upwithchris:

Chris Hayes on how Romney broke the rules of the debate, and why it matters:

I thought the moment of the oil drilling, that debate to me was a key moment. The reason was this. Mitt Romney asked the president a direct question numerous times, kept interrupting him, “Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true? Didn’t it go down?” Now the rules for the debate, that we all got leaked, number five, subsection E: “The candidates may not ask each other direct questions during any of the four debates.”

Now, at a certain level, who cares, right? Who cares? Here’s why I care. The theme of the last ten years of this country is the people at the top have felt the rules don’t apply to them. And you send your people to sit down and negotiate a set of rules, and 20 minutes into it you throw it out the window. And everything we’ve seen, from the financial crisis to everything else that’s happened in this country, has been about the oligarchs and the ruling class and the people at the top feeling that they are not a party to the social contract. So some stupid little contract that was negotiated by your people, you don’t worry about.

So glad someone transcribed the wonderful Chris Hayes on this. I bookmarked it, made a note to do this and everything. Romney also STRAIGHT up said “no…I’m going to go back to” some other question he still wanted to answer, completely dismissing Candy and temporarily dismissing the person in the audience who had asked the question. When I talk to my guy about how Romney has been running for president for 20 years, but hadn’t anticipated making his taxes look good even since the last time he ran, he simply says “but Romney’s fucking richer than god, he doesn’t think the rules apply to him. None of them do.” Just look back at all his debates, Romney is telling everyone what the rules are, moderators, Rick Perry, the fucking POTUS. Nobody’s rules apply to him.

(via wilwheaton)

WATCH THIS WATCH THIS WATCH THIS

I couldn’t figure out a way to embed the video, so you only get a link, but you should go to this site and watch all Rachel Maddow’s shows anyway, you can watch whole episodes free, one segment at a time.

It’s very difficult for people in countries without free speech to fully understand exactly how free our speech is here in the U.S. In the video, Rachel Maddow explains how the winger conspiracy over the Muslim Brotherhood’s supposed infiltration of the U.S. government via Huma Abedin (Sec. Clinton’s personal aid and former Rep. Anthony Wiener’s wife) gave credence to Egyptian conspiracy theories that our government and specifically Hilary Clinton are secretly in charge of the Muslim Brotherhood or are working with them to oppress the Egyptian people. When Sec. Clinton went to Egypt last July, her envoy was attacked and protestors carried signs indicating their belief that she is the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now that the middle east has lost its shit over this fucking “film” (or, rather now that terrorist organizations have likely taken advantage of this perception to foment unrest), not only is it hard for many Muslims to believe that a film made in the U.S. doesn’t have the overt support and approval by our government by virtue of existing, but continuing right wing conspiracy toxic nonsense (including the Values Voters Summit this week where Paul Ryan happily stoked the fires TODAY) may be a serious factor in why these violent demonstrations are growing.

Words matter. They can have real consequences, and one political party in this country is perfectly happy to put lives in danger to score cheap temporary political points.

Saw Jonathan Capehart today on Msnbc talking to Rev. Al Sharpton about the Trayvon Martin killing. I didn’t get to do a proper transcript of this, but I grabbed what I could.

Jonathan Capehart is (an amazing person) a columnist for the Washington Times, and I felt like this was an important conversation.

Rev. Al: This Trayvon Martin story has the whole country really focused on things that you and I just know naturally. We’re here where you grew up, one of the homes you grew up in, here on Meeker Ave in Newark New Jersey.  

Capehart: We moved here when my mom remarried, I was 16 and so I moved from this suburban rural environment back to an urban environment, and the rules of living in an urban environment are different. I had to learn how to get from home to the bus stop; which busses to take to get to school, I’d leave the house and walk down this hill…

Rev. Al: So you learned these dont’s…

Capehart: These were lessons that were a little tough to hear at 16:

Don’t run in public lest someone find you suspicious.

Don’t run in public with anything in your hands lest someone think you stole something.

Don’t talk back to the police… now I understand that that is a universal rule. No one should talk back to the police, no matter who they are, but when you’re African American, it takes on a greater significance.

Rev. Al: You were warned about how the police may perceive you… how police may misconstrue who you are. (emphasis added because they were clearly implying “…let alone your neighbor”)

Capehart: Don’t give the police a reason to stop you. I was 16 when I moved to this neighborhood. I could have been Trayvon Martin. And even though this is 2012, the horror… the additional horror of the Trayvon Martin story is realizing that I still could be Trayvon Martin because of someone else’s suspicion.

Rev. Al: Thats why many of us are fighting so hard, for justice in this, and the arrest of Zimmerman, because I’ve been that 16  year old kid, I got daughters now. What do we tell our kids now? Don’t go to the store and get skittles? Don’t go to the store and buy ice tea? Don’t wear a hoodie?

Can’t remember if it was Al or Jonathan who said this last bit: We can put an African American in the White House and still can’t walk our kids in their own neighborhoods. The problem is not solved.

It’s nothing new for a lot of people. Growing up in the ghetto, passing for white and seeing the privilege that comes with that first hand, I assumed this was common knowledge at one point, that it wasn’t just obvious to me having lived where I did, but that it would be obvious to anyone because the difference is so glaring.

But I’ve found time and time again, every time we get to have a national conversation on race in this country, revelations like these seem shocking or exaggerated, which I can tell you this is nothing compared to the big picture. But I thought the way Rev. Al contextualized it at the end has revelatory potential, which I feel he is particularly adept at. I will never forget how Al Sharpton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (in 2004 I think) connected so many dots for me mentally and facilitated this revelation about the meaning of generational wealth and privilege, and I find myself looking to him in times like these to break it down.

