Tea Party-Slandering MSNBCer Reid Steadfastly Refuses to Call Putin or Assad ‘Evil’

Appearing on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Monday, MSNBC host Joy Reid repeatedly refused to characterize either Russian president Vladimir Putin or Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as “evil.” During a contentious debate over Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, Hewitt asked his guest point-blank, “Do you agree that what Russia is doing is evil?” [Video embedded below the break.]

Reid hedged on her answer, replying:

I think what Russia is doing is troubling and is a problem in the world. I don’t really need to use characterizations like “evil.” I think Russia is a bad actor, absolutely.
 

Reid then tried to deflect attention to, of all people, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani: “I think Giuliani thinks that Putin’s a star. I think today he said he’s a great leader or something like that.” In fact, Giuliani said that Putin is more of a leader than President Obama, which is different than calling him a great leader or a “star.”

Reid wouldn’t say what she thought of Putin, so Hewitt pressed her: “[B]ut Joy Reid, it’s a simple question. Is he evil?” However, Reid still refused to make such a judgment. She replied, “I’m not inside anybody’s mind. I don’t need to characterize anybody as evil. I don’t know Vladimir Putin.”

Hewitt then asked if it would be an evil act for Russia to attack Ukrainian bases with women and children inside. Reid only said it would be a “world crisis.”

The conservative radio host then switched gears and asked the liberal MSNBC host if she thought Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was evil. With a chuckle, Reid replied, “Oh, well, you know. I’m not even – like I said, I’m not characterizing people.” She went on to call him “an even worse actor and an awful human being.”

Hewitt asked again if she thought Assad was evil, and Reid responded by answering a question that Hewitt didn’t ask: “Would I like to see Bashar al-Assad gone? Absolutely.” Hewitt asked one final time if Assad was evil, and Reid refused to label him as such one last time. She said, “I don’t see the point of characterizing people like that. I think he’s a bad actor. I think he is a despicable leader, a despicable human being.”

That is the world that too many liberals live in – a world of moral uncertainty, where there is no good or evil and no brutal dictator is anything more than a “bad actor.” By refusing to characterize Putin and Assad as “evil,” Reid is essentially equating them with conservatives, whom she has vehemently attacked over the years.

Last July, for example, Reid compared the Tea Party to terrorists when it came to budget negotiations:
 

To put it another way, when somebody is threatening to bomb the stadium, you don’t go out and make a speech about how you’re willing to dismantle the stadium in order to appease them.
 

In October, Reid likened Republicans to hostage-takers for shutting down the government. She railed, “So they are now essentially taking hostages. But this is beyond a hostage situation. They have shot a hostage. They went ahead and shut the government down.”

And in September, Reid claimed that anti-ObamaCare Republicans were basically asking people to kill themselves:
 

[H]erein lies the great irony about the conservative objection to Obamacare. What are they actually asking people to do? They’re actually asking you to essentially kill yourself, because if you get sick and you don’t have insurance, and you can’t be treated, you cannot survive a catastrophic illness.
 

She makes conservative Republicans sound like “bad actors,” which is how she characterized Putin and Assad. I guess to Reid, there is no difference between two repressive world leaders and the liberty-loving political party in this country.

Below is a transcript of the segment from The Hugh Hewitt Show:

HUGH HEWITT: Do you agree that what Russia is doing is evil?

JOY REID: I think what Russia is doing is troubling and is a problem in the world. I don’t really need to use characterizations like ‘evil.’ I think Russia is a bad actor, absolutely. I think it’s pretty clear who the bad actor here is. It’s Russia – who, by the way, a lot of the right – I think Giuliani thinks that Putin’s a star. I think today he said he’s a great leader or something like that. You have a lot of people on the right who’ve been quite, you know, keen on Vladimir Putin up until now. I think people have to now decide, do they still want to make him their hero because they hate Barack Obama so much when this is the way he’s acting? He’s old, Kremlin, Cold War Vlad. He’s doing what Vladimir Putin does, and now the rest of the world has to realize that this is not, you know, Vladimir Putin 2.0. This is Vladimir Putin 1.0.

HEWITT: But is he – but Joy Reid, it’s a simple question. Is he evil?

REID: That – you know what? I’m not inside anybody’s mind. I don’t need to characterize anybody as evil. I don’t know Vladimir Putin – I know what he’s doing is – it’s risky to his own country. I mean, it’s risky, obviously, to what the Ukrainians need in terms of security. I think he is a bad actor. I don’t need to call him evil, he’s a bad actor.

