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| Morning Joe Segment bemoaning Trump's tweets |
Summary: In this MSNBC segment on "Mika Brzezinski Responds To President Donald Trump's Tweets About Her", it's difficult to know whether Scarborough is monumentally uninformed, blinded by ideology, or blatantly lying. Points:
1. The media, in particular MSNBC, is not "liberal"; it is, at a minimum, "corporate conservative."
2. Criticizing Trump for his lies does not make Joe Scarborough an "Independent." Scarborough can declare himself "Independent", but his failing positions are Republican to the core. He is certainly no "liberal"!
Contents:
Morning Joe [Scarborough] Segment bemoaning Trump's tweets
My comments on Scarborough's lies in the segment
A podcast discussing the segment
Scarborough leaving Republican Party?
Morning Joe [Scarborough] Segment bemoaning Trump's tweets
Scarborough promotes failed right-wing policies and does so on the supposedly-LIBERAL MSNBC. Clearly it's a trend now for MSNBC to go even more "conservative". The "media" never was "liberal"; it's always been corporate.
Why Are the Times, the Post, and MSNBC on a Conservative Hiring Spree? Five theories By Will Oremus, Slate, 5/9/17
It's difficult to know whether Scarborough is monumentally uninformed, blinded by ideology, or blatantly lying. Watch this segment on MSNBC.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe: Mika Brzezinski Responds To President Donald Trump's Tweets About Her | Morning Joe | MSNBC 6/30/17
My comments on Scarborough's lies in the segment:
In this segment on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Scarborough, right-wing Republican on the supposedly "liberal" MSNBC, talks to Harold Ford, a "Democrat" who has no response to Scarborough's nonsense and lies on economics. Scarborough is oh-so sincere and passionate while spewing right-wing fiction. The complaints about Trump's despicable tweets is valid, but what's important to take away from this exchange is Scarborough's faux interest as he waxes sincere about the need for helping "working class" Americans.
Scarborough: "It's not just we as a country. It's those of us who have called ourselves conservatives for our entire life. And those of us who have called ourselves Republicans for our entire life. When he's obsessed uh the way he is on the small things he's obsessed with. What happens to a health care agenda? You don't move a health care agenda forward. You don't have conversations about how getting free enterprise and free markets in health care can drive down the cost. You don't talk about passing tax reform that would make Americans more competitive with the rest of the world. Or get how many trillions that are offshore back into the United States that would put working class people from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania back to work. You don't get to talk about regulatory reform. You don't get to talk about using that money for infrastructure and rebuilding our country. ... China's infrastructure is incredible ... they are rebuilding. ... We're not doing this because we have a president obsessed with the smallest of things."
What I say about the specifics of his right-wing diatribe -- his comments bolded.
How many people would lose their lives if the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act succeeds? Estimates of this inherently murky statistic vary, but the range is from about 28,000 to nearly 100,000 a year.
That's a shocking toll from an effort that is essentially aimed at gifting the wealthiest Americans with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts by slashing healthcare. So no one should be surprised that Republican and conservative supporters of the House and Senate repeal bills have spent a lot of time claiming that nothing of the sort will happen.
- "You don't have conversations about how getting free enterprise and free markets in health care can drive down the cost."
The "free market" does NOT work for health insurance because adverse selection causes a "free market" health insurance death spiral. What fools Repubicans are to ignore this fundamental fact of economics. They worship their "free market", "invisible hand" of God that fails in many ways ... for health insurance in particular.
- "You don't talk about passing tax reform that would make Americans more competitive with the rest of the world."
Corporate tax rates are already competitive, as I explain at What about Those Corporate Taxes?
Sure, "tax reform" that means more tax cuts and more tax breaks for the already wealthy. As I describe at Tax Expenditure Entitlements, "Tax Breaks for the top 20% are greater than Military Spending, which is over half of U.S. Discretionary Spending. One-sixth of all Tax Expenditures go to the top 1%: that's 2.7X SNAP benefits."
- "Or get how many trillions that are offshore back into the United States that would put working class people from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania back to work."
Liar! The last G. W. Bush "tax holiday" was a scam. Corporations cut jobs: ~21,000 jobs!
