Morning Joe 12/3/2012 -- American people: naive or complicit

On Morning Joe today, early on in the show, the panel, John Meacham, Michael Steele and a few others discussed the negotiations regarding the fiscal cliff. Michael Steele said that the Republicans have to be careful calling Obama's bluff, because Tim Geithner has framed the negotiations in such a clever way that if they "go over the cliff" Republicans will be blamed. According to Steele and other pundits who push this same scenario (they all say Republicans will be blamed) it doesn't matter if Obama is the one who blew up the negotiations, Republicans will be blamed. No one talked about why the public will blame Republicans, but this is probably more important than anything they talked about. More and more Republicans are agreeing with this scenario. It does no good to call them RINOs because it only begs the question, what is a Republican in 2012 -- what do they stand for -- what are Republican principles. One thing is becoming obvious, they are not acting like an opposition party. Steele and a host of other Republicans are acting more like Democratic Party-lite, just as the party has done for the most part for the last 80 or so years. If we can't negotiate because Democrats have captured media and pop culture and fooled a naive public, then there's no opposition to progressivism.

Steele himself represents one reason why the public will likely blame Republicans. Here is Steele with an opportunity to explain to anyone listening why Republicans, in this case, are not to blame for stalled negotiations, but, instead, Steele takes the Democratic side, giving it legitimacy and warning Republicans to back-down on demands for spending cuts. In fact, the entire panel should look at the dishonesty involved regarding who's to blame and present the facts of the situation with an explanation rather than the political spin. These pundits now talk about political spin and propaganda as if they're legitimate. They obviously see nothing wrong with Obama changing what he campaigned on and offering a progressive plan that not only ignores serious spending cuts, it asks for much more taxing and spending, plus a request for the President to have the ability to raise the debt ceiling whenever he desires -- in other words removing any debt ceiling, which never was a ceiling to start with, but at least they had to pretend to be responsible.

Do the American people believe media and partisan propaganda? Well, according to the pundits, the American people believe the MSM and the Democratic Party when they put forth false narratives. If pundits like Steele are correct, then Republicans can never win anything in negotiations, not if the public believes Democratic narratives such as what Geithner is offering. All Democrats have to do, according to Steele and others, is put forth a narrative that shows their side of the negotiations in a favorable light and the Republicans in an unfavorable light, and presto, public support shifts to Democrats and Republicans must capitulate. If this is true, then Democrats will achieve permanent majority and get their way at all times. Is this true? Does the public really accept the Democrat's side or are they duped by propaganda? I suppose either way we're screwed.

Morning Joe 6/18/2012 -- Of course the GOP is awful

On Morning Joe today, Mika had the show by herself again, and it appears MSNBC is turning on the propaganda machine full-speed to re-elect Obama. I would like to think that Scarborough has a problem with his employer's incredible bias and dishonesty, but Scarborough usually has very little to say that's good about the Republican Party. Joe at least verbalizes some principles of the Right from time to time. When Mika is on by herself, it's all pro-Obama and pro-Democrats all the time. This show has become a new kind of political show that's actually like a part of the Democratic Party.

When Morning Joe has Republicans on like the regular guest, Michael Steele, and the congress person Pat Toomey, or the recent Democrat turned Republican, Artur Davis, the hosts, especially Mika, attempt to ridicule, lambast and marginalize them, as if it's common knowledge that the Right's viewpoint is totally rejected by most of the nation. In reality, the Morning Joe/modern liberal political viewpoint is the viewpoint rejected by the majority of Americans, if polls can be trusted. This morning Mika made fun of Steele's attempt to defend Romney's response to Obama's recent executive order to stop deportation of illegal immigrants betwee 16 and 30 of age. So, Obama has been deporting these young immigrants for almost 4 years, and now right before an election he gives an order to stop it? It's a political move that addresses a symptomatic problem at best, so why does anyone have to defend Romney's response, when it's Obama's actions that are indefensible and transparently and cynically political? Because Mika thinks its a clever political move. Oh yes, real clever -- because we all know that hispanics are a monolithic group easily fooled by clever tricks -- perhaps Obama can throw in free tacos?

When Pat Toomey came on, the panel talked about gridlock in congress, which is a dog-whistle for modern liberals framing Republicans as obstructionists. The panel said the Fed has to monetize our debt and risk destructive inflation because Republicans won't agree with all of Obama's plans. Nevermind that Democrats, in unison, disagreed with Obama's plans and shot down two of Obama's budgets -- everyone knows it's the extreme Right blocking all progress. Why, Obama could have passed a stimulus plan that would have put Americans back to work and jump-started the economy if not for Republicans. No one had an answer when Toomey brought up the budgets developed by Republicans in the House and blocked in the Senate by Harry Reid. Reid wouldn't even allow debate and compromise -- but everyone knows that the Republicans are blocking compromise.

