We've never had a President like Trump in the past 240 years since America was founded. There have been good and bad presidents, and certainly a few corrupt presidents, but Trump combines too many bad traits to list, among them arrogance, dishonesty, greed, lack of curiosity, and hotheadedness.
He also suffers from diarrhea of the mouth and of his Twitter account - he cannot keep his fingers off the buttons of his phone long enough for his aides, family or anyone else to get him to temper his language. Anyone who offends him gets a CAPSLOCK rant on Twitter the next day.
Since the FBI investigation began to heat up a few weeks ago, Trump's behavior and tweets are increasingly bizarre and inappropriate. Whether this is just a symptom of fear, his chronic Narcissism, or the early warning signs of Alzheimers, is anyone's guess. However, some have begun to call for Congress to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office because he seems unfit to serve.
Some are calling for a panel of doctors to evaluate Trump:
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin is urging his colleagues to get behind a bill that could potentially oust President Donald Trump if he was mentally or physically unfit to lead, and the Maryland Democrat is citing the 25th Amendment of the Constitution as his legal backup.
. . . Raskin has proposed creating an 11-member commission made up of mostly physicians and psychiatrists -- more formally called the "Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity." The panel would carry out a medical examination and determine whether the President was physically or mentally able to do the job.
However some legal scholars feel it is an unlikely solution:
(Constitutional scholar Gloria) Browne-Marshall, a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told CNN Monday, "That area of medicine is already ambiguous to begin with, so I think it would be even more difficult to apply it to an unwilling patient."
She added that even if such a commission was established and even if it came to the conclusion that a president was mentally unstable, legally, all the president would have to do is "deny" the findings of the commission and those findings would be kicked back to Congress.
In that event, according to section four of the 25th Amendment, Congress would have to take a vote within 21 days "after receipt of the latter written declaration," and a "two-thirds vote of both Houses" is required to transfer power from a president to a vice-president
And since the Mueller investigation is moving at a glacial pace (considering Trump and company have been on the radar for 25 years) and the GOP-led Congress has no will to impeach a President from their own party, no matter how horrible, we are stuck with a Dysfunctional President, which rightly terrifies half of the country and most of the rest of the world.
President Trump appears to have been caught awkwardly flirting with an Irish reporter during a press call at the White House pic.twitter.com/AByCXBX7W0
I've been watching MSNBC ever since it first appeared on my local cable TV. I was a huge fan of Keith Olbermann, and sad when he was asked to leave the channel. I won't go into all that here ~ read this article for some background. Keith is still a TV icon to the Left because he would stay on a story for weeks after it was dropped by other networks, and he never backed down in his attacks on rival Fox News, especially Bill O'Reilly. While obviously his personality was too strong for some, and maybe too strong for cable news, he wasn't just a mouthpiece for a bunch of talking points like say, cough, cough, Joe Scarborough, cough.
I will always miss Keith's commentaries, but I got over it and became a fervent MSNBC watcher again during President Obama's 2012 campaign. I loved their "Lean-Forward" message, and Rachel Maddow's speech to the Tea Party about all the things that weren't going to happen now that Mitt Romney had failed as a candidate.
But just after the election something changed. Time and again from 2013 till now, MSNBC has disappointed their main viewership, made up of Democrats and Liberals like myself who voted for Barack Obama. It's not just one thing, it's an accumulation of wrong-headed mistakes. If I had a dollar for every time someone on Twitter told me to turn off MSNBC and boycott them, I would have a chunk of change.
The bottom line is this: MSNBC has forgotten who their demographic is. In their quest to steal from Fox and CNN, they think they have to become a right-center network. But in doing so, they are offending the very people who have stuck with them since before Keith Olbermann got the boot.
MSNBC’s decline can be traced back to one decision. At the time, when he let Keith Olbermann walk out the door, MSNBC boss Phil Griffin believed that his network’s brand was strong enough to replace the former 8 PM host. Griffin was wrong.
After Lawrence O’Donnell had failed, Griffin put Ed Schultz in the 8 PM slot. Griffin shuffled Schultz off to the weekends because he believed that MSNBC could attract more young viewers by developing several clones of Rachel Maddow’s successful 9 PM show. Phil Griffin decided to go wonky with Chris Hayes at 8, which led to many former MSNBC viewers leaving and not coming back.
Hayes has been a disaster at 8 PM, and viewer demand for Schultz was so strong that the blue collar populist was put back on to the weekday lineup at 5 PM.