BUSH ALREADY TRIED TRUMP'S PROPOSED CORPORATE TAX HOLIDAY AND IT WAS A TOTAL FAILURE, by Zaid Jilani, The Intercept, 4/27/17,
AS PART OF ITS radical but still mostly undefined tax plan, the Trump administration proposed a tax holiday for corporate earnings stored overseas. Reporters have been hearing on background that the tax rate would be slashed from 35 percent to 10 percent.
But judging from the last time it was tried, most of the cash Donald Trump would allow megacorporations to bring home from overseas at a bargain-basement tax rate would end up being used by corporate executives to inflate the prices of their stocks, thereby enriching themselves and their biggest investors - and doing little to employ Americans and grow the real economy.
From 2004 to 2005, the Bush administration and Congress tried a one-time tax repatriation holiday, cutting the rate to 5.25 percent.
A Senate study in 2011 found that corporations brought $312 billion they had stashed overseas back to the United States, avoiding $3.3 billion in taxes as a result of the repatriation rate. But the top 15 companies that took advantage of the holiday actually reduced their total U.S. employment by 20,931 jobs. ... [enphasis added]
... and Scarborough continues with utmost sincerity, pretending to care about "working class Americans" by promoting policies which, not only won't help them all, but which have hurt them for decades.
Scarborough: "... There are people that are hurting out there. Average wages for working class Americans have declined since 1974. Their health care costs are going up. Deductibles are going up. Premiums are going up. Their coverage is getting worse. Our corporations that employ millions of people can't compete with other corporations across the world as effectively because out tax rates are higher. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our airports are a joke. Our bridges are collapsing. That's what matters and that's what not getting done. ..."
- "Average wages for working class Americans have declined since 1974."
Indeed they have ... because of so-called "conservative" policies that drive millions into poverty and keep them there.
- "Their health care costs are going up. Deductibles are going up. Premiums are going up. Their coverage is getting worse."
Yes, and the Republican Senate "Tax Cut" bill disguised as a "Health Care" bill will make things worse. See Cory Gardner's 'Better Care' Betrayal
- "Our corporations that employ millions of people can't compete with other corporations across the world as effectively because out tax rates are higher."
Blatant lie as I explain at What about Those Corporate Taxes?
- "Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our airports are a joke. Our bridges are collapsing. That's what matters and that's what not getting done."
And it won't get done under Republican, right-wing minority rule ... see links above.
A podcast discussing the segment:
The first segment of this Majority Report podcast on the Trump-Scarborough feud provides important perspectives: The Republicans Health Care Scam & Larry Murphy Does Hilarious Resistance Politics, The Majority Report, 6/30/17.
It points out that Republican Scarborough should have been talking about much of what he knew months ago. That is, that they knew Trump was unstable before the election. BTW, Scarborough, as much as any in the media, is responsible for Trump thanks to their months of disgusting, fawning coverage ... letting him call in to promote his campaign and his lies.
Oh sure, Scarborough is "leaving" the GOP. Bull. You know damn well he'll continue to vote Republican.
He's a dyed in the wool Republican. He pretends Trump isn't doing exactly what Republicans want him to do, but he's only embarrassed that Trump exposes so-called "conservatives" for who they really are.
'Morning Joe' host Joe Scarborough is leaving the GOP 7/12/17
Joe Scarborough, the conservative co-host of MSNBC's political commentary show "Morning Joe," is leaving the Republican Party. ...
Scarborough tore into what he characterized as a complacent Republican Party unwilling to stand up to President Donald Trump.
"You have to ask yourself, what exactly is the Republican Party willing to do?" Scarborough said to Colbert. "How far are they willing to go? How much of this country and our values are they willing to sell out?"
"Aren't you a Republican?" Colbert asked.
"I am a Republican, but I'm not going to be a Republican anymore," Scarborough said to loud applause from the audience. "I've got to become an independent." ...
Trump regularly called into "Morning Joe" during the early days of his candidacy and speak at length with Scarborough and Brzezinksi, as The Washington Post has reported. One such time was in February 2016, after Trump won the New Hampshire primary.
"You guys have been supporters, and I really appreciate it," Trump said. "And not necessarily supporters, but at least believers. You said there's some potential there."
Some early critics of Scarborough's announcement were quick to point out his longtime friendship with Trump and willingness to give him a platform during the campaign. [emphasis added]
... no kidding. They fawned all over Trump and were immensely responsible for getting Trump elected, but now don't accept the blame for their own role.
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