Tonight's guests:
- Steve Clemons, from the New America Foundation, writes at The Washington Note and The Atlantic magazine, where he is Washington editor-at-large
- Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's International Security Advisory Board, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations
- Nancy Northup, president of The Center for Reproductive Rights
Bill's video is still in the cooker, so the preview will be along shortly... in the meantime, here's your hold music ...
Leave a Comment:
I watch the show for a counter point as Maddow has some intelligent things to say. However, after tonight's show I will not watch anymore. She is a hack that will say things that placates her audience irrelevant of context, just like the other hacks she rails against.
By conflating Hagels position on the Iraq war and his position on the surge (two separate issues), it completely distorted and, frankly, missed the point of McCains question. Where he stands politically on the war and the surge is irrelevant. However, when we are talking about military strategy, to which he will have enormous influence, its critical to know if he thought the surge was right...or wrong and why, politics be damned.
It's clear given the situation the surge was successful and needed due to the situation that was occurring in Iraq at that time.
McCain for all I know was playing politics but the question was legitimate and Maddows belabored attempt to spin it in a context of the Iraq war in general and politically sense was disingenious at best. Instead of focusing on whether Hagel is the right person for the job, which he might be but thats not important to this host, its more about the political ramifications.
The guy is supposed to lead the defense department and he can not answer yes or no concerning whether the surge was not needed or not? Maddows focus on political side of the question, her disingenuous political dialog to boot, and the not real issue was disgusting.
Maddow....the question was not was the Iraq war needed or right or wrong....it was about the surge and I'm sure you are smart enough to understand the different context and considerations needed of both questions.
Welcome to the same hack club of Hannity, O'Reily and Ed what ever his name is.....
Must be a parallel universe.
Usually Rachel seams like a very animated teacher, to a particular difficult class. But tonight, she was funny! Love you Rachel! Kick It!
The success or failure of "the surge" is something that analysts and historians will be arguing over for decades and hardly deserving of a "straight yes or no." Senator McCain was wrong about practically everything he said about the Iraq war. From the very beginning he expected a quick cake walk and that the troops would be greeted with flowers by the population. Perhaps that is not surprising since what he knows about war he learned from 10,000 feet above a jungle.
Not always. He crashed 3 of them.
Why must people put everything in a partisan political context? What relevance does McCain political stance on the war have on the qualifications of Hagel? Further, what does ones opinion on the righteousness of the Iraq war, in general, have to do with policy or military strategy?
You comment about "arguing" is confusing since both liberals and conservatives along with most military analyst will tell you the surge both turned the tide of Iraq conflict and was successful. Remember, its irrelevant if the war was needed in the first place considering we were already there....You can say the historians will debate this success all you want, the reality is the surge improved conditions on the ground that facilitated an exit strategy.
Further, the answer the question is simple...the elaboration, knowledge, and logic behind it is whats the hard part. The head of the DOD should be able to answer this question and qualify it with his expert opinion. He was not able to do this. Maddow and apparently her fans took McCains question and spun it as a political question about the legitimacy of the Iraq war and that really has nothing to do with the confimation hearing despite if it was McCains intent.
So instead of focusing on the qualifications of Hagel, she focused on the political nature of McCains question while at the same time distorting the question to align it with her own political agenda. She did essentially the same thing she accused McCain of....
Maddow is a hack and it gets old hearing these partisan, distorted and disingenuous people belabor their political ideology at all cost. Try using some objectiveness.
With that said, I'm now a fan of Anderson Cooper who had an awesome segment that presented both sides equally on gun control and let the key points of both sides shine through with out political rhetoric taking over.
I haven't watched tonight's show yet but I hope they mention the Atlanta shooting today in particular,
Looks like the NRA was right!
I watched tonight's show and I wish those on TV, even on your show would stop calling The Morning After Pill "medication abortion". It is not an abortion. The morning after pill PREVENTS CONCEPTION, avoiding a need for an abortion. The morning after pill interferes with the mechanics of conception. So since conception NEVER happens, there are no cells divided and so there is no embryo or fetus. Thus there is no abortion. I think calling it abortion medication hurts the availability of the pill. Even the American Academynof Pediatrics have recommended that pediatricians give sexually active patients a prescription for the morning after pill so that those under 16 or 18 years of age depending on the state can get the pill as soon as they determine they may need it so that it has a higher chance of success, to interrupt the chance of conception. The longer the woman has to wait before she takes the morning after pill because she needs a doctors appointment the lower the chance the pill will work, because conception may have already happened and SINCE IT IS NOT AN ABORTION PILL, it will NOT work if conception has taken place. Thank you.
Aloha Rachel:
These American women need your support NOW!!! They are/have being/been left out please help them now!!!
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/01/28/indian-health-service-continues-to-deny-native-american-women-access-to-emergency
Dear GOP,
You seem a little over conceded about religion. Religion is an invention by humanity to protect the children from knowing how tough we can really be to each other and still give them hope. It is like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. It is silly to take any of these at face value. We adults know the real thing is a bit different. However, many humans believe they still have the right to take another’s life. Here is a little wake up call. It you think Adolph Hitler should have lost his life for his evil, you fail. You become no better than he was.