MSNBC was floundering, and Griffin made things worse by caving to Sarah Palin and the right by defacto firing Martin Bashir for some blunt comments that he made about the former half term Alaska governor.
Bashir never has the audience that Olbermann did, but his removal from 4 PM sent a message to MSNBC’s viewers. Lean Forward was just a marketing slogan. When push came to shove, MSNBC easily caved to right-wing pressure.
Martin Bashir was fired after reading a historical document about slavery on the air in response to Sarah Palin, who had tossed slavery into her word salad about GOP oppression caused by President Obama. Bashir was disgusted with Her Royal Stupidity misinterpreting history, and he made a choice to speak some serious truth so she would understand the demeaning tortures that real slaves in the South had to endure.
While it's true that some details of the history lesson were distasteful (so-to-speak), the far-right on Twitter spread the untrue story that Bashir had told Palin to "eat sh*t" on the air. The Tea Party kept the pressure on until the President of MSNBC, Phil Griffin,fired Martin Bashir.
Phil Griffin has a long history of pandering to the Right:
It's been nearly a year since #msnbc and Phil Griffin caved in, not to Al Qaeda, but to Republican priss Priebus. http://t.co/RnxGlSGfJa
— E.A. Harris (@KW2Kenai) January 13, 2015
Call 212-664-2456 Direct Line to Phil Griffin's office to protest Martin Bashir leaving MSNBC http://t.co/HUY2AmG9tS
— Neal Schulz (@GBNeal59) December 5, 2013
Melissa Harris-Perry Gives Tear-Filled Apology to Mitt Romney for Black Grandchild Jokes - http://t.co/x8PXYn65GC < took her time saying it
— Frank Woodman Jr (@kstaxman) January 11, 2014
Griffin is known for having "pets" at MSNBC, and they know who they are. Take Joe Scarborough, please. He did an interview last year, after the firing of Bashir, explaining his relationship with Griffin:
Appearing on Steve Malzberg‘s NewsMaxTV show Wednesday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough spoke out about the controversy surrounding his colleague Martin Bashir...
. . . Malzberg asked Scarborough why MSNBC hadn’t suspended Bashir or publicly reprimanded him. Obviously hesitant to comment on internal matters, the Morning Joe host suggested that, much like how Fox chief Roger Ailes doesn’t allow his hosts to attack each other, MSNBC’ers are unable to do the same.
However, he did say:
Every time something horrific is said like that, I go in and I talk to Phil Griffin, who I’m good friends with. And I say, Phil, this is unacceptable. Either they apologize for it or I’m going to bring it up myself.
Personally, I can't stand "Morning Joe" and I usually only see clips of it on Twitter. But apparently it started out to be MSNBC's one right-leaning show to "balance" the rest of the network. Maybe that would work if the namesake of the show had an ounce of humility and a willingness to learn from others. Unfortunately, Joe Scarborough is a loud-mouth bully who dominates not just sidekick Mika, but anyone else who shows up in the morning.
Last year, Scarborough verbally attacked the large and growing Democratic and Liberal-leaning Twitter group Unite Blue, of which I am a member. He called our members "freaky fringe haters" or something like that, never thinking for a minute he was shooting himself and MSNBC in the foot. Somehow he thought it was a good idea to attack the very demographic that was keeping his job available to him, since Dems and Liberals watch most of the other shows.
That display of arrogance should have been enough to get him fired like Martin Bashir, but we soon found out that "pets" get to stay, and the feelings of a huge group of Democrats don't mean very much to Phil Griffin, compared to someone important like the Tea Party's Sarah Palin.
For a long time many have called for Joe Scarborough to be fired to save the rest of the network, but instead, Griffin tried him out on the night shift last week, in place of Maddow and Chris Hayes. It's unbelievable.
.@debdlund Scarborough and weekend Jail programs do nothing to develop brand loyalty of Progressive audience. All Phil Griffin's doing.
— Bill Wong (@ten24get) February 5, 2015
This recent article warning of impending doom at the network makes no mention of Joe Scarborough, choosing to blame mainly Chris Hayes, and warning that Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid may be on their way out. Looks like he wants to "save the pets" while kicking off the strays.
January ratings revealed double-digit declines compared with January, 2014 in all ratings measurements. During the day, MSNBC was down 20 percent in viewers and 37 percent in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo. In primetime, it fell 23 percent in viewers and 39 percent in demo.
