All Episodes Discussion: 2017 Season

[jjj]

I was trying to see if someone had put little dots or numbers on the notes she was supposed to hit.  I am thinking no one did that, given how it went! 

[ScoobieDoobs]

Right on, Rach, for keeping a watchful eye on Jared.  Man, what a dumbass.  First the Marlins shit & now this stuff with him whining to a Time Warner exec on their supposed "unfair" coverage of Trump.  He didn't know about the Time Warner merger with AT&T being reviewed by the Justice Dept. & the FCC?  Really?  It's this kinda stuff, where his inexperience & ineptness becomes all too obvious.

Great tweet from Ana Navarro in response to this yesterday-

 

Edited February 18, 2017 by ScoobieDoobs

[navelgazer]

Where did Rachel's uber-boring open about her fascination with professional wrestling and the death of the Animal today actually go?  How did she bring it around to Linda McMahon?  

I'm sorry, but it was Friday and I was too skint with everything that happened this week to have the patience to watch Rachel slog through one of her fact here, fact over there, fact back there, here's how it all matters bullshit opens.  

[jjj]

The opening eventually arrived at Melania Trump's lawyer and the Daily Mail extortion lawsuit that claims she is losing over a hundred million dollars of this one-time opportunity to make money from her brand (because they claimed she has worked as an escort, then retracted that claim). 

But how we got from the wrestlers of Rachel's childhood to that was too convoluted for me to follow!  Also, just not interesting. 

35 minutes ago, navelgazer said:

Where did Rachel's uber-boring open about her fascination with professional wrestling and the death of the Animal today actually go?  How did she bring it around to Linda McMahon?  

I'm sorry, but it was Friday and I was too skint with everything that happened this week to have the patience to watch Rachel slog through one of her fact here, fact over there, fact back there, here's how it all matters bullshit opens.  

[kassygreene]

It led to Hulk Hogan's sex tape lawsuit against Gawker, paid for by Peter Thiel, who is now an adviser to 45, and who, in Rachel's words, "gifted" the lawyer who destroyed Gawker to Mrs. 45, who is now suing the Daily Mail for $150 million, and who just got the case transferred from Maryland to NYC.

It was overall about how billionaires can destroy media companies that they don't like.

7 hours ago, jjj said:

The opening eventually arrived at Melania Trump's lawyer and the Daily Mail extortion lawsuit that claims she is losing over a hundred million dollars of this one-time opportunity to make money from her brand (because they claimed she has worked as an escort, then retracted that claim). 

But how we got from the wrestlers of Rachel's childhood to that was too convoluted for me to follow!  Also, just not interesting. 

Is this an age thing?  I used to watch wrestling on weekends (early 70s) because the alternatives were college sports, really bad and brutally chopped up movies, or religious programming (did you know that you used to be lucky to have the three major networks, PBS, and maybe an independent station - and the signal strength depended on how you augmented the built-in antenna?).  In fact, a couple of the local wrestlers lived in my area - I used to see them in check-out at the store where I worked - very nice guys.  

And apparently my great-granny for reasons none of us ever understood, luvvved wrestling.  My aunt used to take her to the local studio where they filmed it.  She was born in Texas in the mid 1880s.  'Nuf said.

"Pro" wrestling used to be really entertaining, before it became vicious and mean.

[attica]

I had to google the Daily Mail while the report was ongoing, since I was thinking they are a Rupert Murdoch paper and Melania suing the Holy Father seemed, erm, contraindicated. But googling tells me I'm wrong; it's held by another conservative multinational. So all's clear to bring them down. Rupert will be pleased. (Not that $150 million will disappear them -- no Gawker, they.)

[Sesquipedalia]

Rachel's guest sort of knocked down her idea of the Hulk Hogan case as a precedent we should read a lot into. I wonder if people who undermine such a painstakingly set up intro ever get asked back on the show.