Secondly , to Wolff and she Crew: So you like beautiful sunrises !! That is plan silly. Any GOPer you may now ask will tell you we are looking at only sunsets. Darn guys, get with the program. You people think everyone should have a voice. Where do you think we are, America ??
Pondering-2, you need to do a little more "pondering." Do you think only the GOP are people of faith?
And you equate Hitler's behavior of taking the lives of MILLIONS of innoncent people with someone who would advocate taking his life for his actions. You think this is the same type of evil? Wow. Ponder a little bit more.
To both of you:
No one "killed" Hitler - he took his own life. Maybe he did have periods of lucidity at the end.
RobDon, I think you are missing Pondering's point. Hitler was evil, no doubt - he was responsible for milions and millions of deaths. We call him "evil" because he killed - so are we also "evil" if we kill? Even for the "right" reasons? I think this was what Pondering was trying to get at.
I think we need a better definition of "evil". Is it just "killing innocents" or is it something more? Who is more evil? A sociopath who imprisons children and has sex with them over many years but doesn't kill them or a person who "cracks" for some reason and kills 30 people with a semi-automatic weapon?
I am not so sure killing is an evil act unto itself, I prefer to think that it is the motivation behind the killing is what constitutes the evil. We have no proof that Hitler actually personally killed anyone, but his motivation certainly was responsible for the deaths of whole populations!
I think Pondering is right about one thing though. Humans do like to kill off populations of "others" whenever they get the chance! And the motivation hasn't changed over the eons. It doesn't matter if you call it the "inquisition" or or "ethnic cleansing" or anything else - the evil is the same and it still exists. Just ask some right wing nut whether or not we should "nuke" Iran.
once, I pretty much agree with your comments on the use of "evil." Some people who do "evil" acts are really very, very sick individuals (for a variety of reasons). Sometimes if you or yours are affected by those acts, you don't see that (and understandably so).
As to:
I know you are only repeating her argument, but I DID understand it. And I think you are correct, this was her point. My point was, these two "evils" (if that is what you want to call it) can NOT be compared to each other. This in part is related to your point, the motivation makes an act evil.
Thinking that Hitler should have died from capital punishment (or even society carrying that out) is NOT evil, especially compared with the truth that he killed MILLIONS of individuals.
As to your last point, if your neighbor said he would set your house on fire while you were a sleep and kill your family AND his past behavior gave evidence that he would, what would you do?
You could not stay awake all night every night? (Granted, in a civil society you should be able to have law enforcement intervene.) My point, is when is it appropriate to take deadly action because of a threat? I certainly understand the wrongness of ethinic cleansing, etc...but war and military agression is not always cut and dry, it is very complex...IMHO
News from Alaska:
Kyle Hopkins @adn_kylehopkins
Inflatable kangaroos outside the Alaska Republican Party HQ. pic.twitter.com/tEAeaQUF
35m Kyle Hopkins @adn_kylehopkins
Millette said nothing. Put on his hat, left the room.
37m Kyle Hopkins @adn_kylehopkins
Breaking: The Alaska Republican Party has voted to remove Russ Millette from his post as incoming party chairman. ||
News from the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana:
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/31/16792048-mystery-oil-sheen-grows-near-site-of-bp-gulf-disaster-says-researcher
A new, ten-mile-long oil 'sheen' spotted coming from the Deepwater Horizon oilspill disaster well site ( Macondo, MC252.) Source: OnWingsOfCare.org / Dr Bonny Schumaker , NASA/JPL physicist and pilot. Dr. Schumaker has been doing flyovers of the Gulf Of Mexico since before the Deepwater Horizon 'blacktide' oil spill.
Please see her videos on her Youtube channel, OnWingsOfCare1, especially:
Published on Jan 27, 2013 http://youtu.be/rc8gpYn41S8
20130127- On Wings Of Care Gulf Flyover shows the same new (natural?) seep we found last week, about 10 miles southwest of the Macondo area. For more photos and videos, see the full article from today's flight here: http://onwingsofcare.org/protection-a-preservation/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2...
a screen shot from Dr Schumaker's flyover from 1/27/13:
https://twitter.com/WhoDat35/status/296014723391045632/photo/1
Dr Schumaker also has done very recent flyovers of the Bayou Corne, Louisiana sinkhole. What started back in August, 2012, as a strange, large 'slurry' pond about 370 feet across that swallowed up trees and boats, this sinkhole has now grown to almost 9 acres in diameter. This still-collapsing salt dome cavern contains a dangerous 'witches brew' of hydrogen sulfide, methane, crude oil, liquid butane, benzene, ethane, and (reportedly) radioactive waste from oil and gas drilling. This sinkhole's internal collapse continues to trigger seismic activity as it "burps, " bringing up yet more debris, chemicals and oil.
News about Bayou Corne has fallen off the news radar, sadly.
Hi Rachel,
We love ya. Just wanted to note what our Wyoming legislature is up to. Just failed was a bill to prohibit workplace discrimination based on political affiliation. Shot down in a 14-44 vote. Scary!
Thanks for all that you, Lawrence and Ed do.