In October, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said the network was "experimenting" with new ways to regain momentum, spawning widespread speculation that he planned to make significant changes to the lineup. Ronan Farrow's show, which debuted last year and has received dismal ratings ever since, is one program that is widely believed to be up for removal. On Tuesday, it brought in just 11,000 viewers in the demo.
An MSNBC spokesperson declined to comment on the Tuesday ratings.
But Morning Joe isn't the only problem at MSNBC. Even the mainstays of the network seem to lean some other direction besides Left.
Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, for all the good they do night after night, often go a little nuts and out of step with ordinary liberals out here in the heartland, to the point that real Democrats just turn them off. This has become more of a cumulative effect since the 2012 elections. Yes, they have a right to their opinions, but if you want to know why the ratings are so low, look back over the past two years at topics that may seem unimportant in the scheme of things, but which made viewers angry enough to boycott MSNBC.
I love Rachel Maddow and I really enjoy her show. She is witty, entertaining, funny, and at her best, her show has the spirit of Keith Olbermann.
But unfortunately she sees herself as a "War Historian," and whenever President Obama seems to be on the verge of doing something with American firepower or diplomacy anywhere in the world, Maddow goes berserk. I remember the first time I went "click" on her show. She was saying that President Obama had every right to intercede in Syria, but that he needed to ask permission from Congress or he might get us trapped into another war in the Middle East. It still makes me go "huh?" She sounded just like the nuts on Fox who didn't want that uppity President to do anything like any other President who has ever lived.
And what's worse, Maddow seemed to have no sense of irony that the Congress she was suggesting he ask for "permission" is the same wingnut Congress she reported on every night as a bunch of warmongers obsessed with guns and Benghazi. He was supposed to ask them? She even invoked the Constitution, which is right up there with Sarah Palin!
Some people forgot to watch her show after that. Oh, and they were really mad at her. Some of them still are. Some viewers just aren't coming back.
Comcast Secretary of State Rachel @Maddow consulting with Comcast Emeritus Chair Andrea Mitchel on how bad Obama messed up our War in Syria.
— Ina (@InaMaziarcz) August 30, 2013
Hannity and Rachel @maddow basically in total agreement against war in #Syria. Not sure that was the Hope and Change Obama was going for.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) August 28, 2013
@KaJo503@Maddow She's so arrogant, she doesn't accept her Ivory Tower views on Obama Admin or on Syria play any role in her decline.
— Jeff Gauvin (@JeffersonObama) August 29, 2013
There are some problems with Chris Hayes too. His chirpy, giddy and cerebral persona were more appropriate for his Saturday morning show "Up," but Griffon thought he could save their prime-time lineup and attract the younger demographic. It was soon apparent that it didn't work out that way. I think he means well and much of his reporting is excellent, such as his work during the Ferguson marches.
What I didn't expect was that he would become the sudden champion of an out-and-out traitor to the United States, Edward Snowden, the Russian "patriot" defector.
Viewers didn't leave the show because Hayes criticized the NSA. Viewers just got fed up with MSNBC's elevation of Snowden's partner/mentor/witness/whatever Glenn Greenwald as some kind of hero journalist and paragon of virtue who wants to save the world. The real Greenwald is a raging Anti-Government Libertarian and Near-Anarchist who calls the President an "Imperial Emperor" (just like the rightwing nutjobs) and thinks anyone with allegiance to any country is a "statist." After a few weeks of Greenwald worship, Chris Hayes figured out that most Democrats don't like him, but by then Hayes was like a little boy whose balloon got deflated all of a sudden by criticism on Twitter and the falling ratings.
Fascinating to watch Glenn Greenwald sucking up to Chuck Todd and Chris Hayes. Obviously thinks they're sympathetic.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) September 24, 2014
I refuse to watch Chris Hayes if he continues to invite Greenwald on show. Greenwald enemy to country! @AngieinWAState@allinwithchris
— Mary Ann Barbero (@marieann66) July 10, 2014
So basically all you get from Chris Hayes is a one sided report on the NSA by way of Glenn Greenwald. Almost daily. Not balanced.
