Morning Joe's Friday Recap Show!

I thought it was Friday 18 times yesterday but happy Friday. Happy Friday to you! Good morning everyone!

Joining us for today's show, we have: Sam Stein, Donny Deutsch, Jeremy Peters, Sasha Havlicek, Ed Morrissey, Eugene Robinson, David Von Drehle, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Kasie Hunt, Chuck Todd, Peter Neumann, Sen. John Barrasso, Tony Blinken, Rep. Martha McSally, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Kelly O’Donnell, Sallie Krawcheck, Laura Brown and more
I saw a great movie last night. ‘The Hornets Nest.’ That was some serious footage of us being in Afghanistan.

Regardless, CPAC started yesterday. Scott Walker spoke. Chris Christy did a Q&A. I think Sarah (Palin) spoke. And, there is crowd fixing being worked out for Jeb’s (Bush) speech which I assume is happening today.



In other news. It looks like the shut down of our DHS, may be postponed for three (3) weeks. I heard (John) Boehner was pushing it till next week. Three weeks is hilarious but anyway, there is no way they can figure out in that span of time if the immigration bill set up by the POTUS is constitutional or not, and funding the DHS for three weeks will pay one round of pay checks. Good for Congress. They can reconcile these differences in the next three weeks. I cannot believe they can’t fund this department for a year and in typical ‘what comes first the chicken or the egg’ hypocrisy at its best, (John) Boehner says that the POTUS’ admin is holding something hostage because of the DHS bill when it’s the GOP hiolding that hostage because of the immigration issue. I guess if you believe it, its not a lie (from Sienfeld) and he (John) uses that odd line again about candys and Nuts and christmas before blowing some reporter a kiss. That guyy is an idiot. How the heel we elected him to the seat is just stupid. The last thing he cares about is us. He is running the worst congress in American History. They do no work. He makes jokes about it. He says the same line over and over in press meetings. He is such an asshole. And, he lies all of the time. He says the Dem’s do exactly what they are doing and he thinks we do not see through it. Again, I think if he says it enough times, he maybe start to believe it. Nothing he does makes any sense to me. Nothing he ever does makes any sense. He is such an odd guy. Even the panel is clueless about that press conference with (John) Boehner yesterday.

With less than two days to go before a Homeland Security Department shutdown, John Boehner isn't blinking. "We passed a bill to fund the department six weeks ago. Six weeks ago!" the House speaker said during a press conference Thursday. "It's time for the Senate to act. How many times do I have to say it?" Boehner doesn't appear to be going along with his Republican counterparts in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is looking to avert a shutdown by offering Democrats a clean funding bill for DHS. The speaker would not say whether he would back a Senate funding bill without provisions that would defund President Obama's executive actions on immigration. At one point, Boehner blew kisses at reporters after they asked whether he would. Again, Boehner also broke out one of his classic lines, which he used during the October 2013 government shutdown: "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas." McConnell had attempted to push through a House-passed funding bill four times, but Senate Democrats blocked it each time because of the immigration language. "Yesterday, the White House press secretary said that this was a fight amongst Republicans. It is not a fight amongst Republicans," Boehner said on Thursday. "All Republicans agree that we want to fund the Department of Homeland Security and we want to stop the president's actions in response to immigration."

McConnell and Boehner spoke with each other on Wednesday for the first time in two weeks. Boehner now has two options: amend the Senate legislation to include immigration language and send it back, or bring a vote to the floor in hopes of avoiding a shutdown. On Thursday, when asked whether he feels that his speakership is being challenged, Boehner said: "No, heaven's sakes, no. Not at all." Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has been making the rounds on the Hill this week, urging lawmakers to keep his department open. Funding for DHS expires at midnight Friday, and the department has begun notifying the employees that would face furloughs during a shutdown.

Oh yeah. Donald Trump is also speaking today. I am already sick of that CPAC.

