Ed Schultz on MSNBC has lost all credibilty by prostituting himself for the XL pipeline

[greatlaurel]

His reasoning is that it is for "safety". What about the loss of life to everyone who will die due to global climate change? More immediately, he does not give a hoot about the First Nations people who are already being exposed and becoming ill from the toxic emission of PAHs and heavy metals. What a racist tool! To think I used to like his show.

He had on the Sierra Club and NRDC yesterday and their appalling lack of information was almost as bad as he was. Neither one ever mentioned the health impacts on the First Nations at all. Do they not employ any environmental scientists that have done any emission calculations? It is not hard to do. USEPA AP-42 has most of the information to do emission calculations. Their act almost looked like they were tanking their answers to give way to big oil, as well.

His guests tonight did a better job, Josh Fox really stood up to Ed's baloney, as did the other gentleman, whose name I can't recall, but again they still ignore the vast quantities of carcinogens and heavy metals emitted from the tar sands. People really understand exposure to toxic pollution a lot more than they get climate change.

Plus, no one mentions the impact of the toxic emissions that will be generated from refining this crap in th Gulf Coast. Seems to me no one cares about the First Nations, the people exposed to this crap from the pipeline or the people of the Gulf that live near these refineries. Are these people all disposable? Even the environmental groups ignore the toxic exposures to these people.

Does anyone know how to contact MSNBC to complain about his racist and ignorant garbage he is spewing?

[snooper2]

1. you can contact MSNBC

by going to www.msnbc.com

they have links--

the pipeline is 75% done.. FYI

[elleng]

2. Ignorant, maybe,

but racist?

[greatlaurel]

8. Yeah, he is worried about deaths from rail accidents in the U.S.

but never mentions the deaths of First Nations peoples or the additional deaths to the people living in cancer alley on the Gulf, who are predominantly African Americans and poor white people. Yeah, I am going there. Environmental justice is about recognizing that the people most impacted by these toxic industries are people of color or poor whites. Rich people make sure where they live are zoned to keep out the bad polluters. The rich are ignorant too as they also do not realize that air pollution may get diluted but it still travels to where they live and breath. Pollution also accumulates up the food chain no matter how rich you are you are still getting the pollution.

[elleng]

10. Those who ignore 'environmental justice' are not, imo,

necessarily racist, tho their actions may result in harms largely to those segments of society historically oppressed due to their 'races.'

[greatlaurel]

35. I have to very politely agree to disagree with you on this.

It is much easier to not care about people who are being poisoned when you believe they are lesser and are too lazy or stupid to move away from the pollution. The disposable people concept is part of racism, IMHO. Thanks for your input. I will try to figure out how to explain environmental justice better for future posts.

[elleng]

41. Thanks

[global1]

3. I Thought At One Time Ed Spoke Out Against It.....

did he - or was he always for it?

[greatlaurel]

32. I did too.

I should check out the archives on his show blog.

[tularetom]

4. Well, if he criticized it, management would just make him apologize for it

Or simply fire him on the spot.

Maybe Schultz has figured out which way the wind is blowing at MSNBC.

[greatlaurel]

36. Ha!

Good point!

[RobertEarl]

5. Radical environmentalists, are we?

One would think the Sierra Club people would have all the best arguments, eh?

Either Ed is an idiot, or he's just playing for ratings. You sure have piqued some interest in him and his show. So the ratings thing is workable.

Your arguments are appreciated here, laurel, thanks.

[greatlaurel]

9. Thanks

Radical, not really, I just know a lot about this subject. Knowledge is often mistaken as radical, because we Americans get very little fact based information any more.

[RobertEarl]

11. heh

I've been labeled as such.

My response: The real radicals are those that support injuring our environment.

It is as you say, our knowledge is mistaken. Maybe because we make them look stupid as they go about plundering our one and only little planet.

[greatlaurel]

31. You have it in a nutshell.

I really appreciate your response."The real radicals are those that support injuring our environment." Do you mind if I use that, too?

[Jamaal510]

6. I like Ed,

but I was left surprised and scratching my head over his stance here. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but it seemed like not too long ago, he opposed the XL Pipeline. I'm not implying that a person doesn't have a right to change their stances--usually it means that they're thinking, but that looked very bizarre.
This is kind of like a "pick your poison" situation here. He was right that this country will probably continue to be dependent on oil in the near future, and that there are dangerous risks involved with the alternative of building the pipeline. But considering who supports its construction (the oil companies), I can't see this being a really "safer" idea for the country in the long run.

[2naSalit]

7. For Ed it suddenly became a safety

regarding rail and road transport because that bad train wreck outside of Fargo left oily soot all over his yard in Detroit Lakes, MN. Suddenly that's the only part he can focus on, not the indigenous folks who are being poisoned and their lands taken from them again because some white folks figured out how to make a profit from their lands.