HEWITT: They’ve got a deadline in a couple of hours. They’re gonna open fire on these Ukrainian bases with women and children in it. Would that be an evil act that he’s authorizing?

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REID: Right, you have intel that I don’t know if the U.S. government has. I think that if Russia were to escalate militarily in Ukraine, it would be a crisis. It would definitely be a crisis, and it would be a world crisis. And it’s not – I think that one of the problems we have is that we have this binary system, right, where people on the right – it feels good to say, ‘this person is evil, let’s bomb them.’ That is not foreign policy. That is bluster that may make Americans feel good, but A) there is no military solution there. Americans are not sending our troops in there to deal with this. We are not doing that.

HEWITT: I didn’t suggest that. I just wanted to call him evil, ‘cause I –

REID: – couple times. I don’t think that’s necessary. We need to deal with it. We have to still deal with Russia.

HEWITT: Do you call anybody evil?

REID: – make it easier – yeah, but does that make it easier? It makes it easier for us to deal with Iran and Russia. We still have to deal with them on Syria. This is somebody that is there, that we’re not going to depose Vladimir Putin. We’ve got to deal with him.

HEWITT: Joy, is Assad evil?

REID: Bashar Assad?

HEWITT: Yeah.

REID: Oh, well, you know. [chuckles] I’m not even – like I said, I’m not characterizing people. Bashar al-Assad is an even worse, an even worse actor and an awful human being. That is a noxious, despicable regime. We’d be better off if he weren’t there. The people of Syria are trying their best to do something about it. Again, there’s no American military solution to be imposed there, either, and I doubt your listeners want us to go in there and try to impose that.

HEWITT: But is he evil?

REID: Would I like to see Bashar al-Assad gone? Absolutely.

HEWITT: Well, yeah, but I just want to know if you think he’s evil.

REID: I don’t – I don’t see the point of characterizing people like that. I think he’s a bad actor. I think he is a despicable leader, a despicable human being.

NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

Tea Party-Slandering MSNBCer Reid Steadfastly Refuses to Call Putin or Assad ‘Evil’

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Second Amendment Cases

Cases concern the right to carry concealed handguns outside the home

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
February 24, 2014

Three cases involving Second Amendment issues were turned away from the Supreme Court on Monday. The cases concerned the right of Americans to carry firearms outside their homes for self-defense.

The Court did not comment on petitions for certiorari for NRA v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, NRA v. McCraw and Lane v. Holder.

Constitution Daily reports the cases were considered on Friday in private conference.

A fourth case, however, may ultimately be considered by the Court and settle the matter. Drake v. Jerejian addresses gun control in New Jersey. The case argues that the Second Amendment permits a resident of the state to carry a firearm outside the home without providing justification to the state. A number of amici curiae briefs were filed with the Court on February 12.

The Court is set to respond by March 14, according to the SCOTUSBlog.

The Court has not ruled on the Second Amendment since 2010 when it issued a decision on McDonald v. City of Chicago. The case added to the 2008 Heller decision. Heller held in a 5-4 decision the Second Amendment applies to the District of Columbia and protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for self-defense. It struck down a DC law outlawing the possession of handguns in the home.

The decision follows a ruling issued last week by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned a prohibition on carrying concealed handguns. The Court ruled that carrying a handgun “outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense, though subject to traditional restrictions, constitutes ‘bear[ing] Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.”

Rulings on carrying firearms outside of the home have been mixed. The 7th Circuit concurred with the 9th Circuit that carrying a gun in public is covered under the Second Amendment. Other courts, however, including the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits, have issued less definitive opinions.

Earlier this month, the 9th Circuit struck down a California law restricting the carrying of a concealed weapon in the state. A majority ruled that restriction on carrying firearms in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco violate the Second Amendment.

This article was posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 at 10:48 am

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Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Second Amendment Cases

Seattle Cafe Refuses To Serve TSA Workers

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State of Connecticut Refuses to Release Adam Lanza’s Medical Records

Assistant Attorney General: Identifying antidepressants Lanza was taking could “cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 24, 2013

The State of Connecticut is refusing to release Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza’s medical records over fears that divulging the identity of the antidepressants he was taking would, “cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications,” according to Assistant Attorney General Patrick B. Kwanashie.

The comments were made during a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) hearing regarding the release of Lanza’s toxicology report.

The parents organization AbleChild.org is attempting to secure the release of the information after Connecticut Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver, M.D. denied the request.