We are discussing ‘Jihadi John’s identity and BTW, Since Monday, much has been said in printradio, and television about Graeme Wood’s recent front-page feature piece for The Atlantic entitled “What ISIS Really Wants.” The article, which is lengthy and highly descriptive, is essentially an exhaustive examination of the ideology that shores up the cruel vision, messages, and tactics of ISIS, the radical militant group currently terrorizing entire sections of the Middle East. But while the article was initially met with widespread praise, it has since become the subject of criticism and even condemnation from several groups, including Muslim academicsscholars of Islamic lawMuslim leaders and high-profile political pundits. Critics have elucidated a slew of issues with the piece, but many are rooted in quotes by Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University who Wood quotes extensively to justify his claims. When ThinkProgress spoke with other scholars in Haykel’s field, however, at least one expressed surprise at his involvement with the piece, and indicated curiosity about the scholar’s thoughts on the final product.

With this in mind, ThinkProgress reached out to Haykel, who agreed to an interview to help dispel any misconception that he is trying to score “political” points, explaining, “my approach is a scholarly one and not motivated by an agenda.” He admitted that he had initially read Wood’s article quickly — “it’s a long piece,” he joked — and declined to directly address most of Wood’s claims other than to insist the piece was ultimately “[Wood’s] argument … not my argument.” Still, he didn’t shy away from expanding on some things the author left out or possibly misrepresented, and offered a revealing examination of what’s at stake when fighting ISIS.  ISIS is ahistorical, revisionist, but not inevitable. One of the oft-mentioned criticisms of The Atlantic piece is that it echoed the inaccurate belief that since ISIS’s theology draws upon Islamic texts to justify its horrendous practices, it is an inevitable product of Islam. Haykel didn’t say whether or not he thought Wood’s article says as much, but when ThinkProgress asked him directly whether Islamic texts and theology necessitate the creation of groups like ISIS, he was unequivocal.
“No,” he said. “I think that ISIS is a product of very contingent, contextual, historical factors. There is nothing predetermined in Islam that would lead to ISIS.” “I consider people … who have criticized ISIS to be fully within the Islamic tradition, and in no way ‘less Muslim’ than ISIS,” he said. “I mean, that’s absurd.” Haykel’s position also helped explain several problematic constructions and omissions in Wood’s article. At one point, for instance, Wood quotes Haykel as saying, “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid.” The journalist then adds the following conclusion: “That really would be an act of apostasy.”
I think that ISIS is a product of very contingent, contextual, historical factors. There is nothing predetermined in Islam that would lead to ISIS. The implication, according to many who read the piece, is that ISIS’s theology is founded in Islamic texts that cannot be debated. Haykel, however, clarified that while he saw ISIS as rooted in authentic Islamic texts, those texts are not above interpretation, and it is only ISIS and related groups — not Islam as a whole — who would consider such challenges apostasy.
“If Muslims start criticizing these texts that ISIS is using, saying that they are no longer relevant or no longer applicable, ISIS would declare them apostate,” Haykel said. “If you start telling ISIS that following a tradition of the prophet has been abrogated, has been superseded by some other tradition or some other verse, or that it’s no longer valid, or that it applies only to the seventh century but not today because we’re modern, you will be declared an apostate on the spot by ISIS.” The issue, Haykel says, lies in ISIS’s “ahistorical” theology, which justifies their horrific actions by essentially pretending that the last several centuries of Islamic history never happened. “This is something I did point out to [Wood] but he didn’t bring out in the piece: ISIS’s representation of Islam is ahistorical,” Haykel said. “It’s saying we have to go back to the seventh century. It’s denying the legal complexity of the [Islamic] legal tradition over a thousand years.” To illustrate his point, Haykel referenced Mohammad Fadel, the Associate Professor and Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law at the University of Toronto, who criticized Wood’s piece in a recent interview with ThinkProgress. “Mohammad Fadel, for instance, would say when you talk about Islamic law, you have to talk about a tradition that is many centuries old and is extremely sophisticated, that has a multiplicity of views and opinions and is not cut and dry the way ISIS presents Islam, in an ahistorical fashion, and in a completely monolithic way,” Haykel said. “So ISIS’s view of Islam is … unhistorical. They’re revising history.”