He had Josh Fox on tonight and he didn't like what was being said so he shut him down, more politely than Billo's style but he still shut the guy down when he called Ed out on his reference material.

Ed's fallen off the cliff and is acting like a total shill on this one, which is sad because he is usually pretty good about most other issues.

http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/build-the-pipeline-toward-energy-independence-138817091975


As an afterthought, because he is having a brief conversation each night with some very credible opponents, is possibly reverse psychology if it's true that he was warned not to advocate against it. That would be one way of getting around him advocating against it himself while having very credible opponents do the advocating in a "fair and balanced" discussion as it were.

[flamingdem]

13. Yes, he doesn't convince me he seems to be going against type

and maybe it's to establish bona fides as not just having a Liberal voice.

[greatlaurel]

14. I liled Ed, too. I am very pro-uniom

Whatever he is up to, though, it's wrong. Shilling for Big Oil is always wrong and needs to be called out. The Sierra Club and NRDC shocked me as they came unarmed with facts to counter his "safety" claims. The big enviro groups have been pretty blasted ineffective for a long time. I am calling them out, too. Josh Fox did a good job for no more time than he was given by Ed.

The emissions from the tar sands are horrific and the enviro groups should be able to sight the emissions chapter and verse. If they are not, then they should be called out for incompetence, or selling out, too.

[2naSalit]

16. Good points! nt

[bravenak]

12. Comment on His facebook page.

I'm against the pipeline too.

[2naSalit]

15. Did he enter that?

and when was it entered?



ETA: Oh, you're saying that I should comment on his facebook... I don't do facebook or twitter. I did send an email before he started his parade this week. I complained about his interview with Brina Schweitzer the oil shill from Montana, my home state, and called him out for the content of the conversation which seemed like an ad for the pipeline delivered by Schweitzer.

Then he started this week-long tirade. I am glad he at least dares to have the counter arguments on the show that he has but he doesn't let them say much. Josh Fox was the only one who called him out on his reliance on the DOS report and where it originated, for which he was cut off.

And, I have been posting this all over kingdom come:

There is a public comment period that lasts only 30 DAYS!! STARTS TODAY!!! (2/5/14)

http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/

A 30-day public comment period begins on February 5, 2014 and will close on March 7, 2014. During this period, members of the public and other interested parties are encouraged to submit comments on the national interest determination to

http://www.regulations.gov

Comments are not private and will be made public. Comments may also be mailed directly to:

U.S. Department of State
Bureau of Energy Resources, Room 4843
Attn: Keystone XL Public Comments
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Direct link to comment page:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOS-2014-0003-0001

Go for it, 30 days isn't much.

[greatlaurel]

29. Thanks for the information!

I will certainly be commenting on this. We should all comment, because you know they will get lots of big oil stooges to comment in favor of the pipeline.

[2naSalit]

42. For certain!

I made an OP yesterday with that info. Not many respondents so I kind of sank. I was hoping it would stay up on the list but, oh well. I do hope people copied the info and shared it widely, that was part of my initial hope when putting it up.

30 days isn't very long... I've been participating in public comment things for a very long time and have an idea about how that goes so it's a good idea to get the info out asap for people to know. I don't see it advertised very widely and I fault the gov't for that. Most media outlets wait until the last day to say anything about, or even the day after it closes.

[fadedrose]

17. I watched him open-mouthed

Couldn't believe he took the position he did.........till I thought it over.

BOTH guests were against the pipeline and Ed made a lame argument about his knowing his business. I wonder if he may be playing Devil's Advocate.

He reiterated the phrase about the State Dept. source of the pipeline assessment being not trustworthy...I forget his exact words.

He had to know the positions these guests held. One was even arrested for a similar view last year....

[Hekate]

18. "Prostituted"? You think he took money? Really?

You dis agree with him --you feel strongly --that doesn't make Ed a prostitute.

[greatlaurel]

19. Pipeline safety is sich a big lie, too

My house is 75 feet from a 22-inch high pressure natural gas pipeline, If that baby goes, my whole family are crispy critters. A gas pipeline blew up last year one county over. The people survived, because they were a little farther away and managed to run for their lives. It completely torched over 60 acres of land.

Thanks for everyone's comments. I gotta get to bed, tired from digging out of the ice, today. I will check back in the morning.

[msongs]

20. he is from North Dakota, which will benefit from the pipeline. fill in the blanks nt

[greatlaurel]

30. That explains why he keeps talking about the Bakken oil.

Makes more sense now. Of course, he is just helping to further destroy what is left of the Dakotas with the oil industry using up their water and poisoning their land. He must really hate the people he left back home.

