'Morning Joe' Warns of Wars, Economic 'Opportunity' Created by Coming

Imagine this - a view of the floor of Chicago Mercantile Exchange at some forthcoming time, but instead of soybeans, pork bellies, corn and wheat, traders are exchanging water and/or water futures. That seemed to be the vision of Steven Solomon, author of "Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization," who appeared on MSNBC's Jan. 5 "Morning Joe." According to Solomon,…

Flight 253: AP Ignores Own Christmas Dispatch to Pretend Obama's Jan

In a report time-stamped January 2, the Associated Press's Philip Elliott relayed what was supposedly important news: Obama cites apparent al-Qaida link in bomb plot An al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen apparently ordered the Christmas Day plot against a U.S. airliner, training and arming the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused in the failed bombing, President Barack Obama said Saturday. You don't say?…

Flight 253: Media Ignoring Two-Day Gap Between Preliminary AQ Linkage

UPDATE, Jan. 1, 2010: This post at BizzyBlog shows that the there was recognition of likely Al Qaeda involvement in two separate press reports based on sources in a position to know on Christmas evening. Thus, the administration's delay in acknowledging that reality was actually three full days.In their initial December 26 report ("Passengers’ Quick Action Halted Attack") on the attempted…

Ed Runs Head-first Into History Without A Helmet

Rumblin', bumblin', stumblin' . . . Trying to blame someone—anyone—other than his man Barack Obama for the security meltdown surrounding NWA 253, Ed Schultz ran head-first into history without a helmet tonight.  Seeking to shift some of the onus onto England for not having alerted us about having denied young Umar entry into its country, Ed entertainingly claimed that the UK has probably been "…

Buchanan Wishes 'Merry Christmas' To Journo With 'Deep-seated Contempt

Quite the culture war on Morning Joe today . . . The combatants were Pat Buchanan and Spencer Ackerman of the lefty Washington Independent. The topic was the treatment of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.  Buchanan wanted the budding terrorist classified as an enemy combatant in order to extract the maximum amount of information from him. Ackerman, in ACLU mode, favored having young Umar tried in…

CNN's Sanchez: 'The Terrorists Weren't in Iraq. We Know That Now

On CNN Newsroom today, anchor Rick Sanchez talked about terrorism with Octavia Nasr, CNN senior editor for Arab Affairs:SANCHEZ: And good, good, good, good, good, good. You see, this is a point that I'm trying to make, Octavia.The terrorists weren't in Iraq. We know that now. There was really a small band of them along with the mujahedeen which became al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as we know. But we…

NWA: NBC Plays D For O

Flight 253: AP Scrubs 'M-Word,' Potential Relevance of 'Nigerian Talib

It has been interesting watching the Associated Press reports on the attempted takedown of Flight 253 devolve in the past 12-plus hours. In its 8:56 a.m. report (likely dynamic and subject to change), it looks like the assemblage of AP writers who worked on the story have succeeded in: As Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters noted earlier this morning in the case of the New York Times, ridding the…

Not News: Obama EO Removes Restrictions on INTERPOL

Here are some examples of Executive Orders issued by President Obama that have received New York Times or Associated Press coverage: NYT, October 29 -- "Obama Order Strengthens Spy Oversight" (the browser window title is "Obama Moves to Roll Back Bush Changes to Intelligence Oversight Board"). NYT, October 2 -- "Obama Prohibits Federal Employees From Texting While Driving for Work." NYT,…

O-bow-ma Finds Someone To Bow To In Copenhagen

Check out the video.  After his brief, listless and cliché-ridden speech in Copenhagen ["time for action, not words," "we should live in the future, not the past"] that aired live on Morning Joe today, Pres. Obama makes the hand-shaking rounds on the podium.He continues the glad-handing off the podium, until he spots someone and breaks into . . . a bow [screen cap after the jump].  With all the…

CBS: ‘Anti-Muslim Propaganda’ To Blame for U.S. Homegrown Terroris

On the CBS Evening News on Saturday, correspondent Kimberly Dozier reported on a recent rise in homegrown Islamic extremism in the United States and explored the motivation behind it: “... terrorism experts agree militant Islam is becoming an American problem....the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make potent recruiting tools. They’re portrayed by the militants as America’s war on Islam.” Dozier…

CBS: Obama West Point Speech ‘Contradictory;’ Health Care Bill

In an unusually tough interview with President Obama on Sunday’s 60 Minutes on CBS, correspondent Steve Kroft described the President’s West Point speech as being “greeted with a great deal of confusion” and that “some people thought it was contradictory.” He later said of the health care bill: “some people think is incomprehensible....I’ve not met anybody who’s read it.”Kroft began the interview…

Al Gore's Current TV Rips Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

Following in comedian Jon Stewart's footsteps, Al Gore's Current TV mocked President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Friday.In a "SuperNews" segment, animator Josh Faure-Brac showed Nobel Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland getting uncomfortable with the idea of giving the President a peace prize while he's sending 30,000 more troops to war.Frustrated by the exchange, Obama turned the tables on Jagland…

Jack Cafferty All But Endorses Global One-Child Policy to Fight Climat

CNN’s Jack Cafferty all but endorsed a global version of China’s oppressive one-child policy on Friday’s Situation Room. He repeated the argument of Canadian journalist Diane Francis, that population control is the only way to fight global warming, and mentioned the opposition of “fundamentalist leaders” and others only in passing. All but one of the viewer e-mails that Cafferty read endorsed the…