Is ISIS Islamic? Haykel expanded on some of his comments from Wood’s piece, but he also fervently stood by others, especially his belief that ISIS is, in fact, an Islamic group. Wood’s article includes the following paragraph citing Haykel as he expressed frustration with people — including President Barack Obama — who disavow ISIS as “unIslamic”:

But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”

Haykel told ThinkProgress that he still supported these claims, although he explained he was specifically referring to two groups of people who declare ISIS unIslamic: Muslims he says are “just ignorant” of Islam’s legal and political history, and Christians who engage in what he called “the Christian tradition of interfaith dialogue” and declare Islam a “religion of peace.” Haykel singled out CNN talk show host Fareed Zakaria as an example of the former, who recently said that ISIS’s public execution of a Jordanian pilot by burning him to death — which at least one prominent Muslim cleric in the Middle East also decried as “away from humanity, much less religions” — is “entirely haram,” or forbidden in Islam. “That’s actually factually wrong — the burning apostates is in the [Islamic] legal code,” Haykel said. (Zakaria, for his part, also took a swipe at Haykel in a Washington Post Op-Ed on Friday, saying the following of the scholar’s rejection of those who decry ISIS as unIslamic: “Haykel feels that it is what the 0.0019 percent of Muslims do that defines the religion. Who is being political, I wonder?”)
There’s no such thing as a religion of peace. Still, Haykel said his frustration with people of faith who try to disavow religious extremists is not limited to Islam. “[They] present Islam as ‘Oh, Islam is a religion of peace,’” Haykel said. “Well, what does that mean? I mean, Christianity is sometimes a religion of peace, and sometimes a religion of war, depending on what time we’re talking about. There’s no such thing as a religion of peace.” “Islam doesn’t have a monopoly on violence, neither does Christianity. There are people who do things in the name of a religion and who really believe that they are doing God’s bidding. I think the Crusaders, when they were killing Jews and Muslims, really thought that this is what God wanted of them. Just like ISIS, today, when it does the killing of Shiites and Sunnis they consider to be apostates, really feel that they’re doing God’s bidding. They’re genuine believers.” Haykel readily acknowledged that there are numerous Islamic texts “that advocate a more kind of pacifist, less violent, and, in fact, an even tolerant and open-minded [religion that is] accepting of, let’s say, non-Muslims.” But he concluded that the texts ISIS pulls from still exist within the Islamic tradition, thus making them Islamic. “ISIS draws inspiration from Islamic traditions and Islamic texts — a very particular reading of that tradition and those texts — and it should be described and labeled as an extremist Islamic movement, or an Islamist [political] movement,” he said.
ThinkProgress challenged Haykel’s assertion that people who declare ISIS unIslamic are unschooled in Islam, pointing to a lengthy letter signed by over 120 prominent Muslim leaders and scholars that refers to the Islamic State only in quotation marks and repeatedly rebukes their beliefs as “forbidden in Islam.” Several of the signers have openly declared ISIS unIslamic, and Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam — the highest official of religious law among Sunni Muslims in Egypt, the most populous state in the Middle East — told CNN in February that “everything ISIS does is far away from Islam. What it is doing is a crime by all means.” Dar al-Ifta, the premiere school of Islamic law and thought that Allam oversees, has also launched a campaign asking journalists not to call ISIS the “Islamic State,” preferring instead “al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria,” or QSIS, which intentionally removes the word “Islamic” from the title. Despite this, Haykel insisted that this is actually a qualified critique by the scholars, not a wholesale rejection of ISIS as unIslamic. The difference, he contends, is in their approach.
ISIS is constantly saying that Fadel and others are not Muslim, because they don’t agree with them. Sunnis don’t normally do that. “[The people who signed the letter] are not actually in the quote that I was mentioning,” Haykel said. “The [Islamic] jurists … of the world are not saying that ISIS is unIslamic, but that they have a perverted interpretation of Islam. But [ISIS is] rooted in Islam, and they are Muslim, and they are just either Muslims in grave error or they are Muslims who have strayed into heresy. People who actually know the tradition and who are engaging with this group from within the tradition are not in any way singled out in that quotation. It’s only people who say that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam — it’s unIslamic.” Again, it’s debatable as to what exactly these scholars were doing in their letter, but Haykel noted an important religious nuance that frames his view: while there are theoretical issues for insisting on the “Islamic” nature of ISIS, which claims to be a subset of Sunni Islam, the reason many Sunnis resist calling the group unIslamic may be theological.
“Some Muslims are reticent to engage in a hereticization of ISIS because they feel that in doing so they would be doing what ISIS is doing,” he said. “ISIS is in a very strange and unique position among Sunnis in its kind of very deliberate and rapid and wanton use of hereticization of other Muslims. In other words, ISIS is constantly saying that Fadel and others are not Muslim, because they don’t agree with them. Sunnis don’t normally do that. Historically they don’t do that … You try to say that they’re errant Muslims, … that they’ve strayed from the straight path. Not to put them outside the veil of the religion.”