— Gus (@Gus_802) July 31, 2013
When asked if broccoli was his favorite vegetable, Chris Hayes responded with, "whatever vegetable Greenwald likes, I like." #BroccoliGate
— Gus (@Gus_802) July 9, 2013
The Greenwald and Rand Paul Themed MSNBC Experiment Has Been A Complete Failure. Lowest Ratings In 6 Years http://t.co/vVkLfV4KHY#p2
— Jeff Gauvin (@JeffersonObama) July 3, 2013
Griffon can blame Ronan Farrow, Joy Reid, or anyone else he likes for low daytime ratings. But he should look at his pets, for instance the ever-exasperated Andrea Mitchell and the ever-smarmy Chuck Todd. Day after day since the last election they have been going into hysterics over President Obama's "Optics" - "Why is he playing golf" or "Why is he going out for dinner?" "Why is he drinking coffee?" "Why doesn't he care?" "Why is he on vacation?" - stuff no one ever said about George W. Bush or any other President in history.
POTUS and VPOTUS now golfing after announcing decision to delay action Optics?
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) August 31, 2013
The fact that Chuck Todd thinks that asking about golf is hard hitting journalism just shows how doomed .@MTP ... http://t.co/f3gbsaiu3H
— Pnthrgrlgail (@Mama4Obama1) September 7, 2014
Krystal Ball from "The Cycle" is another problem. She is so far-left, she is nearly to the right of Rand Paul sometimes. She's not that horrible sometimes, but other times, she is. I don't hate her, but I don't watch her anymore either.
Ball went on a crazy tirade about the Obamacare website back when it was having problems, helped along by some whining by then MSNBC fixture, Ezra Klein - who wanted background music while waiting on the phone. Of course now that the same website is enrolling millions of new people into health insurance,and yes, Krystal Ball does seem to take pride in that - NOW. But back at the beginning, Ball certainly helped the Far-Far Right by slamming ACA Obamacare because it wasn't working automatically.
Considering that just this week, two years after Ball and Klein attacked the Obamacare website, my own state of Tennessee just turned down Medicaid expansion again due to Obamacare haters in the GOP, it was never a good thing that Krystal Ball decided to attack ACA from the left. Maybe MSNBC has chosen to forget this wrong-headedness, but it's harder to forget here in a red state.
She also praised Libertarian Nutcase Rand Paul as "courageous, and begged Hillary Clinton not to run for President. . Last year, she said President Obama's State of the Union "depressed her." What. The. Hell? Is it any wonder that viewers sometimes wonder whose side she is on?
Last year, Chuck Todd wrote a book about President Obama called "The Stranger," which the President and his daughter mocked just before Christmas as "a sad book." Todd is famous for stating that he had no obligation to report "the truth" about Obamacare to the GOP - that tells you all you need to know about his life as a "journalist." He replaced the lame David Gregory, another Phil Griffin favorite, on NBC's Meet the Press, and I'm sure the ratings have plummeted even more. Todd also turns up frequently on MSNBC shows such as Morning Joe and Hardball to discuss "Lame Duck" or "Weak" President Obama. What Democrat wants to hear that stuff day after day? Not this one!
My point here is that there are many problems with MSNBC, and they are so deep it may not be fixable with Phil Griffon at the top. Unfortunately he seems to be tone deaf to the viewers, and incapable of firing his pets. They can turn the network into another version of Fox News and probably lure some wingnut viewers if that's what they want, but it would be a shame to see the network of Keith Olbermann go completely down the toilet.
If the owners at Comcast/NBC wanted @MSNBC to be successful, they wouldn't keep Phil Griffin in his job.
— Allan Brauer (@allanbrauer) February 5, 2015
Maybe Phil Griffin at @msnbc should look in a mirror, he is one of major reasons of any ratings issues. #MourningJoe and Wika
— Caligirl22 (@Twitlertwit) February 6, 2015
NBC recently decided to replace the dreadful David Gregory as host of their Sunday "Meet the Press" show. Lo and behold, they chose Chuck Todd, who is so much like Gregory that news watchers everywhere predicted instant failure. Just a few weeks later, Todd is caught up in a political web that fulfills the expectations of his non-fans (including myself).
He has always been negative towards Democrats and especially President Obama, saying it "wasn't his job to sell Obamacare" and implying that the President failed when ACA was actually a roaring success. But this time he went on Morning Joe and said that Dem candidate Alison Grimes had "disqualified herself" from the job of Kentucky Senator by downplaying the fact that she voted for the President, as if he suddenly thinks the world of Pres. Obama - yeah, right. Of course, he doesn't explain how it would HELP Grimes to admit close ties to Obama in a state where she is vying for every crossover GOP vote. Every Democrat in a Red State has to do this at times to survive, so Todd put way too much emphasis on what she said.