Then Artur Davis came on and told Mika he switched from Democrat to Republican because he believes in the positions of the Right more than the Left. Mika asked how he could possibly agree with the positions of Mitt Romney -- everyone knows Romney's positions are dangerous for America! Then Mika said some people have said Davis switched for political reasons. Kudoes to Harold Ford who stopped this line if inquiry and said that Davis is a good man and has a right to switch parties. Mika wasn't happy. How can anyone go from Obama to Romney, especially a black man who has been a Democrat? We all know that blacks are a monolithic group who follow Obama lockstep unless they are political whores who will sell out to get elected or gain some position of influence. Everybody knows these things.

Morning Joe 12/21/2011 -- Media bias and other stuff

On Morning today the guests were John Heilemann, Michael Steele, Tina Brown, Chuck Todd, Doris Kearns Goodwin and a few others. The subjects ranged from the House's rejection of the two month payroll tax cut extension to Obama's high self regard to Gingrich and negative ads to Scarborough's wish that Elizabeth Warren was in another state and could be elected along with Scott Brown.

Mika and a few other Leftists on the show believe that Obama is benefitting from the vicious Republican primary. Two polls show Obama's approval numbers are up, but about four other polls show his approval numbers are still in the low 40s. New CNN polls show Obama beating the individual Republican candidates. These polls are useless. Until there's a single candidate facing Obama we won't know how the race is going.

Although it appeared everyone on the Morning Joe panel agreed that a two month extension of the payroll tax cuts is ridiculous, Mika made a big deal about the politics and how the public will perceive Republican insistence that the tax cuts be approved for a year. Scarborough said he supports the Republican House decision to reject the short, meaningless extension, although he agreed with Mika that the politics are hurting Republicans. I say the politics are hurting anyone playing the political game. 2012 will be a different election year. The political class still hasn't realized the shift in public awareness regarding the current crisis in governance. The Morning Joe pundits are still working off an old political playbook, and they are guided by useless, biased polls. Media and the political class believe they can still influence the outcomes of elections, but they have lost relevance.

Yesterday, Scarborough called for the return of the draft, and this morning he said he wished Elizabeth Warren could become a senator. This confirms that Scarborough's talk about being a small government conservative is just that -- talk. It's obvious that Scarborough is a Big Government, progressive Republican. This faction of the Republican Party has been complicit in the statist advancements which have virtually killed our economy.

On the subject of Super PACs, as I said yesterday, the biggest problem is the feeding trough in DC that attracts money from business interests who have to protect themselves by competing in the policial realm rather than the economic realm. The Morning Joe crew wastes a lot of time talking about policial strategy, when the most important issue facing the country going into 2012 is the role of government in America in the 21st century.

Morning Joe also reported on the Obama 60 Minutes interview recently in which he said he is the fourth most effective President in modern times, behind Lincoln, FDR and LBJ. At least there was comic relief on Morning Joe today.

Morning Joe 12/2/2011 -- No, I'm the smartest guy in the room, I am!

Joe Scarborough's Gingrich Obsessive Disorder was full blown today after a short remission yesterday. Scarborough is acting like a high school adolescent who thinks it's unfair that Biff is popular when it's so obvious that Biff doesn't deserve it and little Joey does. It's not faaaair!

Scarborough and Michael Steele got into a shouting match when Steele tried to explain Gingrich's rise in popularity with the base. Scarborough took offense at Steele's attempt to help Scarborough understand Gingrich's popularity. Why, doesn't Steele know that the Republican Party is Scarborough's party, and no one konws the party better? How dare Steele disagree with Scarborough! I don't know why these semi-regulars keep coming on the show, really, because it's demeaning when Scarborough's bluster overrides differing opinions, but, it's a gig, I suppose. Scarborough likes to show how he's predicted the fall of each Republican candidate which has made it to the top of the polls ahead of Romney -- Trump, Bachmann, Perry and Cain. Now that Gingrich has made it the top and it looks like he might stay for awhile, Scarborough says he won't predict Gingrich's demise because he's a real challenge. Later on, though, Scarborough did predict that Gingrich would implode. The entire Morning Joe crew laid into Gingrich. It was fun to watch.

Scarborough said Gingrich is not the smartest person in the room, and then accused Gingrich of running for president to sell books. It got ugly. Steele said that the Republican base is tired of faux-elites telling them what they should think. Gingrich has thrown a bomb in the middle of the Pundit Party. Sam Stein and Mark Halperin tried to give their analyses of the Gingrich rise, but they don't really know what's motivating Gingrich's rise.

Sherrod Brown came on the show as the topic changed to supercommittee, debt and unemployment. Brown accused Republicans of obstruction for not agreeing to raise taxes. Scarborough got in a shouting match with Brown when Scarborough accused Democrats of protecting entitlements. Brown gave an example of a 62 year old woman dependent on entitlements. It all turned into a confusion of ideas. Scarborough calmed down and said he does blame Republicans for not making difficult choices regarding tax reform, but this is ridiculous. Republicans want tax reform -- they just don't want to raise tax rates on job producers. Brown's claim was ridiculous, too, because any reform in entitlements wouldn't affect anyone 62 years old. Maybe Gingrich is becoming popular because he can make an argument that's cogent -- Gingrich might not be the smartest person in the room, but he knows enough to make clear arguments.

