he wants the CIA defended form these far-left attacks. Joe DECLARES that when Mika sees the unclassified interrogation techniques she will understand that we treated these people as valuable assets and wouldnt' do anything in the short run or long run to do anything to jeapordize these peoples from giving us the info on the next terrorist attack. (Joe's lying unbelievably right now and it's pretty obvious to everyone watching I hope.) Joe ends his rant by stating all the attacks have come from the left and CIA agents are patriotic and never leak classified info but their enemies do. (4 people at the table just let that slide right by into the commercial break)
8:25
Rep. Paul Ryan comes on to talk about his article about his alternative health care plan. He says we don't need to save any money in our health care system, we just need to spend it better and more efficiently. Also he wants to take some of that spending on health care and give you a tax credit so you can go out into that great free market and see which company will take you with your pre existing conditions. GOOD LUCK
He also says Obama's plan is going to ration healh care for all americans. Nobody challenges his lies. But everyone declares he's the future of the Repug party.
8:36
Wall Street update with Mark Haines, who talks about BofA raising capital but HP saying they are hurting. So he doesn't know how the market will react. (Is this the best insight MSNBC/NNBC can come up with? Oh right he's the old guard that's been around forever. he must know everything) Barnacale follows up with a spot on question to Mark, "Is it true? The public has a right to know, do you put Mayo on your sunchips?" (No fuckin kidding)
8:42
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson talks about The GOP Jihad article he wrote. It's about the GOP kicking everyone out who isn't a purist to their ideas. Cheney goin after Powell. Crist in Florida getting the cold shoulder. GOP is becoming a regional party.
At this point the show starts to wrap up and I've noticed Mika recently plugging Joe's new book as much as possible and she does this again today.
That's it for today's Morning Constitutional! Go forth and hopefully the rest of your day won't be as shitty!