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Rachel Maddow Laughs At RNC Chairman For Suggesting MSNBC Contributed To Election Loss
Rachel Maddow tonight opened her show looking at the state of Democratic and Republican leadership in the Senate. Both have their share of problems, as Maddow pointed out, but the more amazing news came as Maddow played audio of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus attributing the GOP’s problems in the 2012 election to MSNBC hosting debates. Maddow reacted to Preibus with as much derision as she could possibly muster.
RELATED: Maddow: GOP Expunging Any Trace Of Romney Campaign, Ignoring Larger Problems With Party
Maddow pointed out how Republican leadership has been thrown for a loop in the past few days, with President Obama going around them to have direct meetings with Republican senators and congressmen, and Rand Paul basically going rogue and filibustering for 13 hours “without telling anyone who was in charge.” However, Maddow briefly acknowledged that Democratic leadership is having its share of problems, as one of their biggest post-2012 priorities was to hold on to veterans incumbents up for re-election in 2014, only to see four out of the five big names on their list retiring.
Maddow found it interesting that keeping those senators was a top priority for Democratic leadership, though at least they did well in the last election, and on that front Maddow highlighted the news that the official “autopsy” into how the Republican party lost so badly in 2012 has completed its work and the report is ready to go public. Maddow highlighted this statement made by RNC Chairman Priebus giving some insight into what the party’s problems were in 2012.
“Controlling the debate process, getting involved in moderators and networks and all of these other issues, so that we don’t have chaos. I mean, we just can’t have MSNBC hosting a debate at the Reagan library only to have their network… make the commentary afterwards for three hours about the debate of the Republican party. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
But what Maddow found ridiculous was that the Republican National Committee chairman would suggest that MSNBC had anything to do with why the party lost. Maddow asked “We’re what needs to be fixed in the Republican party? Seriously?”
Watch the video below, courtes
Stewart Hilariously Suggests Bill O’Reilly For Next Pope, But Doubts He’ll Accept The ‘Demotion’
Jon Stewart tonight took on the ongoing search at the Vatican for the next Pope in the wake of Pope Benedict resigning from the papacy. Stewart suggested Bill O’Reilly as a possible replacement, and brought on correspondents to break down the negative ad campaigns between the potential new Popes and the suspicious wording of some of the Vatican’s rituals for selecting the new pontiff.
Stewart briefly addressed Rand Paul‘s filibuster, which he described as “thoroughly entertaining,” and mocked Mitch McConnell for trying to get into the fray with his junior colleagues.
Stewart then took on the search for the new Pope, and after hearing that any male Catholic could technically be selected for the position, he suggested Bill O’Reilly, though he doubted O’Reilly would accept the “demotion.” Stewart mocked a reporter observing that one of the candidates was acting like a “boy scout” in helping one of the other cardinals, commenting “Boy scouts helping priests? What could be more wholesome than that?”
Correspondent Aasif Mandvi briefly came on to break down the negative ad campaigns being waged between cardinals, including a particularly devastating attack on one cardinal’s Oscar pool. Stewart then brought up the process of who gets to vote and where, turning to correspondent Samantha Bee for more.
Bee explained the language used to describe certain aspects of the gathering. A collective group of cardinals is known as a “grope,” and they gather for a voting process known as “molestation,” and, Bee concluded, no one gets to leave until the conclave reaches “fellatio”… the oral consensus on who the new pope will be.
Watch the video below, courtesy of Comedy Central:
Stephen Colbert Fires Back At North Korea With His Own Elaborate ‘We Are The World’ Dream Sequence
Stephen Colbert took it upon himself Thursday night to issue an semi-official American response to the terrifyingly ridiculous North Korean propaganda video that hit the web last month.
In the original version, a North Korean man falls asleep to the peaceful sounds of “We Are The Word,” karaoke-style. But soon the tone shifts, as missiles are seen raining down on what appears to be New York City.
Colbert couldn’t let Kim Jong-un get away with such an anti-American video without hurling something back in his direction. “We are not only in an arms race,” he said, “we are in a dreams race.” So Colbert laid his head down on his desk, started playing “We Are The World” and let his imagination wreak havoc on North Korea.
