What the hell happened to Ed Schultz?

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Speaking this week in a National Review podcast, hosted by Jamie Weinstein and published Friday, the TV host refused to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for his troubling human-rights record, instead declaring that Putin is “viewed as a progressive Democrat” by the Russian people. 

When confronted with his own past comments acknowledging Putin had a “nasty human rights record,” Schultz focused on the “tremendous friction” between the U.S. and Russia, and claimed that his previous remarks about Putin “might have been overboard.” 

“Does he have a nasty human rights record?” Weinstein pressed further. “I think the United States has a nasty human-rights record,” Schultz replied. 

“I do think that every super power on the globe has a very poor record on human rights.” 

While his former home MSNBC has hit ratings gold—due, in part, to its extensive coverage of the ongoing probe into Russian ties to the Trump campaign—the famously bombastic progressive Schultz has gone in the opposite direction since departing the network in 2015. 

As The New Republic noted in 2017, since joining Russia’s state-owned television network, Schultz has repeatedly praised Trump’s political acumen while downplaying accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Schultz also brushed off Russia's annexation of Crimea, and defended Vladimir Putin as working to improve Russia.

Yeah, apparently by robbing the country blind, and subjugating it's people.

True confession time, Ed Schultz was NEVER among my favorite MSNBC hosts.

In fact I typically skipped his show, and when I was invited to meet him when he came up here I said I couldn't cause I was washing my hair.

But still I thought that he had some integrity, with his whole defend the middle class shtick.

But now that looks like it was all bullshit.

Hey I understand having to make a living (I've done some shit to make money that we are not going to discuss here.), but to completely sell out like this is pathetic.

At least when Keith Olbermann left MSNBC he managed to maintain his ideological credibility. 

Russia threatens American media outlets because the Justice Department is forcing RT to register as a foreign agent.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Russian lawmakers vowed Friday to adopt legislation targeting American media outlets in response to the US Justice Department forcing RT, the English-language Russia television channel, to register as a foreign agent. 

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma, said Russian legislators will amend a law related to foreign agents to include foreign media. Volodin, a former Putin aide, said the Duma could adopt the new legislation as soon as next week, according to news reports. “Since such decisions are being made in the United States in relation to our television companies, it is right for us to respond to these actions,” Volodin said, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

The measure would initially target CNN, Voice of America, and Radio Liberty,” said Senator Alexei Pushkov, who chairs the upper house of parliament’s media policy committee. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, indicated the law could also target Moscow-based correspondents from newspapers including the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

RT, formerly Russia Today, said Thursday in a statement posted on its website that the DOJ threatened to freeze its bank accounts and arrest its top US executive if it fails to register by Monday under Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law that requires representatives of foreign governments to disclose information, such as employees’ contacts with government officials and political donations, in publicly available filings to the department.

Gee what is Russia going to do, start having their highly placed double agent start publicly referring to reporting by American news outlets as "fake news?" 

Oh, wait.

French President Emmanuel Macron attacks two Russian media outlets for spreading fake news while standing right next to Vladimir Putin.

🇫🇷 Avec #Poutine à ses côtés, #Macron qualifie d'organes de propagande @sputnik_fr et @RTenfrancais, médias financés par le Kremlin pic.twitter.com/6RiMDYjYU8

— B3infos (@B3infos) May 29, 2017

Check out Putin's body language.

Macron tears into Putin's sham propaganda machine, calling it what it is — while standing right next to Putin at a joint press conference https://t.co/X8FHASa9FN

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 29, 2017

Courtesy of the AP:

French President Emmanuel Macron has made an extraordinary attack on two Russian media outlets, saying they acted as “propaganda” organs during France’s election campaign. 

Speaking at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Macron accused the two outlets, Russia Today and Sputnik, of spreading fake news. 

He said that’s why he banned their reporters from his campaign headquarters during the race for the French presidency, which he went on to win May 7.

Damn! Look at the set of balls on Macron!

You know it is not often that I feel jealous of France, but damn do I feel jealous of France.

I would give almost anything to have a man with that kind of courage and integrity leading our country.

Oh wait, we just had that. 

(H/T to Democratic Underground.)

Sarah Palin joins Info Wars and Russian media in spreading debunked conspiracy theory in order to distract attention away from Trump scandals. Update!

Palin's ghostwritten blog is just one of the many Right Wing outlets for fake news that are working together to spread this story.

Info Wars, the Washington Examiner, Breitbart, and Fox News are also doing their part.

This was the front page of Fox News for most of the day.

 And so is Russia Today.

This is a story that was promoted by the Right Wing during the election which states that this young, a DNC staffer working on getting out the vote, was killed by a Clinton hit team because he had incriminating information that could derail her campaign.

The story further states that the FBI has the young man's laptop with proof of thousands of e-mails he sent to Wikileaks.

Interestingly enough this story was first reported to have been circulating within the Kremlin, before finding it's way to the Right Wing blogs and news sites in America.

Nothing suspicious about that, right?

For the record Snopes debunked this story way back in July of last year.

And Seth Rich's family also came out today to deny the story's validity.

Here's full statement from Seth Rich's family: pic.twitter.com/qX52cHHQL6

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 16, 2017

And just to top it off, this was what NBC News reported today:

Meanwhile, a current FBI official and a former one completely discount the Fox News claim that an FBI analysis of a computer belonging to Rich contained thousands of e-mails to and from WikiLeaks. 

Local police in Washington, D.C., never even gave the FBI Rich's laptop to analyze after his murder, according to the current FBI official. 

And a former law enforcement official with first-hand knowledge of Rich's laptop said the claim was incorrect. "It never contained any e-mails related to WikiLeaks, and the FBI never had it," the person said.

So this is who Sarah Palin is these days.

Just another Right Wing shit poster desperately trying to provide cover for a deeply flawed GOP president who is falling apart right before our eyes.

Believe it or not this is actually even several steps lower than I predicted she would fall oh those many years ago.

Update: Here is a report from CNN looking into the story and documenting how the whole thing fell apart under scrutiny.