I went to the Here to Stay web site, and as far as I can tell, the only thing you can do from there is sign a petition. I wanted to pledge to physically show up to support immigrants, but I don't see anything about that.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Sesquipedalia

[Hanahope]

I thought there'd be something about why the wrestlers all died so young.  It seemed a convoluted way to get to the Hulk Hogan lawsuit.  It is scary that those with money may decide what media we can read. 

[attica]

The Animal would never get work today. No waxing, no wrestling. 

[Totale]

23 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I thought there'd be something about why the wrestlers all died so young.  It seemed a convoluted way to get to the Hulk Hogan lawsuit.  It is scary that those with money may decide what media we can read. 

I was surprised Rach didn't note that Gawker lost the case while telling the truth.  No one ever disputed that everything Gawker said was true and everything they published (if that term still counts in cyberworld) was authentic.  That's different from libel or slander, and a scary precedent if you want to publish truth that the powerful/rich are uncomfortable hearing.

[Hanahope]

So was it invasion of privacy?

[attica]

Aww, the toss to LO'D was adorable! If it's wrong to want to see Lawrence dancing the Jennifer Grey part and Rachel as Swayze, I do not want to be right.

Bless the anonymous SC town haller who corrected Sanford's grammar. You are an American hero.

Edited February 21, 2017 by attica

[AmandaPanda]

Please be sure to read the first post on page 1 for guidelines of this thread. 

[ScoobieDoobs]

Rach was pretty gleeful in describing all that wretched Russian oligarch's stuff -- and then calling it his junk.  That was a hoot.  Also liked her calling the greedy shithead's book "Art of the Deal".

[Quilt Fairy]

5 hours ago, attica said:

Aww, the toss to LO'D was adorable! If it's wrong to want to see Lawrence dancing the Jennifer Grey part and Rachel as Swayze, I do not want to be right.

"That was supposed to be OUR secret!"

[M. Darcy]

Quote

Also liked her calling the greedy shithead's book "Art of the Deal".

I laughed out loud at that also - along with that crew person. 

[attica]

I admit I got a little giddy at the clip of Sally Yates being applauded for living. A friend of mine who monitors this kind of thing assures me that nearly immediately after she was fired, there arose on the internet Sally Yates Fan Fic. Which is kind of both terrifying and well-deserved. (Of the couple of scenarios he described, my favorite was Sally receiving a knock on her door, post-firing. She opens it to Barack Obama, who is wearing an eye patch. "Sally, I'd like to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative...")

My current theory about the Firtash thing: lower-level DoJ peeps, uncertain about 1) the outcome of today's hearing; 2) whether they'd get to proceed with prosecuting Putin's pal even if they did win extradition, encouraged the Spaniards to make their own arrest at the convenient courthouse locale. It all feels very spooky, in the Smiley sense of the word.

[Mrs Huffnagle]

An update on Firtash (Anyone else need a giant flow chart to keep all this stuff straight?)

Firtash extradition

[Hanahope]

Hah, I loved the crew members laugh at Rachel's snarky comment about "Art of the Deal".  And her snarking on Trump's inability to say General Ordierno's name, omygodo, ohboyo, howdoyousayitoh.   And showing that congressman's saying that we will get "insurance that impowers us".  Yeah?  How's that work?  Insurance empowers insurance executives, not the customers, we have no power, ever.  Will the insurance really let us choose our doctors and pay what we can pay?

[M. Darcy]

I think I have a new hero - that guy who quit his job at the CIA. 

[lovinbob]

On 2/18/2017 at 8:02 AM, attica said:

I had to google the Daily Mail while the report was ongoing, since I was thinking they are a Rupert Murdoch paper and Melania suing the Holy Father seemed, erm, contraindicated. But googling tells me I'm wrong; it's held by another conservative multinational. So all's clear to bring them down. Rupert will be pleased. (Not that $150 million will disappear them -- no Gawker, they.)

No, but Trump fan and Apprentice winner Piers Morgan is the Editor, is he not? So I am left wondering how this will go over. (Of course Piers claims not to be a Trump fan, but anyone who defends Trump so persistently has to be somewhat of a supporter.)