The cringeworthy crew on Morning Joe discuss Alison Grimes as cringeworthy.
Now to be fair, many Dems also criticized Grimes for her position on that day, and even agreed with Todd - at first. But when it became clear that Grimes was just speaking like a careful politician, while Todd seemed to be shilling for McConnell, the picture was clear.
And believe me, the Mitch McConnell team saw a golden opportunity in Todd's dismissal of Grimes (almost as if it was planned, cough, cough), and immediately used the clip in one of his campaign ads.
. . . the harshest critique probably came from "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, who appeared on "Morning Joe" on Friday to discuss Grimes's weird reply. "I think she disqualified herself," Todd told host Joe Scarborough — an extremely strong statement.
Miss that segment? Well, don't worry, Kentucky. The campaign of Grimes's opponent, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), will be putting it into heavy rotation with its new ad, titled "Disqualified."
Todd, meanwhile, denies that any of it matters, he's not partisan, he's not helping the GOP. And anyone who thinks so is not living in reality, apparently - or as Todd defines reality, whatever the Beltway pundits are saying at the moment. You gotta hand it to Todd - he is a consistent toady. But once again he is insulting our collective intelligence if he thinks he can at once be a "fair" judge of politics while bashing a major candidate trying to overturn a GOP leader in a Red State. He pounced on that one line and ignored how well Grimes is doing in every major poll (except on Fox News, of course, where they are always right - oh wait).
How does Chuck Todd respond to this journalistic mistake? He blames the candidate. "I think that is one of those situations where she invited this on herself," Chuck Todd said. "It feels like she had a lot of consultants whispering in her ear, 'Whatever you do don't give Mitch McConnell a line for a TV ad.'" Alison Lundergan Grimes did her part. Chuck Todd failed as a journalist. He became the news. He gave Mitch McConnell a line for a TV ad.
And a disclaimer: I'm not here to be "fair" to Todd. I think he is an ambitious warped individual who started out as a numbers guy and he's risen to a nice level of incompetence due to the Groupthink at MSNBC, where they routinely let go of any talented person who questions the GOP (Martin Bashir, Goldie Taylor, etc). I have been a critic of Todd on Twitter, and was recently blocked from retweeting or responding on his account right after having this conversation, which seems legit considering some of us saw Gregory as a loser for YEARS before NBC gave his job to Todd. Maybe they should listen to us now.
.@dpleasant What's amazing is the blindness of @nbc promoting both Todd and Gregory above their level of incompetence
It seems as if Alison Lundergan Grimes is going to get the last laugh on both Todd and McConnell, as she is leading in the polls now. Which I'm sure he will say is incorrect, or just more cheerleading. Whatever!
The Bowe Bergdahl story is fast become the new #Benghazi - call it #Berghazi if you will - another case of too much angry hooplah and not enough facts. As the wingnuts cry for firing squads and impeachments, they are also ironically scrubbing their social media to erase the fact that just a while back they were praying to Jesus and beseeching Obama for his release. This is another case in which Obama can't win - if he had left the guy to rot with the Taliban, the GOP would be screaming about "weak, do-nothing, anti-military, heartless Obama." Since he got Bergdahl released, he is "making deals with terrorists" and "saving a traitor."
But the bottom line is that our Armed Forces don't leave anyone behind. That is not going to change. President Obama said he isn't going to apologize to the critics, and he shouldn't. And why would the GOP or anyone else want a military that didn't rescue their own soldiers? Who would volunteer for such an army?
Liberal radio host/producer Matt Binder of Majority Report went on a mission last week to dig up as much Right Wing hypocrisy and flip-flopping as he could find. And boy howdy, he hit the jackpot! He re-tweeted some of the schizo timelines, which read like verbal whiplash. I love the first example from Charlie Daniels!
Obama its time to bring Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl home he's been a Taliban prisoner for 4 years Rescue him,it's more important than rescuing G M
— Charlie Daniels (@CharlieDaniels) June 12, 2012
Obama can trade five of the most dangerous men in the world for a soldier who may be a deserter and can't even make a call to save a hero
— Charlie Daniels (@CharlieDaniels) June 3, 2014
s/o to @MattBinder for documenting examples of cnoservatives *completely* changing their tune on Bergdahl #inners
— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) June 5, 2014
Next: Let's take a short break from the crazy stuff and move to someone trying to be the voice of reason on Fox News. Thank you, Sheppard Smith! And why are you still wasting your life on Fox?
