Megyn Kelly's new show is already starting to bomb.

Why does everybody hate me?

Courtesy of Politico:  

Megyn Kelly’s new NBC hour following the “Today” show, in which the former Fox News star shuns political interviews for a softer, more lifestyle-driven focus, premiered on Monday to jeers from many critics. 

The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever was particularly cutting: “The debut was like watching a network try to assemble its own Bride of Frankenstein, using parts of Ellen DeGeneres, Kelly Ripa and whatever else it can find.”

CNN’s Brian Lowry allowed that, “It's absurdly early, of course, to draw any conclusions about the efficacy of the Kelly experiment.” Still, he continued, “After tepid marks for her prime time newsmagazine and now her addition to ‘Today,’ it's worth considering that NBC News brass leapt at the opportunity to snag a high-profile news star without having fully thought through how best to deploy her.” 

Jezebel also mocked the show, saying Kelly looked like “a HomeGoods catalog brought to life” and Newsweek was critical, as well.

This is how Time Magazine described Kelly's debut:

The host — a law school alum whose best-known skill has long been her prosecutorial zeal — served as her own defense attorney throughout the hour, pushing the case that she's not the person you remember from her years of political coverage. "The truth is, I'm kind of done with politics for now," Kelly said in a lengthy opening monologue that told her entire life story from childhood to TV stardom. "It's everywhere, everywhere, and I'm just like, it's over."

It's not just the sentiment that makes Kelly's case; it's the bearing. Kelly, a precise, crystalline wordsmith when in takedown mode, awkwardly sprinkled slang into her speech. She talked with her hands as though someone had said it was humanizing. When the cast of Today walked out with mimosas, Kelly declared, "O.M.G.!" A person who until as recently as last summer, during her Sunday-night newsmagazine show, sought to represent herself as deeply engaged in issues of the public interest now just thought it was over. Have a mimosa!

Can you say "disingenuous?"  Sure you can.

But done with politics or not, Kelly simply could not quite get that conservative stank off of her.

Courtesy of Yahoo News: 

The former FOX News correspondent welcomed the cast of "Will & Grace" onto her new morning show on Monday morning ahead of the hit NBC sitcom's revival, and a comment that she made while talking to a superfan of the show is garnering Kelly criticism on Twitter.

Kelly brought lawyer Russell Turner onto the stage to meet his idols saying, "Russell didn't know this was going to happen!" 

"Is it true that you became a lawyer -- and you became gay! -- because of Will?" she jokingly asked. 

After informing Turner that he would be getting tickets to a live "Will & Grace" taping and a behind-the-scenes tour of the set, Kelly turned to him and said her most head-turning statement of the morning. 

"I don't know about the lawyer thing, but I think the 'Will & Grace' thing and the gay thing is going to work out great," she said.

Well that "gay thing" may work out, but it very unlikely that this "new show thing" will.

How many attempts to repackage this Fox News turd does this make now?  

Ellen DeGeneres explains to Megyn Kelly, and her audience, why she would NEVER have Donald Trump on her show.

Courtesy of Truth Examiner:

Ellen DeGeneres spoke with Megyn Kelly today about her new morning talk show on NBC. During the interview, DeGeneres asked Kelly if she would have Donald Trump on her show. “Definitely,” Kelly said. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to the sitting president of the United States. Absolutely not. Would you?” Without missing a beat, DeGeneres swiftly said, “Yeah.” 

As the audience began cheering, Kelly seemed genuinely surprised by DeGeneres’s response. An awkward silence ensued until DeGeneres explained, “He is who he is. He has enough attention. He has his Twitter account and he has ways to get his message across. There’s nothing I’m going to say to him that’s gonna change him.”

I think that Kelly's response proves that once a Fox News bimbo, always a Fox News bimbo.

She spent years spewing Right Wing talking points and outright lying to her audience, while flashing her legs in short skirts to attract the mostly male demographic and cloud their primitive little lizard minds.

On the other hand Ellen DeGeneres is a host who actually grew an audience based on her intelligence, compassion, and talent.

Her explanation is a good reason for ALL talk shows, and cable news programs, to keep Donald Trump at arm's length.

By the way I would not watch Megyn Kelly's new show with a gun to my head. 

Hillary Clinton on the Ellen Show. "I would just feel this presence behind me, I thought whoa this is really weird!"

Hillary also addressed the notorious "grab their pu**y" tape and said that Trump seemed "wrought up" and filled with anger.

When Ellen pointed out that it seemed that the Trump campaign was "crumbling" Hillary made a point of telling the audience that she does not want anybody to think the election is over and that they need to "turn out and vote."

At the end of the segment Ellen showed this tape to Clinton and the audience. Just watch Hillary's reaction.

And they say she is cold and humorless.