It’s about more than religion. Clearly, there are spiritual barriers to combating ISIS with religion. Their uniquely twisted theology draws on Islamic texts, but their revisionist approach ostracizes them from the broader Muslim community. But Haykel said the difficulty in shutting down ISIS, religiously speaking, isn’t limited to theological hurdles, but largely stems from something else he says Wood declined to quote him on: the current geopolitical situation facing the world’s Sunni Muslims. ISIS is a bad group and [Sunnis] don’t agree with it, but there are also other bad groups that are just as bad if not worse — at least in terms of [number of people] killed.

“The Sunni Muslim community, under normal circumstances … [historically] had mechanisms for silencing or eliminating extremists who would emerge from among them,” Haykel said. “[But] Sunni Muslims feel really beleaguered today … It’s very hard for Sunnis to say, today, ‘Let’s go and fight ISIS militarily,’ when you also have, let’s say, the Assad regime killing hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims, or Iran and its forces in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon also attacking Sunnis at the same time. In a world where a lot of people are attacking Sunnis, it’s hard for Sunnis to say ‘ISIS is the only bad group.’” “In other words, ISIS is a bad group and [Sunnis] don’t agree with it, but there are also other bad groups that are just as bad if not worse — at least in terms of [number of people] killed.”
Haykel said this sense of being under siege, when combined with several economic realities, is primarily why “a small sample of people” find ISIS’s ideology attractive. To the few who are able to get past ISIS’s obsessions with violence, their black-flag-waving conquests offer a sense of purpose — and, frankly, employment — amidst an otherwise frustrating existence. “The reason ISIS emerged clearly has to do with the chaos in Iraq, the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis of Iraq (which is the result of the American invasion-occupation), and the chaos in Syria (which is a regime that has also disenfranchised Sunni Muslims),” he said. “We have two big Arab countries, side-by-side, both in chaos, both with large Sunni populations that are disenfranchised … With a lot of young men who have no prospects for employment and feel marginalized. And who then identify their sense of humiliation and marginalization with the larger Muslim world, which they claim is also being marginalized and being humiliated.”
“Let’s say you were an Iraqi, and you’ve had your entire family wiped out by the Shia government of Baghdad. Or you’ve seen your sister raped, or your brother tortured. Then you feel like you have nothing to lose, and the only way to respond to this is to resort to violence. And ISIS provides a ready-made ideology and package and movement to express that sense of rage.” I see ISIS as a symptom of a much deeper structural set of problems in the Sunni Arab world. Clearly, this powder keg of issues is difficult if not impossible to defuse with theology. Yes, understanding ISIS’s religious motivations — which is undoubtedly the most illuminating offering of Wood’s article — is important if for no other reason than to understand how the group sees itself and its actions. There is a possibility of engaging them religiously, for instance, and Wood himself suggests that ISIS may have an ideological alternative in the “quietest” Salafi movement, or Muslims who share some similar theological views to ISIS but prefer to recuse themselves from politics. But Haykel was skeptical about whether even this group could have any real impact on the psyche of self-righteous ISIS recruits.
“There are bits of the argument where [Wood] says that other types of Salafis, the quietists, could be an alternative to the jihadists,” Haykel said. “You know…Maybe, maybe. Perhaps.” Haykel also expressed doubt that the issue of ISIS could be fixed with guns alone. Haykel told ThinkProgress he was opposed to American military intervention in the region, particularly the use of ground troops, which he believes would likely backfire. Instead, he argued the world needs a broader, longer-term plan to address the multiplicity of issues that fuel extremism in the region, where bad religion is just one among dozens of daunting concerns facing millions of impoverished Muslims. “I see ISIS as a symptom of a much deeper structural set of problems in the Sunni Arab world,” he said. “[It has] to do with politics. With education, and the lack thereof. With authoritarianism. With foreign intervention. With the curse of oil … I think that even if ISIS were to disappear, the underlying causes that produce ISIS would not disappear. And those would have to be addressed with decades of policy and reforms and changes — not just by the west, but also by Arab societies as well.” Ultimately, Haykel appeared to argue that effectively combating ISIS will require more than discerning what “ISIS wants,” theologically speaking. Instead, it also requires a deep, abiding dedication to providing what most Muslims in the region want, and what Wood only briefly addresses in his article: stability, jobs, education, and, most of all, peace.
I cannot believe how much media the two llamas that got away from the petting zoo. Its been everywhere. Jimmy Kimmel. Chris hays show. Regular news. Now, it’s the lead in story in the Morning Papers. Why is that such popular news? Regardless, gamers regulators say OK to Olympic betting in Nevada.Wow. Usain Bolt is favored to win his race and the USA basketball team is the odds favorite already. I am not sure how I feel about it but anyway, a MS Candidate was killed by himself with a gun in an apparent suicide. That sucks. There is evidently riots happening in Greece because of the Germany vote over their debt crises.
Ed Morrissey and Eugene Robinson are up now. Ed Morrissey is at CPAC. They discuss that Jeb Bush Takes 2016 Show Into Unfriendly Territory At CPAC.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush addresses the audience at his last Conservative Political Action Conference appearance in March 2013. Bush is to appear again Friday, as he considers a potential 2016 presidential campaign.
For close to a decade, Jeb Bush's audiences have almost exclusively been people who have paid good money to hear him speak. That changes today, when he appears at the Conservative Political Action Conference — where potential 2016 presidential rivals are already taking shots at him and some activists are organizing a walk-out. NYU college student Ivan Teo said he doesn't consider Bush "one of us," but does give him credit for at least showing up on hostile turf. "I think him coming here, it's brave. And I think that it's great that we have a chance to ask him questions."

