The Cycle Set to Premiere Monday June 25th on MSNBC

The hosts of The Cycle (l-r)- Steve Kornacki, S.E. Cupp, Krystal Ball, and Touré

As some of you may have heard, The Dylan Ratigan Show ended its 3 year run on MSNBC on Friday June 22nd. To fill the void at 4 pm EST, Martin Bashir's self-titled program moves up an hour on Monday June 25th. Replacing Martin at 3pm EST will be a brand new program titled The Cycle, a panel ensemble show hosted by MSNBC contributors Steve Kornacki, S.E Cupp, Krystal Ball, and Touré. With a format that looks to be similar to Fox's The Five, all four hosts will take turns facilitating the discussion. With the inclusion of Cupp, there are some who have misgivings about a conservative hosting a program on a left-leaning news channel like MSNBC. In the first clip below, The Young Turks discuss the topic. Please note this clip is from June 18th and at that time, MSNBC hadn't finalized the details of the upcoming program.



I don't have a problem with the selection of S.E. Cupp as one of the hosts of The Cycle. I think having opposing viewpoints helps enliven the discussion. It may come as a surprise to some, but I've mellowed on S.E. over the past several months. This is due to her appearances on another MSNBC program, NOW with Alex Wagner. For the most part when S.E. guests on NOW, she represents a fairly reasonable conservative point of view. However, when compared to the nonsense spewed by such conservative pundits as Sean Hannity and Andrea Tantaros, calling S.E. a reasonable voice from the right may be akin to terming Moe "the smart stooge".  At any rate, I'm looking forward to checking out The Cycle. In the clip below, Dylan Ratigan introduces the four hosts during the final telecast of his program and has a discussion with them about how their show will bring a fresh take to cable news.

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Headquarters of New Orleans Women's Advocacy Group Set on Fire

On 5/24, Women With A Vision, a New Orleans-based advocacy group for sex workers, low-income women, women with substance abuse issues, and other at-risk populations, was broken into and set on fire. While no arrests have been made in connection with the fire, it appears to be politically based. Also, the NOFD has classifed it as arson. You can read more on the story at the NOLA Defender. 

In the first clip below, Deon Haywood (Exec. Director for WWAV) talks about the incident and how it will not stop her group from continuing with the work they do. 



Props to The Young Turks because I probably wouldn't have known about this story if they hadn't covered it. In the following clip, hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian talk about not only the WWAV fire, but also how this type of domestic terrorism is downplayed in the media.

Cenk and Ana make some excellent points in this clip, but I especially love the fiery passion Ana exuded. If you're wondering about her disparaging reference to Bill O'Reilly and Lila Rose (the founder of the pro-life group Live Action), she had a good reason.

Think Progress story on domestic terrorism

TYT Talks About Mike Wallace and the Passing of Hard-Hitting Journalism

As you probably know, legendary journalist Mike Wallace died last weekend at the age of 93. In the clip below, Cenk and Ana of The Young Turks talk about Wallace and how today's media fails to emulate the hard-hitting style of interviewing he used during his illustrious career.