September 12, 2016

She sure misspoke a lot then. Her "commies everywhere" tirade went on and on.

And Joy Reid is in no way better than 90% of journalists, or even just anyone speaking publicly about politics. I'm sure you could find someone on Breitbart or World News Daily who thinks we're still worried about "communists" in Russia, but that's about it. You'd flunk a basic reporting course for an error that ridiculous.

I mean, look at this. She clearly either doesn't know what communism is or what kind of government Russia has had for the past 25 years.

The Green Party! Trump! Snowden! Putin! All COMMIES RAWWWRRR!

Except none of them are, of course. It's not even a fair cop for Putin, who is running a decidedly capitalist kleptocracy, whatever affection he might have for the past Soviet regime. And Trump? Really? You can paint him with the Putin brush all day long, but that's because Putin's a ludicrous megalomaniacal strongman. He's far closer to the right wing than the left at this point, which is why Trump aligns with him somewhat (although Trump really has no discernible coherent ideology at all).

Regardless, "communism" has literally nothing to do with it, nor does it have a thing to with whatever Reid's objections to the Green Party or Snowden might be. None of these people she's trying to slam even belong in the same ideological basket at all.

Does she actually not understand that? Or is she just trying to smear people with the communist label because it occupies some space in her mind as the worst thing a person could be?

I think her campaign season coverage has been bad all the way through. I saw one of her aggressive Trump-surrogate interviews on MSNBC the other day, and she actually came off like the more anxious, unpleasant person, which was quite a feat up against someone trying to defend Trump. She went back and forth with the guy over whether something he said was a "talking point," which of course it was, but the whole conversation was talking points, and that's what surrogates do. A normal pro like Chris Hayes would have let him get his point out and move on, but she had to literally stop him from speaking chanting "I know it's a talking point," like a snarky child.

I can't believe MSNBC can't do better than this. They're embarrassing themselves.

September 12, 2016

The problem with "remembering" 9/11

is that we still collectively refuse to acknowledge how terribly we reacted to 9/11. I remember a woman in a building where I worked, a banker I think, who had always been nice, getting very upset with me over my suggestion invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do in response. Saddam was building nukes and preparing to wage war on the U.S. -- she saw it on TV. What else was there to discuss?

We're still in the same war, really. Just as PNAC envisioned. War in Iraq. War in Syria. A war in Iran would complete their sleazy vision.

All these deaths, all these trillions of dollars, and Middle East is no better off. America is no better off. But fear still works. Fear has put a half-assed real estate developer on the Presidential ticket. Fear still makes unlimited defense spending okay but Social Security too expensive.

I look forward to the 9/11 retrospectives that include in the horror of a terrorist attack the equally damaging horror of allowing a shocking event to upend our common sense and ability to think critically about what we're doing as a nation.

September 12, 2016

Didn't Joy Reid just claim Russia was still "communist?"

http://www.mediaite.com/online/joy-reid-roundly-derided-for-tweeting-that-russia-is-still-a-communist-state/

Trump and his people adhere to Putin for his belligerence and authoritarianism, not his "communism."

She sounded like Republican with her silly red-baiting. Ms. Reid should maybe at least maybe crack a Wikipedia and understand that the Soviet Empire has not been a thing for 25 years or so, and that authoritarians and "communists" are not the same thing.

MSNBC needs to do a lot better with its commentators.