Bush, the former Florida governor and the brother and son of the last two Republican presidents, is the presumed Republican establishment favorite in a venue that historically has not been kind to the party establishment. In 2011, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul won the CPAC presidential straw poll, while Mitt Romney won the 2012 nomination. In 2007, Romney won the straw poll, while Arizona Sen. John McCain won the GOP nomination the following year. And while many Republicans with presidential ambitions make CPAC an annual pilgrimage, Bush during his years as governor avoided the gathering as part of his overall strategy of staying away from events that would feed presidential speculation. Bush ended that self-imposed exile in 2013, and got a decidedly indifferent reception. His was the Friday night keynote speech — the "Ronald Reagan Dinner" — and Bush had just recently published his book Immigration Wars, that advocated an overhaul similar to what the Senate wound up passing a few months later.

Bush used the occasion to scold his party for seeming "anti-everything," but also prescribed the same optimistic message about a "right to rise" that is the theme of his pre-campaign. Just months after the 2012 presidential election, Bush's speech did not particularly offend his audience as much as fail to interest them at all. Bush spoke for just under 20 minutes, during which time many in the ballroom carried on conversations over dessert and coffee, ducked outside to answer phone calls, or just left entirely. Before and after that, he was primarily speaking to corporate audiences that had paid him tens of thousands of dollars to hear him. Even in recent appearances in Detroit and Chicago, where he gave speeches as part of his "Right to Rise" political committees, Bush spoke to sympathetic audiences, and then took gentle questions from moderators.

Bush did do a warm-up of sorts Wednesday evening, appearing on conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt's program, but even there the questioning was mild — primarily about foreign policy and the military. Neither immigration nor the Common Core education standards, which are reviled by many of the GOP's most conservative voters, came up in that interview. Both are certain to be asked about Friday, when Bush is questioned for 20 minutes by Fox News host Sean Hannity. Bush, 62, compiled what was considered a deeply conservative record in his two terms as Florida governor, including tax cuts totaling $14 billion, support of gun rights, the creation of private school voucher programs and the use of public money to persuade women to avoid abortions. But his support for more stringent education standards in Common Core and an immigration overhaul that would not deport all those in this country illegally has angered many conservatives.

