Mika B. needs an "intervention."

You should watch this MJ segment from today.  Earlier she ripped up Michael Steele a former RNC head and a housling at NBC/MSNBC over his audacity as an uppity housling for having the audacity to defend Trump.  This violates a prime directive 0f Mikanation which enjoins that African-Americans cannot be abused on TV, or anywhere.

In the tape below she moves on to Michael Wolff, clearly a tribal urbanite, who has had the audacity to write an article stating the obvious truth that the US is dividing into two nations along 1850s lines, but with different boundaries, perhaps metro/vs other.  He points to the evident unknownness and inscrutability of the people at Cleveland attending the GOP convention to such as he and Mika.  He then says we are dividing, perhaps, irrevocably.  Mika then throws a fit abusing him for daring to imagine that Trump people are other than ignorant and misinformed.  Clearly she is sure that only her side is possessed of virtue.

IMO MSNBC should give her a rest, somewhere, anywhere.  She should take Joe with her.  Willy Geist would do an admirable job of running the show until they retune someday ...  pl

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/2016-duck-dynasty-vs-lena-dunham-election-738063427840

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wolff_(journalist)

Comments

[rjj]

maybe it's her job to be an uptown version of Nancy Grace.

[David Habakkuk]

All,

Clearly Mika and her like (what do you expect of a Brzezinski? to add a cheap jibe) have not tried to learn anything from the Brexit vote.

What Michael Woolff has clearly grasped is that if people of one ‘tribe’ cannot try and understand another, and reach out and find some common ground, you may end up back in 1861. One can understand a great deal, if one puts some work into it.

But Mika doesn’t get it – any more than her father ‘gets it’ about Ukraine.

In Britain we are not out of the woods, but we have been bloody lucky.

Whatever her flaws, Teresa May has the great advantage of – genuinely – having a foot in both camps, and not sharing the contempt members of each side are too prone to have for each other.

[Fred]

Col.,

"...stating the obvious truth that the US is dividing into two nations along 1850s ..."

Professor Robertson (the CW historian) at VT stated the same in item you linked too a few years ago. It is looking more and more like that to me every day. The establishment must be in a real state of panic over actual polling levels given the mis-informaton be put out by the MSM.

[Liza]

Col. Lang:

I think that Mika is acting according to the directive of her corporate bosses. The owners and principal stockholders of the mainstream media are staunchly opposed to Trump. I believe that their objective is to brand him as a dangerous hand on the nuclear button, reminiscent of Johnson's campaign against Goldwater. Note the similarity between "the daisy commercial" and the recent allegations that Trump asked why he couldn't use nuclear weapons.

The reason for this biased press coverage is critically important. The world has entered the most serious financial crisis since the great depression. The question is whether an epic banking collapse can be delayed until after the election. The answer to that question will determine who is elected to the presidency.

Deutsche Bank is the epicenter of this crisis. Deutsche Bank holds more than $70 trillion in derivative contracts, more than five times the GDP of Germany. Deutsche Bank's earnings last quarter fell by 98 percent from the second quarter last year. The threat to Deutsche Bank is rapidly intensifying. The European banking system is now in meltdown. The Italian banking system is completely bankrupt Deutsche Bank has meager capital and will not be able to cover its derivative contracts.

If Deutsche Bank falls, it will take the US banking system with it. The "too big to fail" banks hold more than $250 trillion in derivative exposure. Trillions in derivative contracts insure the value of the Euro. And if the Euro suddenly collapses, major US banks collapse as well.

A looming threat to Hillary Clinton: Italy holds elections in October. A crisis may erupt if the Five Star movement wins and takes Italy off the Euro currency. The Euro would plummet dramatically, fueling an international banking crisis.

The other threat comes from China. If China significantly depreciates their currency, US products will become even more uncompetitive and the earnings of American corporations may plummet further. American corporations have issued approximately $6 trillion in bonds since the Lehman crisis, and have spent more than $4 trillion to buy back shares of their own stock. More drastic losses in earnings may produce widespread corporate bankruptcy and massive unemployment.