“What plagues this investigation is that some are simply fixated on having it remain secret in spite of the urgency of transparency that is clearly needed to protect the public,” said Patricia Weathers, co-founder of AbleChild “It is alarming that here we are very close to a year later and the public still remains in the dark, records are still sealed, and the State is now saying that it is opposing a release of the records because those records “can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications.”

AbleChild has filed an appeal with the State’s Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) for the release of the records and is willing to take the matter to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“If there is nothing to hide then disclose, especially if this information has the potential for reevaluating the use of certain psychiatric drugs that evidence shows are contributing to the rapidly growing acts of violence in this country in recent years,” added Weathers. Our organization thinks that both the Medical Examiner’s office and State’s actions are unacceptable and reprehensible because in actuality they place the public at risk.”

Despite the fact that the search warrant pertaining to Lanza’s residence made reference to “prescriptions,” no information has been released on the identity of the medication Lanza was taking. It is known that Lanza suffered from Asperger syndrome, which is commonly treated with Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), psychotropic drugs that have been linked with violent outbursts.

Louise Tambascio, a family friend of the shooter and his mother, also told 60 Minutes, “I know he was on medication and everything….I knew he was on medication, but that’s all I know.”

Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members during the rampage last December in Newtown, which was the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in American history.

As we have repeatedly documented, psychiatric drugs have been a common theme in hundreds of murders and mass shootings over the last three decades.

The most recent example, Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis, was taking the anti-depressant drug Trazodone, which has been linked to numerous murders and a mass shooting at a beauty parlor in 2011.

Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, another SSRI drug linked with violent outbursts.

The SSRI Stories website has documented countless examples of school shootings, suicides, violent outbursts and murders linked to psychiatric drugs.

However, in the aftermath of such incidents, the mainstream media almost always fails to pursue any connection to antidepressants and instead obsesses about gun control, despite the fact that gun homicides have dropped by 49% since 1993.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 9:31 am

Tags: domestic news, pharmaceutical

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State of Connecticut Refuses to Release Adam Lanza’s Medical Records

Current Trustee In James Brown Estate Refuses Mandate to Serve With Other Trustees

At a May 29 status conference related to the controversial estate of music legend James Brown, Judge Doyet Early of Aiken vowed to rule the proceedings with a “firm hand.”

The first test of that firmness may be whether he appoints three trustees for the estate, as mandated by the will and trust documents of James Brown–or whether Judge Early allows current trustee Russell Bauknight to serve as sole trustee.

On Sept. 4 five applicants were interviewed by Judge Early for fiduciary positions with the estate. During the interview of Bauknight, a Columbia CPA, he announced he will refuse to serve if other fiduciaries are appointed.

In May the Supreme Court overturned a 2009 settlement deal by former Attorney General (AG) Henry McMaster, and the James Brown estate was remanded to Judge Early for further proceedings. In the Supreme Court opinion, Judge Early was directed to “appoint fiduciaries … in accordance with the provisions for succession outlined in Brown’s trust and estate documents.”

Brown’s estate documents require the appointment of three trustees to manage his music empire for the benefit of the “I Feel Good” Trust, an education charity for needy children in South Carolina and Georgia. Also to be funded by the music empire was a $ 2 million education trust for some of Brown’s grandchildren.

The McMaster deal gave away over half of Brown’s world-wide music empire to those Brown had excluded from inheriting it—and gave to the Attorney General the power of appointing trustees. Instead of the three trustees required by Brown’s estate documents, McMaster appointed only Bauknight, who served almost four years “at the pleasure” of McMaster and current AG Alan Wilson. On May 8 the Supreme Court voided Bauknight’s appointment but allowed him to re-apply.

During the Sept. 4 hearing in Columbia, Bauknight announced he would refuse to serve as a co-fiduciary. He said, “I’ve done a very good job with the team I’ve put together…for this estate and trust, it’s not appropriate to appoint other fiduciaries at this time.”

During his interview, Bauknight listed 27 things he had accomplished to improve the assets of the estate. He then said he would determine when the time was right to transition to three fiduciaries, and he would bring to the Court a plan for that transition.

In addition to Bauknight, Judge Early interviewed four other applicants for positions with the James Brown estate–one with a Newberry connection.

*Neal Dickert, Augusta attorney and former judge, practices law in both South Carolina and Georgia, the two states Brown intended to benefit from his charity. As both attorney and judge, Dickert has handled many will challenges. He said that based on his reading of the Supreme Court opinion, the estate needs action regarding the validity of the will, the issue of whether Brown was married, and the question of paternity. “If the Court thinks I can help, I’d be willing to do whatever I can to assist,” he said. Dickert has written for the Continuing Legal Education program in Georgia and is a member of the Georgia Academy of Mediators and Arbitrators. He is a native of Newberry, South Carolina.