As far as Scott walker comparing the 100K protesters he faced to the ISIS group was just ‘red meat’ he was throwing out to the CPAC attendees. I do NOT think he meant it seriously. That is what CPAC is all about. The candidates just throw as much ‘red meat at it as possible. And, the crowd eats it up. I don’t blame anyone for saying anything at this conference. That is why it’s a joke of a convention or conference. Its not real. They cater to yahoos that love those types of analogies. The candidates say anything at it.

I honestly wish the media would NOT pay attention to it like it was in the old days.
How coincidental, that interviewee just mentioned how we have unearthed many ‘Hornets Nests” when I just saw that film last night and mentioned it in the first paragraph here.

It is mayhem on the set today. Mika was hiding in the corridors this morning after they played the Beohner kiss and Donny (Deutsch) is roaming around the set.

This is a good interview with Chuck Schumer. 

It actually seems like people are looking at that Scott Walker comments as being more literal than I am taking it as. I am surprised. I just thought CPAC was built on rhetoric said by these conservative types and I thought it was set up for people to just rant about how much the POTUS is bad at being POTUS and that they say anything at it. I never took anything said at CPAC as literal. That Walker comment about him being able to deal with protesters being the same thing as him being able to deal with ISIS as literal. 

And, yes. House Of Cards (HOC) is available starting today. I can't wait to watch it. 

It looks like the U.S. Military is going through the longest span of time without a death (since 9/11). Adrian Peterson suspension is overturned so he can potentially start playing games sooner than later. Jim Inhofe uses a snow ball on the senate floor to make some odd point about climate change and I just cannot believe that guy has that job. Does he really not know what that term means? Its incredible. A stolen Picasso painting worth millions was smuggled into the U.S. under false Art Craft Label ($37). And, like I said, HOC starts up again today. I can't wait to watch Season 3 this weekend. I watched the entire Seasons one and two in less than a few days this month a few weeks ago. 

And, I had a feeling Doug Stamper was going to live. That guy is one of my favorite actors. he was in Generation Kill. I guess Jeremy Peters writes about the HOC. To add onto the jokes made by the panel about movies that give away endings, what happens at the end of 'Lone Survivor' or that one that is entitled, 'Jon (maybe) Dies at the end?" Anyway, bad jokes made by me but still, even though i had a feeling Doug Stamper did not die, I would have liked to have seen that on my own so thanks got giving that away this am Jeremy.

Alright, we get that many people that become terrorists are from middle to upper class sets of people. What my girl Marie Harf meant is that we need to keep them occupied after we decimate them. She meant that by people having jobs, they tend to not want to kill people and/or do drugs and they tend to not want to be terrorists. She meant its a long run issue and not just about killings them with bombs and bullets. It means we must kill them with bombs and bullets and then we need to educate the younger people saying that you do not get some type of praise by some god in any religion for killing anything. That is what she meant. She did not mean to set up a jobs program to stop the growth of ISIS. That's asinine to key on please. So stop. Its all encompassing now. We must fight them hard now and then we must educate them in the long run. That so called religion or ideal they speak about is asinine if it calls for humans to kill other humans and animals as some w3ay to gain some type of salvation. Again, stop it please. Be real about it. We have known that (Osama) Bin Laden and his family were rich. We have known the hijackers were not destitute people without money and without work. We knew that about the leaders of ISIS. We get that its not about poaching people that are against society's for not having a job. We get that fact. That is not what Marie Harf was trying to articulate. If you hear that entire interview BTW, she states that fact. The media ran with that one line and left out the rest of the sentences. Can we please stop harping on that one line taken out of context please? Thanks!

Louis (Borgdorf) brings us the non story of the day which actually happens to be interesting because the Plain Dealer had this report about some woman that posted a dress on Tumblr while asking what colors are in it. I plain and simply see Blue and Black but people are arguing that its white and gold colored. I don't get it.Where is the white? Where is the Gold? I do not see White and Gold anywhere. Again, I don't get this one. Its reported that it is a Blue and Black dress so whatever about it.

Anyway, the show is doing a series on energy. We spoke about the caterpillar sponsorship when that rep was on last week (or this week). Let's see what this is all about because it seems like its about oil. Or, its about Natural Gas. It also speaks about Texas having 10% of its energies/electricity generated by Wind Power which is where we need to be headed and they say that could double in the next year. Regardless of those sens of directions, our dependencies on foreign oil has plummeted thank whomever's god. that was the crux of our wars in  the last couple decades. 