Here's what is especially troubling: the most dire threat to the United States intensified two days ago. Chinese banks issued bonds denominated in IMF special drawing rights (SDRs). Chinese leaders want to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency with SDRs. This would be catastrophic for the United States: our debt is approaching $20 trillion, and that does not include the exorbitant funding needed for social security. We simply cannot afford to pay a cent in interest, as the Federal Reserve has discovered. This has been the real cause of tension between the United States and China and Russia. In fairness to the Chinese and Russian leadership, this strategy may not be a hostile act towards the United States. I believe that they recognize that the current system is unsustainable, and that a new system must be established.

It's tragic that this rapidly escalating crisis isn't being addressed by our political leadership or by the MSM. Trump clearly understands the magnitude of the crisis. He recently said that if interested rates were raised to three or four percent , "we won't have a country." And he's absolutely correct. But it falls to the media to educate the American public, and their corporate ownership profits from the largesse of the Federal Reserve.

This mounting crisis could be more effectively contained if the American public were educated and informed. America could easily reduce our skyrocketing debt. American corporations pay little taxes, and the United States spends far more than the rest of the world on health and defense. We can't avoid the crash, but we could burn off enough fuel to lessen the impact.

This is an update on the European crisis:

https://mishtalk.com/2016/08/02/european-banking-system-on-verge-of-collapse-market-votes-no-confidence-in-italian-bank-rescue/

[tim s]

Funny thing about Mika and her kind are that they fully expect that the Trump People will be fighting any wars that Hillary and her kind initiate. The audacity to say that Trump will be impeached 2 weeks after taking office....

[bth]

Both parties are leaving moderate Americans underrepresented and unguarded. There is no 'triangulation' this time around. I believe a socially liberal fiscally conservative centrist third party is going to emerge in this country in the next election cycle if the two national parties cannot get their act together.

[Jack]

Sir

The media and the duopoly establishment backed by all the big money are doing everything in their power to push the meme that Trump is unfit for the presidency.

As they noted in that segment you linked to they are quite willing to subvert democracy if the people don't vote the way they want. And we have all of them attacking Trump as the fascist. This is not lost on those who see this total hypocrisy of the SJW money grubbers. IMO, they see the rigged system and the potential to rig the coming general election.

Michael Wolff is correct. We have two nations. The coastal and urban financial, political and media elite have only contempt for the other nation. At least Wolff is honest that he and his nation don't understand the other one. This flyover nation has been under attack for sometime. Their jobs have been shipped overseas and their sensibilities have been assaulted by the prevailing elite cultural PCness.

Now, if the elites are successful in thwarting Trump in November through both overt and covert means and flyover country recognize with no shadow of doubt that the system is permanently rigged against them and then they see the Borg Queen intensify the attacks on them by signing further trade deals, increased financialization and more immigrants and more SJW privileges, they will get to the point when they completely reject the current system. This nation then becomes susceptible to demagogues who will attempt to rally this nation with the message the current system is incorrigible. It needs to be overthrown and violence is acceptable as a means. The flyover nation is not going away. The question is who gets to speak to them and for them.

[robt willmann]

I think that this is the article by Michael Wolff in the Hollywood Reporter that is mentioned in the Morning Joe interview--

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/michael-wolff-hillarys-delusion-trumps-916733

And this is the same video segment at another spot--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8QHzLfXIw

The most telling thing in the whole interview was Michael Wolff saying that he did not know who the Trump supporters are; that he does not know those people. Given the apparent time he has spent in New York City and Los Angeles, I can understand his ignorance of most of the people in the U.S.A., but still, someone who at least went to college and has read a lot and traveled some, and who is not blind and deaf, could have recognized and thought about the many other types of people here.