[delrem]

21. This is when I wrote off Ed Schultz as a bloviating hawk:

Schultz explaining his support for the Saudi backed Libyan jihadi "rebels":

"We need to stand behind people who want freedom. This isn't Bush-talk, this is totally different from Iraq, it's totally different from any other situation... In my opinion." "This is...(deep breath)... a situation, where we have got, a coalition that has come together, and realizes that Qaddafi is a terrorist. The President has gone on record saying that Libyan agents have killed Americans. That's all as an American I need to hear! Let's get it done! Let's arm these rebels, let's give them a chance to fight!"

Then he "interviews" Jeremy Scahill.

It wasn't Bush-talk, it was Bush-talk-plus. It was awful and I'll never forget that this joker began by announcing that he was a "progressive".

[blkmusclmachine]

22. Prostituting. +1

[imthevicar]

23. ED's A Cheer leader

For The Administration, Faux news in REVERSE! One is just as bad as the other.

[Cha]

24. No, he isn't .. in fact that's when he's real popular around here is when

he's screaming about the President. and, there have been plenty of times. He advocated not voting in 2010.

[imthevicar]

26. Oh How a Good Paying Gig Will change you!

[polynomial]

25. The viewpoints about the mainstream

The viewpoints about the mainstream media are getting easier to understand how they misconstrue, misinterpret, or depending on the network and the time the new wave of journalism that offers light airy refined nonsense noise that mentally distort the electorate mind with arduous unclear deductive reporting.

From my view it is the creative leap actually a quantum journey with silence, sort of like both the Congress, the Senate, and the Judicial resort to sonic silent running super submarine silence pitching out that economic derivative that very few understand then listening to the return ping. But half America is running to lean not understanding what is going on, however very illustrated by the super bowl commercial follow up interviews feel more comprehensive than regular elections.

Snowden gave America a peek at the profiteering nova that so many completely reject, similarly as much as 911 was an inside job perpetrated by legions of the media. Ladies and gentlemen of America we are something like seventeen trillion dollars in deficit. An extraordinary number even the well-respected Ed Shultz talks about. His radio program that rants this deficit cannot be repaid so buy gold. Thom Hartmann with the same doom, that stock market crash is coming so buy gold. Can we say they are not doing enough to make accountability happen? Yep!

We all need to reinforce our thought to recognize realize these long time players on the media that share memories of their tenure in broadcasting along with the longtime political persons that claim the best experience. Yet all of them brought America to where we are at right now. America is a huge playground for corruption in politics business and the military industrial complex that gives way to capitalism that has run amuck because very few are held accountable except for labor that is exploited for the trillions in backroom secret deals for the one percent.

Whoever believes that an xl pipeline is sacrosanct in blessings for good governance is in reason to compare a dolt. This is the pivotal moment President Obama should see the pipe line drawn can have a wrench at any point, off shore drilling already a natural disaster. Just as legions of political bandits through banking slip in faulty material then the told you so media rhetoric flies.

Chances are and knowing all the crazy economic hostage tit for tat going on right now the Republican tea party crazies have all kinds of economic IED’s planted in this TPP free trade agreement. The Republicans didn’t even blink and the media did not do a good job of shaming them. Better living through profiteering with all that as a gift from the mainstream media that should help America understand issues.

[newfie11]

27. I'm through with Ed

The pipeline shilling is the end!

[Swede Atlanta]

28. His position can be understood.....

He is making two basic points:

(1) Domestically produced oil is currently being shipped by rail and transport by rail is safer (i.e. less spills and less oil spilled per spill) and produces less greenhouse gases (i.e. not burning diesel to drive the rail engine)

(2) The pipeline will not result in increased domestic oil consumption - we still need to keep working on fuel efficiency and moving away from fossil fuels

I can in general agree with him on point (1) provided the statistics he uses are accurate. The problem I have is the confluence of points (1) and (2).

Let's say the pipeline is built and hypothetically oil from the Canadian tar sands begins to flow in 2020. The U.S. continues to decrease its use of fossil fuels generally. The oil comes down from Canada and is refined in Texas or other points along the Gulf Coast. At that point the U.S. may actually have a glut of oil (or not) but if consumption continues to decrease relative to supply that will eventually happen.

So what happens with the refined products coming out of Texas, Louisiana, etc.? It will be exported to other countries. Schultz' argument is if we don't build the pipeline to the U.S., Canada will pipe it to the Pacific and ship it to Japan and China where it will be refined. Why not keep it as a North American energy source?

I can agree we need to begin thinking strategically about the need to have fossil fuels available in times of war or other crisis. Keeping the infrastructure to move the oil around within North America appears to meet that objective.

But, as U.S. consumption declines and exports of refined products from the Canadian tar sands oil rise, we are taking on all the risk of transporting, refining and shipping out the oil as well as the pollution, etc. generated from those activities.

Sure, if it is shipped to Japan and China they refine it there and potentially the same amount of pollutants enter the atmosphere as if they are refined here. But the local effects of these activities are not being felt in the U.S. to facilitate consumption abroad.