Glad I wasn't the only one who had trouble following the George the Animal Steele intro. Rache and I are the same age and I also was a big wrestling fan, so I understand the temptation to go this route, but it was very convoluted. 

[Hanahope]

Good report by Rachael about how the next election begins already.  I appreciate that the Dems are trying to find viable districts to run candidates.  I wish they'd try in every district.  With the passions high, as they said, efforts should be made everywhere.   I know that my district fits the dem's criteria, so I'm hoping for a good dem candidate, especially since my congressman is a coward doing only telephone town halls.

Really respect the people who quit their lifetime jobs because they couldn't work with this administration.

[car54]

Well Pruitt's emails came out and confirmed exactly what Rachel was expecting a few days ago, so I hope she has time to do an update tonight--there seems to have been a LOT of stories to cover.

http://theslot.jezebel.com/emails-confirm-that-epa-head-scott-pruitt-is-indeed-an-1792650586

[attica]

I'm pretty addicted to town hall coverage these days. Somehow Rachel always manages to showcase some minor detail other outlets overlook. Like tonight, the dude in the headless chicken suit and the women with the giant banner of Adele lyrics. So, so great.

[izabella]

Rachel's coverage of the town halls gives me life.  All of these fools in Congress who are avoiding their constituents will find it harder and harder to vote the party line every time, and if they don't, their constituents are putting them on notice - ignore us at your peril come next election.  I guess it's too much to ask that these Congressional fools actually be concerned about what is best for the people they represent rather than the corporate greed they always support with their legislative policies. 

My favorite thing she showed (besides the guy in the chicken suit!) was the governor of Montana amidst the crowd in Montana pointing out the people he knows personally in the crowd with him, and some of the teachers he had in school.  So much for the GOP's lies that these protesters are paid shills bussed in from somewhere else just to make Congress and the administration looks bad.  No paid protesters - just people who care very much about not selling off public lands, about clear air and clean water.

I also thought the mail-in voting kerfuffle was interesting.  Amazing that the GOP leader, after the GOP bill to have mail-in voting to fill the vacant seat, suddenly was like, "hold your horses, this would be bad, very bad because it might actually increase the number of people voting" which the Republicans should never, ever allow!  Danger!  We don't want people to actually vote if they might vote for a Democrat! Way to make it obvious that you prefer voter suppression, dude.  It will be interesting to see which way Montana goes with that.

Edited February 23, 2017 by izabella

[teddysmom]

Did anyone watch the special with Rachel & BriWi about "A Month of Trump" or whatever it was, at 10 pm?  My dvr cut off before they talked about her teeshirt. 

I love glasses & rocker tee wearing Rachel. 

Was that a 2 hour program? Maybe they'll rerun it this weekend. 

[ahisma]

Quote

My favorite thing she showed (besides the guy in the chicken suit!) was the governor of Montana amidst the crowd in Montana pointing out the people he knows personally in the crowd with him, and some of the teachers he had in school. 

Yes! Watching him in action made me understand why Montana voted D for their governor. He was fired up.

[attica]

1 hour ago, izabella said:

I also thought the mail-in voting kerfuffle was interesting.  Amazing that the GOP leader, after the GOP bill to have mail-in voting to fill the vacant seat, suddenly was like, "hold your horses, this would be bad, very bad because it might actually increase the number of people voting" which the Republicans should never, ever allow!  Danger!  We don't want people to actually vote if they might vote for a Democrat! Way to make it obvious that you prefer voter suppression, dude.  It will be interesting to see which way Montana goes with that.

This has precedent, of course. NJ Gov. Chris Christie famously ginned up an extra election so his reelection bid would not coincide with having Cory Booker on the ballot (to fill Sen. Lautenberg's seat, who died in office). NJ typically held those elections at the next regularly scheduled election day, but CC didn't want all the Yay, Cory! people coming to the polls on the day when he would otherwise get the lion's share of voters. So he stuck the taxpayers with that extra tab for an election only two weeks before the November vote. He pretended it was 'for the good of the people', so, there's that.