And here I thought I could not like Jennifer Lawrence anymore than I already do.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

Fellow Hollywood star Johnny Depp was talking about playing Trump for comedy website Funny or Die when the show’s host, Norton, asked Lawrence if she’d ever met The Donald. 

“I was at a concert where I heard he was attending, so I had my full security team, like I was like, ‘Find Donald Trump,’” she said. “I was adamant on finding him and making a video of me going, ‘Hey, Trump, fuck you!’” 

Lawrence has, of course, spoken out against Trump before. 

“If Donald Trump becomes president, that will be the end of the world,” she said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in October.

JLaw as she is sometimes called gets a lot of hate on the internet, but I have always been a fan. 

By the way the show she is appearing on is called The Graham Norton Show and if it is not yet one of your guilty pleasures you are really missing out.

Michael Moore seems unimpressed with Donald Trump's tough guy act.

Today I went & stood in front of Trump Tower & held a sign until the police came. Then I went home & wrote Donald a...

Posted by Michael Moore on Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Well now, that's an interesting story.

Not that I ever bought that chest pounding from Donald Trump, or any of the GOP candidates for that matter, in the first place.

This probably comes a little too late for most of us today, but here is Stephen Colbert imploring us NOT to talk politics during Thanksgiving.

 Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“Please, please — can’t Thanksgiving be the one day of the year when we don’t try and see everything through the lens of politics?” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, there are some things we should see through the lens of politics — for instance, politicians. But (on Thanksgiving), let’s not talk about politics. In the spirit of the first Thanksgiving, hosts just share your food and try not to worry that your guests seem like they’re never going to leave.”

While I understand Colbert's sentiment here, I am afraid that I will not be able to take his advice.

After all this is the one of the few times my family and I will gather together before the 2016 election so of course they will spend much of the evening presenting conspiracy theories, and conservative talking points, that I will then bat down with my superior intellect and command of the facts.

It has become a family tradition that somebody will at some point start a conversation with "Look I know you're a liberal but did you know?" which will be followed by something incredibly ignorant that they saw on Facebook which makes perfect sense if you utilize no critical thinking skills whatsoever.

My job of course is to explain how incredibly stupid that is and what a waste of oxygen they are for believing it, which will then be followed by accusations that I suffer from a superiority complex and look down on everybody. To which I will respond, "Well I wouldn't look down on you if you were not such simple little morons," and then the next thing you know that will all get twisted around to make it seem that I am belittling them.

Which of course I am.

However before the fists start to fly, my mom will announce that dinner is ready, and ask me to please remove my hands from my brother's throat. (She always takes his side!)

I will then carve the turkey, we will fill our plates, and once we have eaten all will be forgiven.

After all simple little morons really cannot think and digest food at the same time.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends. (NONE of whom I believe are "simple little morons.")

Neil deGrasse Tyson gets his own science based talk show. I can almost hear conservatives changing the channel already.

Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter:  

The astrophysicist and TV personality, who fronted Cosmos in 2014, has nabbed a late-night series on National Geographic Channel called Star Talk. 

“Cosmos allowed us to share the awesome power of the universe with a global audience in ways that we never thought possible,” said Tyson. “To be able to continue to spread wonder and excitement through Star Talk, which is a true passion project for me, is beyond exciting. And National Geographic Channel is the perfect home as we continue to explore the universe.” 

"This is kind of low-risk, I think, for National Geographic," Tyson told the crowd at the Television Critics Association press tour. "Star Talk exists as a thriving podcast right now."

I have actually listened to a few Star Talk podcasts.  They are very interesting though they do tend to meander quite a bit.

I will assume they will tighten things up for the televised version, and that Dr. Tyson will have a few other guests besides Bill Nye and Seth MacFarlane.

Hopefully he will continue to call out the Republicans on their anti-science agenda however.

Nicolle Wallace on when she realized, that Sarah Palin realized, that she was over her head during the 2008 campaign.

Here are some quotes courtesy of TPM:  

"There was a moment shortly after I met her where I realized that she realized that she was in over her head," Wallace said. "Just watching her sort of shrink under the enormity and the scrutiny and the hot bright light of our national political process." 

"We should be happy when anyone wants to go into politics," the former GOP strategist continued. "We are really hard on our politicians and we should be happy when people want to jump in and do that." 

Williams asked whether Palin was a "crier." 

"No, I've seen George Bush more, cry more often than I've ever seen - no, no, she wasn't a crier," Wallace said. 

Williams then delved into Wallace's strained relationship with Palin. 

“I think she was really disappointed with the way she was being handled by the entire staff and I think I was a fair scapegoat,” Wallace said. “I was one of a very small circle of people helping her. And the decisions in hindsight weren’t good ones for her. I mean she didn’t look good. So it was fair to be mad at a staff person, that’s your job." 