Maybe I should offer to take Mr. Wolff on a guided tour of Texas, during which he will go to a little restaurant in a small Texas town where ranchers who have more money in the bank than most New Yorkers go to eat in their work clothes after driving up in their pickup trucks that have actually been used to work; and go to the coast out to the harbor at 4:00 a.m. when the shrimp and oyster boats (in season) head out to the bay and Gulf to gather what Mr. Wolff might enjoy eating; and then travel north outside Texas to the heartland to what used to be factory towns where he can see people who used to work productively and enjoy life who now have no comparable jobs after "leveraged buyouts" and "corporate takeovers" (often orchestrated by folks in New York City), and after shops were closed so they could be sent to Mexico or overseas, or replaced by "independent contractors" overseas.

Mr. Wolff's knowledge will increase. Quickly and exponentially.

[michael brenner]

That may spare the Tories a bloody civil war, but it will not spare Britain the deleterious consequences of its mindless act. A review of her record as Home Secretary suggests that she would be more comfortable as a Trump adviser than a healer of the UK's many divides.

[michael brenner]

Which nation od the Wall Street barons belong to?

[michael brenner]

For the past 35 years, it's been the MSM's standard practice to pick favorites and to pick "unfavorites." They all fall into line. During the Bush years, there almost never was a critic of his foreign policy allowed on the air or on the op-ed pages. In the Reagan years, Democrats were relegated to second-class political citizens right across the board. This time, the emphasis is on the "unfavorite" - a role for which Trump is central casting perfect, in part because very few people like HRC. It's the old American "cowboys vs Indians" mentality - which for a couple of decades in the era of modern communications was set aside by grown-ups with a sense of concern about the integrity of the public realm. Who in the MSM these days give a damn about the integrity of the public realm when the bottom line dictates that entertainment value rules everything?

[charly]

Why is a collapse of the Euro a) likely and b) bad

First Europe doesn't have a big current account deficit with the rest-of-the-world nor big outside debts so collapse doesn't make sense.
European trade is overwhelmingly inside the EU so exchange rates don't matter that much but the outside trade would love a depreciation

[Matthew]

I hope they book Professor Stephen F. Cohen on Morning Joe. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen

Just watching Professor Cohen stare down that factous crowd with his weary, disbelieving eyes would be priceless.

For those of you who have not seen Professor Cohen in action, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4StqO_HulQo

[Sam Peralta]

Looks like the Buffet/Hillary rally in Omaha was a super hit with locals who couldn't get there in enough numbers.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/media-exaggerates-size-crowd-hillary-rally

How many were campaign operatives?

[Babak Makkinejad]

The $ 70 trillion in Germany and $ 250 trillion in US are also consistent with figures that I published 8 years ago here.

However, both EU and US can print more money to cover these assets - in effect, put them on ice.

I think banks in Spain and Portugal are also bankrupt; technically.

[David Lentini]

I've come to wonder if the debt really isn't a feature rather than a bug. The rigging of the markets, the self-serving (literally) QE ad infinitum, and the imperviousness of the stock markets to gravity, all suggest to me something very sinister. By engineering the bailouts and printing presses, and enlisting the academics and press, the tiny fraction of the globe who possess so much power have enabled the continuation of their campaign to create a single global market, culture, and religion. They won't let anything stop them.

By ginning up the markets without let up, the banks and corporations continue to buy-off politicians and anyone else they need to fit their globalist ends. Fixing the banking problems would only put these people on the streets and more likely in the jails. So, no, this won't end without a fight.

I expect they'll engineer a Clinton win. Then they won't have to care any more about the economy; they full-blown corpratoctracy will be installed. They will then engineer both the "collapse" and the "recovery" on their terms, which will likely mean impoverishing everyone else through bail-ins and taxation to finally "fix" the problem. Once so impoverished, we'll all be share croppers (to quote Warren Buffet) and forced to do what our overlords tells us (or starve or get arrested).

The model is the 2007 collapse. The failure to reorganize the banks and jail the perpetrators of that disaster only gave them still more power over the public and political institutions. We can only guess what will happen next time.

