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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Rachel Maddow Destroys the GOP Lies About President Obama

Rachel Maddow is at it again! Hitting the GOP with those pesky little things known as facts. On her show Friday night, Rachel did a segment in which she dismantled the GOP talking points about President Obama regarding big government, immigration, taxes, and the war on terror. You can read the accompanying article on PoliticusUSA.

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Ed Schultz Has A Message for Some of the Liberals

Leading up to the Iowa caucus, Ed Schultz praised GOP candidate Rick Santorum's presence on the campaign trail. This led to Ed getting angry tweets from disappointed viewers. In a video for his blog, Ed responded.

The first clip is the one that got some of the liberals upset. The second one is Ed's response.

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Ed is absolutely right! Just because he had kind words for Rick Santorum doesn't mean he's making the jump to Fox News. Ed's commentary on Santorum was objective and that's one of the main traits I look for when listening to a political pundit. People on the right such as Joe Scarborough and Bill O'Reilly face the same type of derision from viewers when they have the audacity to praise someone on the other side of the political aisle and/or criticize one of their own. If these people have such a need to be told what they wanna hear, they should go talk to a mirror.