You’ll just have to watch the video below, via Comedy Central, to see Colbert’s dream in all its glory:
Morning Joe Blasts ‘Disorienting,’ ‘Insulting’ McCain/Graham Response To ‘Fearless’ Rand Paul
With the topic of drones currently holding on to the news cycle’s attention span, Morning Joe ended the week by revisiting the issue. The panel debated not only what Sen. Rand Paul‘s filibuster reveals about the Republican Party (spoiler: divisiveness), but also the drone program’s merits in general — which Harold Ford, Jr. staunchly defended.
Less a reflection of the GOP as a whole, Michael Steele argued that the whole ordeal has exposed the way some within in the party simply don’t see where this issue is headed. Paul “got the administration to admit something that it heretofore refused to admit to,” and Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham reacted in an “insulting” way.
“It was a little disorienting” to see them defend President Obama‘s policy, Willie Geist added. Paul “scrambles Republican politics,” Mark Halperin offered, pointing to a larger issue within the Senate: The younger senators are unafraid of going after the establishment.
Paul is “fearless,” he added, and willing to take a stand even if that means the likes of McCain and Graham. The drone issue “cuts to something very deep and core,” John Heilemann chimed in. “We’re seeing like really the first stages of a debate that’s going to go on for the next 20 to 30 years. It really does kind of redraw the battle lines in interesting ways.”
Geist further noted that Paul not only raised his own profile, but also managed to form a “strange coalition.” That’s the interesting part of this conversation, Leigh Gallagher argued, because it poses serious questions: “What are the standards?”
To that point, Ford defended the program in terms of using it against U.S. citizens abroad. “If you socialize, dine with, spend time with known terrorists who are on a list of those who want to do harm to America,” he asserted, “you put yourself at peril.”
Senator Ashley Judd? ‘In Ashley’s Mind, It Is Happening,’ Says Source
A source close to actress Ashley Judd told a reporter with a local Fox News outlet that Judd is serious about challenging Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in 2014. “At least in Ashley’s mind, it is happening,” said a source to Fox411’s Pop Tarts column.
“She has devoted herself to many important causes and stepped away from the Hollywood spotlight so this seems like the logical next step,” the unnamed source continued. “I don’t know if she will be successful, but her heart is in the right place.”
Judd has been making frequent trips to Washington D.C. to meet with prominent Democratic donors in advance of a possible campaign for U.S. Senate. The source says that Judd see’s McConnell’s low approval rating in his home state as a sign that he could be vulnerable when he comes up for reelection next year.
“Kentucky may be looking to send a message that they don’t feel fairly represented by Minority Leader McConnell,” the source added.
mediaite
Bill Clinton: It’s time to overturn DOMA
In 1996, I signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Although that was only 17 years ago, it was a very different time. In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction. Washington, as a result, was swirling with all manner of possible responses, some quite draconian. As a bipartisan group of former senators stated in their March 1 amicus brief to the Supreme Court, many supporters of the bill known as DOMA believed that its passage “would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more.” It was under these circumstances that DOMA came to my desk, opposed by only 81 of the 535 members of Congress.
On March 27, DOMA will come before the Supreme Court, and the justices must decide whether it is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional. As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution.
Because Section 3 of the act defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, same-sex couples who are legally married in nine states and the District of Columbia are denied the benefits of more than a thousand federal statutes and programs available to other married couples. Among other things, these couples cannot file their taxes jointly, take unpaid leave to care for a sick or injured spouse or receive equal family health and pension benefits as federal civilian employees. Yet they pay taxes, contribute to their communities and, like all couples, aspire to live in committed, loving relationships, recognized and respected by our laws.
When I signed the bill, I included a statement with the admonition that “enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.” Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.
Source: The Washington Post
Gabrielle Giffords gets Profile in Courage award
Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman from Arizona who was shot and wounded in a 2011 shooting, has been named this year’s recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, the JFK Library said.
Giffords, who has embarked on gun control efforts with her husband Mark Kelly despite the injury she suffered from the shooting, is being honored for her “political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence.”
“Gabby Giffords has inspired the world with her bravery and her dedication to making change through the political process,” said Caroline Kennedy, president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “Instead of retreating following the tragic shooting that ended her Congressional career, she has recommitted herself to fighting for a more peaceful society free from hate and violence. She is a true Profile in Courage.”
Source: CNN
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