[ScoobieDoobs]

I am digging how Rach is covering all the townhalls.  And I liked her coverage of Montana.  If not for her, I would not have known about this at all.

But her coverage of the trans story was really lacking.  Hope she focuses on that because it is a big story.  Really surprised she mentioned nothing about Milo, when it's one of the biggest political topics of the week.

I'm really glad she keeps hammering at Dems to focus in on that race for Tom Price's seat.  She's right.  It's vitally important.

[teddysmom]

Quote

But her coverage of the trans story was really lacking.  Hope she focuses on that because it is a big story.  Really surprised she mentioned nothing about Milo, when it's one of the biggest political topics of the week.

I wondered if she just didn't want to give him any more press, he doesn't deserve to have anyone mention his name. 

[Quilt Fairy]

5 minutes ago, teddysmom said:

I wondered if she just didn't want to give him any more press, he doesn't deserve to have anyone mention his name. 

I'm happier that she pick and choose her topics and it's stuff we don't see anywhere else (although bits of the town hall debacles are pretty much everywhere).  I hate it when Chris Hayes, Rachel, and LO'D all cover the same thing with pretty much the same perspective.

[suomi]

6 hours ago, teddysmom said:

Did anyone watch the special with Rachel & BriWi about "A Month of Trump" or whatever it was, at 10 pm?  My dvr cut off before they talked about her teeshirt. 

I love glasses & rocker tee wearing Rachel. 

Was that a 2 hour program? Maybe they'll rerun it this weekend. 

Her tee was from a 2010 heavy metal headliners tour titled American Carnage.

Edited February 23, 2017 by suomi

[Hanahope]

Yes, the town hall coverage is fantastic. I really hope there's more than Clinton voters there and that trump voters are really having regrets. 

loved the Montana story.  Great spotlight on the Republican effort to suppress the vote.  

[ScoobieDoobs]

Wow, great end-off on that slimeball piece of shit Pruitt, Rach!  Don't let up, hun.  Get him, get him, get him!

[teddysmom]

Quote

Her tee was from a 2010 heavy metal headliners tour titled American Carnage.

I love it! I remember she did a piece on that after the inauguration. 

Gotta find that teeshirt. 

Thanks!! 

[Hanahope]

GWB changes the rules, trump just ignores them and does whatever he wants.  /sigh  

We can only hope that Pruitt falls.

[jjj]

Wow, the Friday show is a stream of actual news about the Congress/White House interference into the investigations of the election, Trump, and Russia. 

And the recording of the call-in "town hall", with the image of the 1985 cordless phone in its dusty  base, was hilarious. 

Michael Beschloss referring back to Nixon's desperation to hide the tapes of his conversations makes me think that Trump is starting to look like a cornered wild animal who also is desperate to hide some truths, and I hope everyone remembers how dangerous are desperate cornered animals that have nothing to lose and everything to lose.

Edited February 25, 2017 by jjj

[stormy]

Just the first half hour tonight practically gave me whiplash. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Discuss the show's episodes. Posts NOT about episodes of the show will be removed. Repeat offenders may be warned, suspended, and/or banned.

[Hanahope]

I loved Rachel's connection of 45 to the Russians/Putin through the Deutsche bank money laundering scandal, the Cypress bank and the owners thereof, including the billionaire Russian who "hid" assets by buying a vacant mansion from trump for $100 million (nice $60 million profit) and finally to Wilbur Ross the new commerce secretary.  It really goes to show the groundwork for corruption in 45's administration.  I wonder if any of this came out during Ross' confirmation hearing, Rachel didn't say, so I guess not.

And good to hear that the dossier on 45's connections with the Russians and the blackmail potential is bearing fruit.

I hope Remnick is right that a lot of buyer's remorse of 45 voters comes true.

Great to hear that dems have been winning most of the recent local elections.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Hanahope

[stormy]

Stephanie Miller and Charlie Pearce talked about Rachel's great reporting this morning. Stephanie is a big Rachel  fan.