If you desert or commit treason, you have to be proved to have done so. We can't just decide because some people come on television and yakety yak, and we've got a report of this and a report of that and that's what happened. As the Army said, as the Pentagon said, you bring them home. You bring them home first, and then you investigate. ~ Sheppard Smith, Fox News
Now, back to the crazy: Fox's Geraldo Rivera agrees with Shep Smith, but their colleague Kimberly Guilfoyle had a better idea - Bergdahl should have been shot by the men who were looking for him. No muss, no fuss. I thought she was a lawyer? What about Due Process?
Geraldo: . . . One of the things (the soldiers) take great security in is a absolute maxim that if anything happens to them, they’re going to be brought home, that we will not leave them behind. I don’t care who Bergdahl is, we don’t leave him behind. If you violate or waver from that hard principal, then the military forces will be stripped of what is absolutely the thing that makes them most secure. They know their colleagues won't leve them behind.
Kimberly Guilfoyle:Yeah, but it seems to me he’s pretty lucky that he was brought home the way he was. Because if those special forces had found him and encountered him — and they were looking for him — he would have come home either in a body bag or come home and gone straight to jail. But now what we see is his family at the White House, he's being celebrated as a hero, we have Susan Rice saying he served with honor and distinction. They have to walk that back because obviously, Geraldo, the evidence is quite alarming and striking to the contrary.
Geraldo: I don't care! I don't care! Makes no difference to me.
~~~~~~~
Morning Joe Scarborough went on a tirade against Bowe Bergdahl's father that even shocked the right-leaning Chuck Todd. And crazy Joe is in epic form, touting himself as the perfect father. Wanna bet?
Scarborough: I keep holding up this image where Barack Obama has his arm around a man who is reaching out to pro-Taliban forces, talking about killing Americans.
Todd: Joe, Joe, don’t criticize the parents. Don’t criticize the parents in here, that are missing a child? Their son is missing for five years. You know what? It is not logical. You cannot handle it. You put yourself in his shoes –”
Scarborough: I have a 26-year-old son, and if my son is out on the wire and he is out there with fellow troops and he is writes me up and says he hates America and he’s thinking about deserting and he’s thinking about leaving his post, I can tell you as a father of that 26-year-old or 23-year-old son, I’d say, ‘Joey, you stay the hell right there,’ I would call his commander, I would say ‘Get my son. He is not well. Get him to a military base in Germany.’ I would not say ‘Follow your conscience, son.’ I would not reach out to the voice of jihad.
Todd: I’m not backseat driving how someone parents.
Scarborough: That is not backseat driving. I am a father. Any good father would not tell their son to follow their conscience and leave men and women on the line.
Admirable of Joe to come in today. Treatment for rabies is no joke. #morningjoe
— Ann-Marie Poli (@annmariepoli) June 6, 2014
If #bergdahl had been his kid, Joe Scarborough would have marched into Phil Griffin's office and demanded the general be fired.
— Allan Brauer (@allanbrauer) June 6, 2014
@JoeNBC i just wish Joe could lecture more fathers whose sons have been held in solitary confinement for five years.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) June 5, 2014
Odds of bumping into one of @JoeNBC's kids on a battlefield same odds as bumping into a Cheney, Trump or Romney kid ... zero. @Morning_Joe
— Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) June 5, 2014
The only disappointing part about the @JoeNBC and @chucktodd fight is that Joe's head didn't actually explode. #morningjoe
— Tony Fisher (@tonyrayfisher) June 5, 2014
~~~~~~~
Lindsey Graham wants to IMPEACH!!!! Because Obama is Black, or Something.
I don't mind opening a new jail up – I just don't want to empty this one,” he told the Washington Examiner on his way to a closed-door administration briefing on the Bergdahl matter. “It seems to me that they don't have a desire to continue to hold these guys under the law of war. I'm all for moving the jail to another location as long as you don't let everybody go." . . . "It's going to be impossible for them to flow prisoners out of Gitmo now without a huge backlash," he said. "There will be people on our side calling for his impeachment if he did that."
Graham didn't use the word impeachment during his brief interview with the Washington Examiner. Instead he seemed content to throw up road blocks to any new detainee transfers and wait out the Obama presidency. “You can keep clamping down restrictions and wait until he leaves,” Graham said when asked what he could do to stop the president from releasing more prisoners.