*David Sojourner, Columbia attorney, was asked by Bauknight to become involved in the Brown estate after Bauknight’s attorneys advised him of a possible conflict of interest. Sojourner has agreed to accept a position with the estate under two conditions: his work would be limited to defending the estate plan, and his firm would be retained to do the legal work on that matter. “I have no interest in being a full trustee,” he said.

*William “Bill” Grooms, Columbia CPA, said his years of experience with the IRS and his expertise in taxation would be helpful to the estate. “I have a high opinion of Russell Bauknight and his skills. It would be my pleasure to work with Russell Bauknight.”

*Scott Keniley, Atlanta attorney, was elected to the Board of Governors for the Recording Academy (Grammy) and serves on its education committee. He has expertise in entertainment law and intellectual property, and he said he could help to protect the music assets—and to maximize their growth. He said, “I like the concept that this was left to education… it could be the greatest education bequest of all time.”

Judge Early said attorneys may file objections to any applicant within 10 days, and he will make a decision within 20 days. A sixth applicant, Rev. Larry Fryer of Augusta, Ga., will be interviewed Sept. 11.

The McMaster deal was appealed to the Supreme Court by former trustees, Adele Pope of Newberry and Robert Buchanan of Aiken. Since Bauknight’s appointment, he has aggressively advanced the interests of those who challenged Brown’s estate plan.

Bauknight sued the former trustees who appealed the McMaster settlement deal. He asked the Court not to lift gag orders on a document that could disprove the claim of Brown’s companion to be his wife. Also, he asked to intervene in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to prevent the release of public documents: the contingency fee contract under which former trustees were sued; the Legacy Trust as created by McMaster; and documents that set the at-death valuation of Brown’s estate at $ 4.7 million.

James Brown’s estate earned $ 10 million in 2011, the last year for which Bauknight filed an accounting, according to previous filings. All fiduciaries before Bauknight valued Brown’s music empire at between $ 80 and $ 100 million, and shortly before the McMaster deal was struck, a $ 100 million offer was made on the music assets.

In overturning the McMaster settlement, the Supreme Court returned the James Brown estate case to Judge Early for further proceedings. At the May 29 status conference, attended by over 50 attorneys and interested parties, Judge Early read excerpts from the Supreme Court decision, which described the McMaster settlement deal as a “dismemberment” of Brown’s estate plan.

Judge Early then vowed he would manage the proceedings with a “firm hand,” requiring high standards of proof for all claims and following the “roadmap” provided by the Supreme Court.

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Current Trustee In James Brown Estate Refuses Mandate to Serve With Other Trustees

McDonnell Refuses To Discuss Terms Of Loans From Donor

Eric Lach July 25, 2013, 12:01 PM

A private spokesperson for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) on Thursday refused to discuss the terms under which a Virginia businessman gave $ 120,000 in loans to the governor and his family.

Earlier this week, McDonnell announced he had repaid $ 124,115.17 to the businessman, Jonnie Williams, whose relationship with McDonnell is currently the subject of a federal investigation.

According to a press release McDonnell issued via his Twitter account on Tuesday, $ 52,278.17 had been repaid for a loan made to his wife, Maureen McDonnell, in 2011, and $ 71,837 had been repaid for two additional loans made in 2012 to a real estate business owned jointly by McDonnell and his sister. The press release indicated that the payments included “both principal and interest.” According to The Washington Post, the original loans from Williams totaled $ 50,000 and $ 70,000.

In response to questions from TPM, Rich Galen, a recently hired private spokesman for McDonnell, declined to provide any further information about how the interest on the loans had been calculated, and whether any written documents exist laying out the terms of the loans.

“I think we’ll stick with the statement as written,” the spokesperson, Rich Galen, wrote in an email.

In his statement on Tuesday, McDonnell apologized for the “embarrassment” the still-ongoing scrutiny of his relationship with Williams had brought to Virginia.

“I am deeply sorry for the embarrassment certain members of my family and I brought upon my beloved Virginia and her citizens,” McDonnell said in the statement. “I want you to know that I broke no laws and that I am committed to regaining your trust and confidence. I hope today’s action is another step toward that end.”

Bob McDonnell, Jonnie Williams

Eric Lach

Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website’s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl(at)talkingpointsmemo.com

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McDonnell Refuses To Discuss Terms Of Loans From Donor