Edited March 1, 2017 by stormy

[Quilt Fairy]

Rachel has aired so many stories about various Trump administration/Putin connections. Now they're doing a 2 hour special on it and they give her the night off? That's ridiculous.

[nowandlater]

I skipped the Trump State of the Union, and because of the positive coverage of it on Twitter, I skipped MSNBC entirely Tuesday night.

I was going to skip Rachel tonight. I missed the 6 pm (PT) show.

 

And then I saw it was 8:57. And decided to stick around -- especially since there was those 2 breaking news stories that Rachel loves so much -- and lo and behold we get another 2-hour special.  (Last week, there was one on Trump's first month, if I recall.)

What's going on?

[M. Darcy]

Quote

Rachel has aired so many stories about various Trump administration/Putin connections. Now they're doing a 2 hour special on it and they give her the night off? That's ridiculous.

It is strange but Rachel did tweet late last night "so, uh, I was off air tonight for a family thing.  anything happen in the news?"

[meowmommy]

I read this in the comments section of an article about DWT and I thought it just so perfectly captured my frustration with the way Rachel's (and Chris's and LOD's) show is structured:

Quote

Don’t tell yourself, “I like Rachel Maddow so I’ll just watch her show!” Don’t do it. It’s bad for you. Think of all the times she teases some dumb story over and over just to convince you to sit there while 4 minutes of commercials play, and then she comes back and teases the same shocking story and then tells you she’ll have that story right after this — cue 4 more minutes of commercials — and then the story really isn’t that important but you’re ready to punch somebody over it, even though what you can’t realize is that what you’re really mad about is being tricked into watching all those ads.

It's like listening to 55 minutes of sizzle because you expect steak, and instead, you get five minutes of warmed over hash.  Also, while I find her opening remarks usually well researched and accurate, sometimes the progression she uses to get from her historical reference to her main point is tortuous to the point of exhaustion.

YMMV, of course.

[nowandlater]

21 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

I read this in the comments section of an article about DWT and I thought it just so perfectly captured my frustration with the way Rachel's (and Chris's and LOD's) show is structured:

It's like listening to 55 minutes of sizzle because you expect steak, and instead, you get five minutes of warmed over hash.  Also, while I find her opening remarks usually well researched and accurate, sometimes the progression she uses to get from her historical reference to her main point is tortuous to the point of exhaustion.

YMMV, of course.

 

Oh, man. I feel exactly the same way. But I didn't realize it until I saw that. Yes, I'm frustrated by the constant teases. I watch the show live (or the 9 pm PT rerun). So I sit through the constant commercials. But I've also found myself lately just not processing/ignoring the long 22-minute intro where it goes from something historic and ties it to something recent. I mean, it's a great format. But I hate that she's become so reliant on it.

[Sharpie66]

I think it was The Simpsons (or maybe Family Guy?) that mocked that very trait of her show years ago, so it's been A Thing for a long time

Edited March 3, 2017 by Sharpie66

[ahisma]

I catch the show via the podcast. There are no commercials at all; it's wonderful! Makes the whole teaser thing hardly noticeable because it's news, teaser, more news, teaser again, more news, news that was teased—all content. It does means the show is my morning news instead of my bedtime news. The one drawback is that they don't do the whole show on video podcast anymore, just part—usually the A block, but another section if there was something particularly important later in the show. The entire show is available on audio podcast, but I do miss out if she's showing a graph or photo or video. 

I love the history lesson 95% of the time, either making me remember something I had forgotten or teaching me something I didn't know. Sometimes it's just an amusing way to kick off something tangentially related and sometimes it is either a direct "history repeats" or an actual leadup to the current story. There are times it is a torturous reach or a shaggy dog, but not so often that it puts me off. 

[Medicine Crow]

I record & whirr thru commercials, so there's that ....

[Hanahope]

I generally watch the next day while at work , or mostly I listen.  I'm going to start doing podcasts so I can listen during my commute.  Too bad they don't have for Chris or Lawrence.