Lindsey Graham is the helpless mom in the mini-van. "If you don't straighten up young man - you're grounded!" pic.twitter.com/5JOUhgAyW9
— clydetheslyde (@clydetheslyde) June 5, 2014
Soldier Elliot Ackerman explains why there is so much anti-Bergdahl sentiment from other soldiers: He was a "Jonah" - a bad-luck charm, and a scapegoat for every death. In other words, the soldiers projected all their frustration about the war onto him. The "idol of discontent."
At night my colleagues and I would climb on our bunkered roof, a tumbler of scotch or a cigar in hand, and watch the drone strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership in South Waziristan. During those days, Bergdahl’s case loomed ever-present. The irony that an iconic figure in a war that had largely been deserted by the American people was probably a deserter himself was never lost on us. It seemed just our luck.
Among sailors, a crew member who brings bad luck is known as a Jonah. It’s a long-held superstition, deriving from the Book of Jonah. Then the sailors said to each other, ‘Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’ They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. And like the hapless crew that sailed Jonah to Tarshish, we found ourselves in a storm fighting in Afghanistan. With Bergdahl’s disappearance always in the background, imaginations ran wild. Why did the Taliban in Paktika execute attacks with such unusual precision and lethality? Some hypothesized that Bergdahl had informed them of our tactics. Why did Afghan civilians refuse civil aid that they so obviously needed? Others believed rumors that Bergdahl had participated in a propaganda campaign against us. None of this could be substantiated, but over there Bergdahl became the idol of discontent for so many. He was the Jonah.
Other soldiers have not been as circumspect or self-aware:
He is at best a deserter, and at worst a traitor. Any of us would have died for him while he was with us, and then for him to just leave us like that, it was a very big betrayal.
. . . As soon as he is able and as soon as he is fit, I do believe that he needs to be questioned, and basically tried if necessary.
. . . I don't think that I could have continued to go on without being able to share with you and ... the people the true things that happened in this situation. Because if you guys aren't made aware of it, it will just go on, and he'll be a hero, and nobody will be able to know the truth.
The only problem is, there are questions about Korder's own service. Is he a reliable source, or just an attention-seeker with a chip on his shoulder?
Josh Korder, a former Army sergeant from Minnesota who served with Bowe Bergdahl, signed a non-disclosure agreement, and admits he may be in violation of that by speaking out. He also left the service with an “other than honorable” discharge.
Examples of factors that may be considered include the use of force or violence to produce serious bodily injury or death, abuse of a special position of trust, disregard by a superior of customary superior-subordinate relationships, acts or omissions that endanger the security of the United States or the health and welfare of other members of the Military Services, and deliberate acts or omissions that seriously endanger the health and safety of other persons.
. . . (1) Desertion; (2) escape prior to trial by general court-martial; (3) conscientious objector who refuses to perform military duties, wear the uniform, or comply with lawful orders of competent military authorities; (4) willful or persistent misconduct; (5) offense(s) involving moral turpitude; (6) mutiny or spying; or (7) homosexual acts involving aggravating circumstances.
And it turns out, he is less than honorable in civilian life too, since he has started the "Josh Korder Fund" to raise money to pay his back child-support. Wow - Is anyone surprised?
"Morning Joe" Scarborough of MSNBC decided to launch an attack on the Progressive Twitter group #UniteBlue on Friday's show, and the members, including myself, did not take kindly to being called "fringe freaks" and "hate-mongers."
Even after the Unite Blue blog and countless tweets tried to set him straight about the group, Joe doubled down on Twitter. Maybe his real problem with us is that many Democratic candidates are joining to gain exposure and retweets, and it is helping them, especially in the South. We are the people who re-elected Barack Obama as President and ruined the nasty plans of the GOP. Sorry, Joe.
Unite Blue members are the most valuable demographic to most shows on MSNBC, and we haven't forgotten that Scarborough bragged that he helped get Martin Bashir fired for insulting Sarah Palin. Joe's pal, MSNBC Chief Phil Griffin, pandered to Palin when she got far-right Tea Party Twitter (#tcot) riled up, and Martin Bashir was thrown under the bus. But wait, Phil - isn't it the Dems and Obama supporters who are the entire "Lean Forward" Demographic?
Joe Scarborough, meanwhile, is leaning backwards and many liberals inside and outside of Unite Blue are calling for his resignation. Others just want Phil to make him apologize. I'm just glad to know how he really feels, and now we have it on the record.