[GeorgeGist]

43. Just one minor problem with your thinking ...

Canada is not domestic.

[NuclearDem]

33. Oh Scumbag Ed.

Makes big productions about unions in Ohio, tells NBC union to go fuck itself.

Calling female radio hosts sl*ts, freedumb talk about Syria, now shilling for Keystone.

Yeah, done with him.

[Romulox]

34. This is what happens when we allow ourselves to be led by "ex" freepers...

The forgotten right-wing past of Ed Schultz

The most reliable Democratic partisan on television used to be the Rush Limbaugh of the Great Plains

When the U.S. began bombing Libya last month, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz mounted a robust and combative case in favor of the new war. Repeatedly showing footage of the aftermath of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and invoking Americans allegedly killed by Moammar Gadhafi (in the 1980s), Schultz insisted on referring to the rebels as “freedom fighters.” At one point, he even questioned the patriotism of President Obama’s critics: “Where is the patriotism of the Republican Party?”

As one of the most reliably partisan voices on cable news, Schultz’s support for a Democratic president’s war would seem to be unsurprising. But his nationalist bombast also seemed to betray reactionary tendencies — and served as a reminder of an often overlooked chapter in the liberal talker’s biography: Schultz spent years as a rabid right-wing talk radio host in North Dakota before abruptly switching sides about a decade ago and emerging as one of the country’s preeminent left-of-center personalities.

http://www.salon.com/2011/04/14/ed_schultz_right_wing_past/

[greatlaurel]

37. Did not know that about him.

Thanks for the information!

[bullwinkle428]

38. This is the same guy that was very anti-OWS, until the stream of very intelligent

progressives (John Nichols, Mike Papantonio, Katrina VanDenHeuvel, etc.) he regularly speaks with on the show pounded into his head where the movement was going, and he grudgingly got on board. More recently, he's been very pro-NSA; i.e., "give them all the tools they need to spy on whoever-wherever-whenever", reasoning that "we have to do whatever we can to avoid getting hit again like 9/11!". Others in this thread have also mentioned his antagonism toward the NBC staffers pushing for a union. Seems really uncomfortable with the idea of any new laws related to gun control.

[Tom Rinaldo]

39. Ed is a person, not a political litmus test for the left

He has opinions, lots of them, and he shares them avidly. More often than not I agree with him, but not always by any means. He has been great in general on his pro union stances, on income inequality and on voting rights. He supported the Occupy movement, he is railing against the international trade agreements like the TPP, which most progressives support him on. He consistently and harshly attacks the Tea Party and I am hard pressed to think of anything nice that he ever has said about Republicans. He also has been a strong defender of the ACA.

Ed is a populist more than he is an ideologue. Populists often run on passion, god bless them for that. They respond to their own internal moral compass about what they think will he beneficial to the people who they care about. Ed usually cares about the same people that I do, but not always, at least not always with the same priorities as my own.

[Bluenorthwest]

40. I don't watch him because he sits in a Non Union shop claiming to be pro Union.

The AFL-CIO urged MSNBC hosts Wednesday to defy “fear and concern” and break their silence about NBC’s alleged anti-union “hypocrisy.” None of the five high-profile progressives they’ve targeted – Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes and Ed Schultz – has so far directly and publicly addressed allegations that NBC-owned Peacock Productions exploited fear tactics and legal tricks to avert unionization. NBC and the five hosts did not immediately respond to Wednesday morning inquiries, or to prior requests for comment over the past week.

“These hosts have a particular responsibility,” AFL-CIO organizing director Elizabeth Bunn told Salon. “They have respect and they have clout that producers alone don’t have, and they’re part of the larger progressive movement.” She said the five anchors were “uniquely positioned to hear the stories of what their parent company is doing to workers, and broadcast that to the larger American public.” She urged them to follow the “inspirational example” of workers at Peacock Productions – a company that produces some MSNBC programming – who’ve chosen to take collective action
The only MSNBC host to respond to any of Salon’s inquiries on the issue has been Ed Schultz, who when asked about the campaign Dec. 10 emailed, “Moveon.org has never been an ally of Ed Schultz, why should I help you with a story? Give me a reason.” As I’ve reported, that response spurred social media pushback, which Schultz addressed — without directly mentioning the Peacock Productions allegations – on the Thursday, Friday and Monday episodes of his radio show. Since Salon’s original story went live last Thursday, Schultz has asked “why should I put myself in jeopardy through an email”; questioned whether he would be “able to influence” people “of authority”; and accused critics of “class envy.” He has not responded to further inquiries from Salon. Asked about Schultz’s reaction, Bunn said, “I really don’t want to react specifically to that,” because “the story is about these workers.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/18/fear_and_concern_keeping_msnbc_hosts_quiet_in_union_dispute_afl_cio_suggests/