John Barrassois on pushing the export of oil industry. he makes a decent point about how (Vladimr) Putin hold countries hostage and that would help end it.


Tony Blinken is on next I think. Yeah. He is at the table as they intro back into the show. They first bring up the 'heated back n forth' between Boehner and the W.H. about the Netanyahu speech which is in 4 days from today. Boehner now somehow blames Susan Rice which is yet another thing I don’t get. This guy just blames anyone lese for everything and that is his platform for everything he does and you know why? It is because he (Boehner and Congress) do no work. (Tony) Blinken talks about the relationships between us and Israel. I forgot about us helping them (Israel) out with the Iron Dome equipment and funding for it, that they (Israel) needed to have last summer. That shows that our relationship as far as that goes, is great but this personal relationship about things that do NOT really matter or that are politically driven is maybe not so good. But our relationships together are great. There is no threat but the games have to stop. We are not jeopardizing allowing Israel to get harmed in any way and we have stood by it side for years. As far as the speech at congress. It should have been done using certain protocols. That’s it. Now if Iran cheats and makes Nukes. It is said that we would have the time to react to it. Under this new agreement, Iran will not be able to make nuclear weapons in at least a decade and no way would we not be able to know about it. And, I did not hear that Foley’s speak about how we (U.S. Government) did not do enough or maybe the term is that they left them out of the loop a lot (in the dark is what they said). I get that they will feel that we did not do enough but they should also realize they cannot be let them know what the military and defense program was doing about it. Next issue is what is the administrations stances on arming the Ukrainians. It seems like we have provided them things like night goggles, etc., ($120 million worth of defense and security assistance) but that we are also looking at dealing with implementing a diplomatic solution. I was wondering what has been happening in that region and during that so called cease fire deal. And, yes. Joe asks if he is disappointed with Turkey’s response to the ISIS crises because that has pissed me off big time. They do nothing and not only do they do nothing for it, they also allow people to skate through that country to cross the borders to join ISIS/ISIL. The Turkish people need to do so much more for that situation. And, I agree with the panel. Blinken answered a lot of hard questions. Rapid fire. Good for him. These were all excellent questions. And, he answered them all in real ways. Actually, the panel just gave him (Tony Blinken) a mere break. LOL. They get back into it by asking about the Egypt situation. Now, they are onto and/or back to discussing a unified Iraq which actually, they have not talked about Iraq yet. Alright. That’s all but yeah, he answered it all. Like I just said. Good for him.

I still do not see one bit of white or gold on that dress. I still do not get it. There is no white and no gold on that dress. That dress is so blue with black stripes or trim I think is the term they use in the fashion world.

Anyway, what a long day filled with so much news. I am in shock how much is being talked about today alone.

I’ll let the business segment go. I have no opinions about it. Its interesting though.
I was going to write about the net neutrality approvals later on today at Sunset Daily (www.sunset-daily.com) but since they are discussing it now as a story, I will do it here. New rules on how the internet should be governed have been approved by the Federal Communications Commission. In what is seen as a victory for advocates of net neutrality, the commission voted in favor of changes proposed by chairman Tom Wheeler. Three commissioners voted in favor and two against. The US Telecommunications Industry Association said that broadband providers would take "immediate" legal action over the rule changes.

The main changes for broadband providers are as follows: Broadband access is being reclassified as a telecommunications service, meaning it will be subject to much heavier regulation, Broadband providers cannot block or speed up connections for a fee,  Internet providers cannot strike deals with content firms, known as paid prioritization, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers.



And, low and behold about Rick Perry. He is speaking against the Scott walker comments relating the ISIS/ISIL situation to the protestors he had faced in the last 5 or 6 years. Although, I think Rick Perry was inferring that Walker was comparing U.S. citizens to ISIS and that’s not what he meant. He meant that he could deal with the issue. It was analogy that is just getting legs. I think everyone should remember its CPAC and to take anything said it, with that grain of salt so to speak. Is that the saying? With a grain of salt? That makes no sense to me. What does that means and why does it mean to not take something seriously? I don’t get that either.
Here we go again. The Dress and its colors. Its Blue and Black.

Zelda Williams is up next. I will sign off to then do some real work. Have phun. Stay in touch and have a great weekend.