[Tyler]

Bth,

If you got out of the dorm youd know "fiscal conservative socially liberal" is a ridiculous pipe dream much like communism.

[Jack]

Liza

Until psychology changes what would have been considered nuts not too long ago is now considered as the new new thing. After all our best & brightest say so.

As this Zerohedge post notes, the SNB now has $62 billion of US stocks on its balance sheet that it purchased with liabilities that it created out of thin air. So, what is the "market" price of those stocks? Will the SNB make offers for your corner grocery store? Why don't they and other central banks just buy all businesses on the planet at 100x their enterprise value? Since, there apparently is no limit to the size of their balance sheet and since they claim despite evidence to the contrary that these feats of alchemy are super awesome for the economy.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-04/mystery-buyer-revealed-swiss-national-banks-us-stock-holdings-rose-50-first-half-rec

[Trent]

Why?

[Fred]

Michael,

The Davos nation.

[Fred]

robt,

I don't think that was Mr. Wolf's point. His article was quite clear:
Point 1: (conventions) "...t heir real importance is not to people on the floor, but to television viewers and — for the first time with great significance — social media consumers. .... to force the message through the media filter and make it part of the public perception, ..."
Point 2: (media establishment) "... And, of course, cable news experts — hundreds, it seemed — are there to make politics seem rational and to take speakers at their word...."
Point 3: "The historic departure here is in arguing legitimacy over policies."
Point 4: (career politicians "confusion" here's my state's former governor): "Some people are angry, I get that," said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, but, more clearly, she was wholly bewildered, and not getting at all — along with the entire lineup of Democratic speakers — whatever it is that's bothering Trump voters .
Point 5: (wink, wink guess who's "normal") "If this was horrifying to what was increasingly judged as normal America, including Democrats and Republicans alike, it was as likely galvanizing to abnormal America, this confounding population of Trump voters." By this definition "abnormal" America, according to the MSM polls, is about 40% of America. Which leads to
Point 6: "Every time the good people and the established people... and the women and the LGBT people ... and any other diversity subgroups shuddered and crossed themselves ..., Trump seemed likely to cement another vote."
Point 7: ".... The New York Times, joining the rest of respectable media in quite a daily drum beat against Trump."
Point 8 " if the Democrats, ,,,, overplay their Lena Dunham hand ... not realizing how distasteful the Lena Dunham world is to possibly more than half of America. Trump's message is clear: The other side's virtue always is at the expense of the interests of Trump voters. The other side's advantage exists because the system is rigged ..." (Rigged was Bernie's point).

I think he laid out the situation pretty well. Hilary is bound to win in 100 days, which is just what everyone said about Napoleon until he went to Belgium.

[michael brenner]

Isn't this exactly where the Obama presidency placed itself? Do you realize that on most domestic issues, including civil liberties and the environment, he's been to the right of Richard Nixon?

[Jack]

Well done Fred.

A point that the media elite may not fully get is that the "abnormal" people may get their information from alternative sources.

[Lemur]

Here's a couple of interesting blog post from 2009-10 written from a centre left perspective:

https://pavelpodolyak.blogspot.co.nz/2010/01/american-identity-crisis.html

https://pavelpodolyak.blogspot.co.nz/2009/10/cuba-historic-microcosm-of-most-new.html

I disagree with some of it but his basic point - that a unifying concept for the American state is under ever increasing pressure - holds up.

At the end of the first article, he points out contradictions in the American narrative are becoming apparent. This is useful to read with Beetham's model of legitimacy in mind: a governmental system is legitimate when "observable features of the system...show congruence between shared beliefs and public justifications" (Xavier Marquez summation of Beetham). In short, many Americans don't share the beliefs necessary to sustain the ideographical appeals of the establishment, and whatsmore different groups of 'Americans' respond to fundamentally different ideographical appeals.

[charly]

$62 billion sounds like a lot of money to a mere mortal but seen from the Nation of America it is almost peanuts