“I could just take people who use the hashtag #UniteBlue and make a sweeping condemnation about America’s labor movement if I wanted to, but I don’t because I know that these people are on the fringes; they’re freaks; they’re hate mongers; that there are a lot of people who are in America’s union movements that are good, decent, hardworking people who actually would agree with me on a lot of issues.”
After displaying his willful ignorance of normal, hardworking Americans, Joe Scarborough owes an apology to the mothers, fathers, retirees, millennials, activists, professionals and all other members of UniteBlue. Calling tens of thousands of good, decent people ‘freaks’ is a sweeping condemnation and makes you a hate monger.
Half a million Tweets per month use the hashtag #UniteBlue, more than #GOP or #TeaParty. It seems this has been getting under somebody’s skin. Nothing scares the Right more than a united Left, and its Joe Scarborough’s job to make progressive grassroots movements like UniteBlue look like a crazy, fringe group. That’s why he makes $100,000 per week while opposing a $10.10 per hour minimum wage.
Supporting unions and workers rights is not a fringe cause. This attack merely demonstrates how far the right has drifted, how out of touch Joe Scarborough has become with the mainstream, and how much the working class coming together scares certain people.
Thanks to extremists on far left for proving my point on #UniteBlue. As I've always said, unions play a critical role in building the USA.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 25, 2014
On Monday he started Back-Peddling Slightly
But No Apology
There are hard working Americans in #UniteBlue who build the USA. There are also some haters on Twitter who use that hashtag. No news here.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 25, 2014
Mr. Phil Griffin
President, MSNBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY
May 26, 2014
Dear Mr. Griffin:
Last Friday May 23, Joe Scarborough insulted thousands of honest, hardworking Americans who choose to organize under the banner of #UniteBlue, falsely alleging on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show that “these people are on the fringes; they’re freaks; they’re hate mongers.”
Mr. Scarborough owes an apology to the mothers, fathers, retirees, veterans, soldiers, activists, professionals and all members of UniteBlue. Calling tens of thousands of good, decent people ‘freaks’ is a sweeping condemnation and makes him a hate monger.
Half a million Tweets use #UniteBlue each month, more than #GOP or #TeaParty. Many of us are MSNBC viewers who were personally offended by these demeaning words and petty attacks. In response to the unprecedented outrage that resulted, Mr. Scarborough decided to double down instead of apologizing. This time he called each of us ‘extremists,’ and it’s really deeply offensive. Your entire network is being poisoned thanks to this behavior.
At this time, we are considering a number of petitions that have arisen calling for boycotts of Morning Joe and its sponsors. We have stood firmly against the promotion of hatred on the airwaves from others such as Rush Limbaugh, and cannot find any attempt on behalf of Joe Scarborough to move the political conversation forward meaningfully.
We respectfully request that Mr. Scarborough personally and publicly apologize for his comments on air and offer the opportunity for a UniteBlue representative to explain who we are; real people who want a voice in our democracy.
“I brought it up on Friday… I brought up UniteBlue, and I could find people in UniteBlue who said some terrible things about me over the past two, three, four years, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t great people in the union movement, that doesn’t mean there aren’t great vets and great people in UniteBlue, that there aren’t great people in these organizations… Don’t we at some point realize that there are some people who will try to associate them self [sic] with a bigger group and say hateful things that shouldn’t be associated with the labor movement or UniteBlue?” Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, 5/27/2014.
While this was not the full-throated apology that thousands requested, this display of respect is a promising first step, and we will continue to hold him accountable when political commentary devolves into disparaging and divisive attacks. Now it’s time to move forward. We must continue to fight against the conservative politics of hate, division and fear, and once again affirm the audacity of hope, compassion and love. Thank you to everyone who joined in our efforts this weekend. Way to go #UniteBlue!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now Joe is blocking #UniteBlue members.
He can dish it out, but can't take it.
@JoeNBC I'm retired USAF LtColonel&still work full-time.Hold MBA&am southern Baptist like U. But unlike U,I'm no hate monger #WeAreUniteBlue
— Kenny Hussein Kwik (@KwikWarren) May 24, 2014
... That moment when @JoeNBC finds out that several Democratic state and national Dem. candidates are #UniteBlue members. #WeAreUniteBlue
— Left Out Loud (@LeftOutLoud) May 25, 2014