Then, later, the very smartest person in the room came on the show -- Mika's dad. The first smart thing Mika's dad said is that Europe will be okay because the central banks are doing something. Andrea Mitchell disagreed and said that the Central bank mini-bailout doesn't touch the underlying problems in Europe. Mika's dad, Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (ZKB), also said that America is one of the most socially unjust countries in the world among industrialized countries because of income disparity. Scarborough didn't challenge this statement, he just asked for clarification. ZKB also said that Greece is the main problem in Europe, but if this was so, there wouldn't be much of a problem. I'm not that smart, but Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Germany's position as the safety net for these countries all appear to be problems -- that and the fact that the people of these nations are resisting austerity measures.

At the end of the program the conversation turned to defense spending, and the consensus is that we spend way to much on defense and mainly because the hype regarding terrorism has given contractors a blank check and no one in government is auditing what's being spent and who's getting screwed. Now, this is smart.

I'll address some of these issues later. It's just too much right now.

Morning Joe 11/2/2011 -- Different forms of ignorance

On Monring Joe today, Scarborough, Mika and their guests, Michael Steele, Sam Stein, Eugene Robinson, David Gregory and Chuck Todd, had a ball ridiculing Herman Cain regarding Cain's statement on PBS that China is seeking nuclear capability. China has had nuclear capability for decades. I'm not a Cain apologist,  but I do think this morning's attack on Cain reveals more about the attackers than Cain.

As for an inexperienced person becoming president, it's ridiculous to think that a reasonably intelligent person can't hold that job and rely on experts to fill in the empty spots. I always cringed when the Right criticized Obama for his inexperience -- as long as a person has the executive skills and intelligence, the rest is merely utilizing the knowledge of the people around the president to make informed decisions. A good executive surrounds himself/herself with good, knowledgable people, but this isn't really the issue. A president is a temporary actor, and it's the welfare/warfare statist system in DC that represents our fundamental problem. Nothing was said during the fun-filled Cain-bashing about Obama's failure to make systemic changes which would free up our market, limit government power and allow America to escape the fate of Greece and Europe in general. This blindspot in the political class is a more dangerous ignorance than Cain's ignorance of China's nuclear capability -- Cain's ignorance of foreign policy can be remedied with an experienced VP, Sec of Defense and National Security advisor, but our government doesn't have a Dept of Free Markets or a Limited Government Advisor.

Gregory said that the panel risked appearing elitist as they all piled on Cain, especially Scarborough -- Steele attempted to add perspective regarding Cain's appeal -- but the appearance of elitism is not the problem. The problem with the Morning Joe roundtable is that no one seemed to understand that concentrating on Cain at this point in a primary, and talking about a potential president  as someone who is isolated and of supreme importance, and failing to put it all in perspective, also represent ignorance. Their discussion implies that solutions to our problems rely on smarter, more informed presidents. The panel members might say they were simply giving a political analysis of the Republican primary, but reducing the analysis to Cain's ignorance of China, and using this as a reason to dismiss Republicans in general and then associate it to how Obama is helped by this ignorance on the Right, is an ignorant analysis. If the point of political analysis is to detemine fundamental problems so that fundamental solutions can be found, or if the point is merely exposition and clarity, then Morning Joe failed miserably. I didn't see it as elitism, but, rather, I saw it as ignorance of the real problems facing us. The point is that it doesn't matter if Obama is reelected, or if Cain is elected, or if Romney is elected -- if our welfare/warfare statist system is not changed it's a moot point -- one man or woman won't make a difference, unless that person is a truly great leader who understands that our main struggle is how to stop statist decline and create economic growth while also preventing foreign entanglements going forward in the 21st century. Obama has failed miserably, and Cain couldn't be worse, or Romney, or anyone elected. I suppose they could be worse, but it would just quicken our decline. A balanced and fair analysis would have pointed out that though Obama appears more sophisticated and knowledgable than Cain, Obama's fundamental economic ignorance is a continuation of an ignorance that's destroying our economy, and Obama's ignorance of the consequences of politically motivated foreign entanglements will cost us dearly in precious lives and treasure.

Niall Ferguson came on later and provided a more intelligent analysis. Ferguson said that the US has to reset and recapture the virtues which created prosperity and progress in the past -- rule of law, hard work, science, free enterprise. Willie Geist added to what Ferguson said by saying that we need a government that can do big things, or something to that effect, but I would say we need a government that knows how to not interfere with the power of the private sector, a government that knows how to protect the private sector from the forces of coercion, social engineering and central planning. Even if someone is not a hardcore libertarian, they can at least realize that most of the problems facing us today are caused by government intervention. We don't need a Super-Genius Imperial President -- we need public servants who won't interfere with and block growth, innovation, equal opportunity, peaceful trade and prosperity. Ignorance takes on different forms.