The important point here, in my opinion anyway, is that people of color have to raise their kids to accommodate the biases of others just to stay safe, just to stay alive. Racism isn’t a snicker here or an epithet there… it’s a dead child who clearly didn’t accommodate his murderer’s irrational paranoia enough to stay alive. It’s a police department and a D.A. who are doing their best to ensure this guy stays free with his gun. It’s an entire community that has to live with the actual constant threat that comes along with merely being perceived as one to the majority. 

I ask myself, what am I going to tell my child someday if I have a scary, giant, brown 17 year old with a full beard that looks like bin Laden? I’ve been lecturing Fletcher for years about how careful he has to be since he grew up in suburbia and was never directly exposed to this, and I think he thought I was being paranoid until Trayvon Martin. This shit is real.

A Republican woman who claims that the War on Women is a political distraction made up by Democrats for votes:

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) WA: “This is a distraction from the real issues… the reality is, the Republicans won the women’s vote in 2010 and the Democrats know that they have to win the women’s vote and that they are scaring… these are scare tactics to scare women.”

Chris Matthews: “But whose tactics are they? I’m just asking you whose tactics are they? You say they are Democratic tactics… how did Democrats get Republican legislators to make these proposals? How tricky are they, these Democrats?

They get the Virginia legislation to bring up all this stuff on abortion, they get Santorum to talk up contraception… these Democrats are ventriloquists? How did they get the Republicans to say all this stuff?”

—-

Then she pivots to gay marriage and how federal regulations on business are what are really hurting women, even saying about Obamacare: “women don’t like the idea of the federal government making health decisions,” 

THE IRONY. The interview continues:

Chris Matthews: “I think you’ve got a weak case here, because I think a lot of these right wing social activists get elected on the tax issue… they win on lower taxes and less government, and the minute they get into office they push this screaming right wing social agenda that never got elected in the first place. The tea party movement of 2010 had nothing to do with all this abortion and contraception stuff. “

Cathy McMorris Rodgers: “No it didn’t, you’re right.”

Chris Matthews: “So why are you guys all pushing it?”

Cathy McMorris Rodgers: “Uh, I’m in congress… we are talking about jobs, the economy… what its going to take get Americans back to work - that’s the debate we’re having.”

——

Uhhhhhhhv course. 

So here’s video of what I was talking about earlier. I know, it’s dumb to be distracted by something so stupid and I’m sure whoever this person is, that she has done a bunch of great stuff, but I’m seriously just being all psychology student about it and wondering what in the hell was this person thinking.

How does anyone who doesn’t already agree with you take you seriously? How are you going to go basically make yourself a public spokesperson for this family and then dress like a clown? 

edit: ugh, so there’s a commercial, but I think it’s worth it because besides her stupid hat, it’s a good conversation about the murder of Trayvon Martin. 

Rep. Wilson! WTF are you wearing on national television while trying to have a somber and serious conversation about the Trayvon Martin murder!!!??? Your GREEN SPARKLED COWBOY HAT is flopping around comicly as you nod your head. OH MY GOD.

Were you not just wearing a sequin pop star smock last night on the same network, talking about the same thing? Was that you, or a different tactless politician with similar tastes? 

To be confirmed after I finish this paper…

edit: So it turns out “different tactless politician with similar tastes” is the right answer. Good lord. 

America’s 100 Greatest Things

Nearly 3 hours straight of outstanding commercial free MSNBC live coverage from central Cairo just came to an end. Rachel Maddow hosting from the states with Richard Engel and Brian Williams live from a hotel balcony (that some people apparently attempted a lynching beneath at some point) through the night literally until dawn.

I basically took it for granted until I flipped the channel to CNN where Piers Morgan is asking Rudy Guiliani “What’s going on out there?” (Like Guiliani knows) to which Guiliani responds something like “where were the police, where were the military?” [to put down the violence]

NEWS FLASH to Rudy Guiliani: the police were causing the violence! Way to go CNN.

Flip over to Fox, and Hannity is yelling at some dude only identified on screen as “radical imam” (seriously) and they are arguing about whether or not this is the beginning of the spread of an Islamic caliphate (?), and the rise of Sharia law in the U.K. and the U.S. Wow. I swear, if you watch Fox regularly, then shut it off for two weeks, that shit is noticeably crazier when you tune back in.

Sigh, back to CNN.

I’d be trying to watch Al Jazeera on my computer but I’m trying to cram for a midterm tomorrow.

You know, as a liberal, I love MSNBC political analysis, but when the shit gets real, they have truly superior coverage, every time. Even better than NBC covering the same shit with the same video feeds sometimes.

Journalists were targeted today (yesterday). Pretty much every major outfit got hit one way or another. CNN was focusing on how their reporter was the story (which was exciting of course), Richard Engel was like “yeah yeah, no big deal” ran right over it, and back to the story. How does that guy keep his shit together? Michael Ware has PTSD. We like to give the media a lot of shit in this country (and often rightly so) but don’t ever forget how important the work that these people do is. Michael Ware has been kidnapped multiple times. Daniel Pearl had his fucking head cut off. 

Meanwhile, Chinese college students haven’t the slightest idea what happened in Tiananmen Square just 20 years ago. That’s why it’s important enough to risk getting your head cut off to get the story. 

Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.