"But there's nothing you can do as a staffer when you sort of lose the confidence of the principal and that's what happened through the course of the Couric interviews," Wallace continued.

That quote about not crying totally matches up with what I have been told about Palin.

Her go to emotion is anger, not sadness.

And Wallace is very magnanimous to suggest that it was fair for Palin to scapegoat her for Palin's own failings. That is another go to tactic of Palin's, to blame other people for her inadequacies.

I think this might be an opportunity to revisit exactly WHY Palin was so devastated by the loss in 2008.

I have heard from a number of people that she literally did not believe for a minute that she and John McCain were not going to emerge victorious. Therefore everything that was happening in Alaska, and the questions about Trig's parentage, and any scandals that might attach themselves to her or her family were going to be wiped away by the shear excitement resulting from the election of the first woman to the vice presidency.

One my new sources told me that Sarah "Does not think ahead. She simply does things and expects the details to work themselves out."

So with that in mind perhaps it is understandable WHY Palin was so upset that she was not being treated with great respect, and instead was being forced to answer the kinds of questions that as Governor she had always delegated to her subordinates to answer, and then being ridiculed for her ignorance.

Make no mistake, coming back to Alaska was a sign of failure. And she simply could not stand failing so publicly.

That is why scenes like the ones portrayed in Game Change happened. And why her appearance and mental health have continued to decline in the years since.

Essentially this brawl in Anchorage is just one more example of the public getting an up close and personal look at her failure. This time as a parent.

No wonder they are trying to hard so spin this in such a way as to make them appear to be the innocent victims.

I don't watch CNN that much anymore, but this segment of Anderson Cooper responding to a bunch of Texas female talk show hosts arguing about the Michael Sam kiss is pretty darn good.

Nicely done.

James Carville: "If it loses the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party as we know it today will be extinct."

Courtesy of the YouTube page:  

"Fast forward to January 2016," Carville said. "The most likely, though not the only scenario is Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee. Everybody's going to have a poll in the field showing how they fare against Hillary. They're not going to not nominate somebody because of Common Core [i.e., Jeb Bush]." 

"Trust me," Carville warned. "The party knows, and I use this word advisedly, that if it loses the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party as we know it today will be extinct." 

"We heard that in 2008, too," Laura Ingraham said. 

"This will be the sixth out of seven elections in which they've lost the popular vote," Carville replied. "The Republicans want to win this. That will be the biggest issue in January 2016: how can we beat Hillary Clinton?"

I am going to go on record and agree with this assessment.

I think the Republican party will still be able to win local elections, especially in red states, but even that could start to fall off if their national image is one of the always second place opposition party only.

I also think that if they lose in 2016 there will be a legitimate opening for a third party.

Not a Tea Party either, they are too enmeshed with the GOP, I think if a true competitive third party emerges it will have to place itself somewhere within the ideological chasm which separates the Democrats and the Republicans.

That's my opinion, anybody have a different one?

The Daily Show's Jason Jones DESTROYS a conservative talk show personality concerning the IRS "targeting" of Teabaggers.

Click image to play video

I have rarely seen anything quite so beautiful.

Jason Jones made this guy look like the douchebag that he is, and used his own words and intolerant behaviors to do it.

Sarah Palin shoots down offer for new talk show? Or is this just another lame attempt to get people to talk about her again?

"I'm ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille."

Courtesy of News Max:  

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been offered a major syndicated TV talk show by reality show producer Mark Burnett but turned down the deal, Newsmax has learned. 

One of country’s sought after speakers on the political circuit, Palin, Burnett believed, could be turned into the next Oprah. He offered to produce a daytime TV talk show hosted by the conservative icon herself. 

But so far, Palin has said no — though the deal is not completely dead, say insiders. 

The sticking points have been over location and money, people familiar with the deal say. Burnett has insisted that Palin do the show from either New York or Los Angeles, which would require her to move for a significant portion of the year from her residence in Alaska where she lives with husband Todd. 

Palin has a distaste for cultural elites in the Big Apple and LA, one person familiar with the discussions said. 

Another top Hollywood studio executive tells Newsmax that Palin was ultimately willing to move to either city, but “she passed over money.” 

“I don’t think she closed the door,” he added. 

Asked to comment about the offer, Palin told Newsmax via email: 

"Todd and I have always loved working with Mark Burnett, and our family is always up for adventure, so never say never." Burnett’s office declined to comment on the matter. 

The idea of Sarah Palin interviewing people in  talk show format is fairly humorous since the last time she attempted something similar at Fox it was such an embarrassing failure that it resulted in the airing of only one show.

As for the excuse that Palin does not want to move to out of Alaska, that is total mooseshit, because as we know she has already effectively moved to Arizona.

If this is in fact a real thing, and there is at this moment not much reason to believe that it is (News max? Really?), then the obstacles to it going forward would be about money and how much work Plain would have to do on the show.

Remember this is a woman who has spent her whole life trying to get the most amount of money for the least amount of work. So if anything is stopping her from signing on to this deal, it is certainly that and NOT due to the location of the production.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there are persistent sightings of Bristol and Melissa Rivers that keep cropping up. So that makes me think that Palin may have other irons in the fire and that THIS might be a red herring that is being used as a bargaining chip for ANOTHER deal she is negotiating someplace else.

Remember with the Palins NOTHING is ever as it seems.

Russell Brand tries to play nice with members of the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Church.

It kind of took me awhile to warm up to Russell Brand (I found his voice a little annoying) but after I saw him in the movies "Get Him to the Greek" and "Arthur" I really started to appreciate him more.

However after seeing how genuinely kind and patient he is with these two UNBELIEVABLE assholes I now feel badly that it took me so long to appreciate him.

Do me a favor and tell me how long it took before you wanted to jump into the video and tell these two douchebags off. (I would have ripped them a new one the minute they walked out with this horribly insulting sign.)

Okay since Sarah Palin insists on grabbing the spotlight whenever possible, perhaps she would like to allow this lady to shine a light on her again.

Courtesy of Inside TV:

Katie Couric’s infamous interview with Sarah Palin in 2008 may have left the ex-candidate smarting for some time, but that doesn’t mean the former network reporter doesn’t know a good newsmaker when she sees one: Couric told TV writers today in Los Angeles that she’s extended an invite to the ex-Alaskan governor to appear on her new talk show when it bows Sept. 10.

Oh please, please, please let this happen!

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, I would LOVE to see Couric interview the Grizzled Mama again! I seriously doubt if would have quite same impact as the last time, but it would a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  And boy do I know the perfect question for Katie to ask this lunatic! (In fact I've already e-mailed it to her.)

So what do you say Sarah, ready to show us that steel spine of yours?

Or are you just all talk?

Take away the liberal hosts of "The View," replace them with Teabaggers, knock off about 50 IQ points, and you have a show called "PolitiChick."

Okay let me start off by apologizing for posting this, as it may in fact be the DUMBEST fifteen minutes you will EVER spend. However I felt it was important for you to see just exactly what happens when somebody allows a group of homophobic, anti-Muslim, paint chip eaters to have their own program.

I have been burned by the stupid before, but THIS stupid burns like nothing I have ever experienced before.  THIS, by the way, is just an example of the kinds of geniuses currently pulling the strings of the Republican party.

No wonder this country is so FUBAR'd.

(H/T to the Huffington Post.)

Joe the Plumber has a talk show? WTF?

This looks like something put together by a bunch of middle kids. And no, not the bright middle school kids!

I don't know which part amazes me the most, that people expect this idiot to talk AND make sense, or that there are people willing to appear on camera with him.

Quick somebody check their Bible and let me know if this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, because I am pretty sure it must be.

Yesterday's "Moore up North".

part One



Part Two



Part Three



Part Four



Part Five



Very interesting show. Shannnyn has a real knack for providing a platform for people to have different points of view without it becoming an Alaskan version of the "Jerry Springer Show".

Wow!

Well it came as no surprise that Levi did not divulge anything new on the Joy Behar show.

But he did do a good job of standing by his statements, defending Bristol, and pointing out how often Sarah lies. Nicely done.

But the BIG story is that Andrew Sullivan got to put the ENTIRE wild ride story out on a cable news station!

Now I know that Behar does not have a huge following yet, which means it is up to us to talk about what he said and perhaps contact other shows so that they can cover it as well.

If we keep bringing this up over and over again, it should start getting harder and harder for the MSM to ignore it. At least that is my theory.

By the way it looks like Andrew DID get a little face time with Levi today.

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Joy Behar show on HLN tonight after Levi Johnston at 9 pm. Johnston, his aide, Tank Jones, and I had a fascinating chat in the green room. It was all off the record but I hope at some point to be able to interview Johnston on the record as a way to get some first-hand fact-checks on the Palin book and public statements.

Levi made a point to mention his book and it looks like nobody is going to get any serious dirt until it is published. Or about to be published.

P.S. I know that some of you are trying to leave comments and they are not appearing. Blogger is having some kind of fit today, and they are not getting to me so that I can approve them. I apologize for the inconvenience. If you need to contact me just e-mail me at Gryphen2009@yahoo.com. I will check that throughout the evening and hopefully Blogger will have things sorted out soon.

Don't forget to watch Levi Johnston and Andrew Sullivan on Joy Behar tonight.

I don't think they are on together, but it must make Sarah's heart beat like a trip hammer at the very idea that they might strike up a conversation.

Here is a preview of Levi from tonight's show.

Saturday's Moore up North, December 5, 2009.

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Part Three



Part Four



Part Five



Part Six