Lawrence O’Donnell is Staying on the Air!!

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Tonight, as he bid farewell to an intern who was leaving for a new job starting next week, Lawrence O’Donnell said that next week HE would be sitting right there covering the Comey testimony and would be covering everything “for the next couple of years.”

With his contract coming due around June 4th, we had heard nothing except that it seems O’Donnell and management were talking again.

So now we have the news…Lawrence O’Donnell will be giving us his great discussion and analysis for 2 more years for sure!!!!

A victory for all of us!!!

 

 

Is MSNBC Starting to Edge out Joy Reid? Her Sunday Schedule Pushed Back for a Soccer Game? UPDATE: 10/23/2017 …Happily, Joy is busier than ever!!!

Update:  Joy is subbing for practically everyone and in an interview she stated that she really enjoys seeing how all the shows work. She is appearing on Meet the Press occasionally, and recently went to the Virgin Islands to report on the hurricane disaster there. She continues to report on the Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
GO JOY!!!

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

OK, maybe I’m just being hypersensitive about how MSNBC is shoving out a lot of people who are deemed as being “too far left” for the taste of Andrew Lack.  (very interesting Lack bio at Comcast.com corporate:  Andrew Lack.) We are in the dark about the fate of Lawrence O’Donnell but the purge started a long while back when Melissa Harris Perry blew the whistle on the network. God forbid that a show is devoted to a serious round table dealing with current issues involving the issue of Black America. Rev. Al’s Politics Nation has been reduced to early A.M. on Sunday.  And the list goes on

Joy Reid had her own show during the afternoons that was axed around the time that Alex Wagner’s NOW , the Cycle, Ronan Farrow Daily and The Ed Show were cancelled in February 2015. The Reid Report was struggling with low ratings as was the whole lineup.

Reid stayed on with the network, filling in and covering the 2016 campaign and became more visible and a real stalwart.  She was rewarded with her weekend AM Joy program which is a top destination for thinking people.  (Of course, she COULD have been given the slot have Greta Van Susteren was given but…) Her show is delivering great ratings and Joy has been writing books and as well as essays at sites like the Daily Beast…so, she’s blossoming as a media star.  See her outdated MSNBC bio here: Joy Reid outdated biography MSNBC.

So, why is MSNBC shoving Joy’s show around as the Trump scandals heat up?  Joy has been a leader in questioning the whole lot of GOP lackeys, and has been ahead of the pack in questioning the role of VP Mike Pence and his knowledge of Gen. Mike Flynn’s lies.  She has been steadily calling out the entire bunch over at the Daily Beast,  Her latest scathing salvo dated May 20, 2017 is entitled Donald Trump Knows Just How Bad the Russia Investigation Can Get

My favorite quotation from this piece is classic Joy:

“(We are asked to believe Mike Pence, the head of the transition team, heard this confession and the warnings about Flynn from the then-acting attorney general with his index fingers stuck firmly in his little lamb ears.)”

BUT…as Joy Reid’s audience grows, could this be a bit too much for MSNBC?

Today, Joy’s show is being pushed back 2 hours because there is a Premier League soccer match that MUST be shown in her regular Sunday time slot. ?????

Now, checking the NBCSN schedule, I can see that, yes, other games are being dropped onto other NBC outlets. CNBC, Esquire, USA, Bravo, SyFy, E!, Oxygen,  Telemundo and NBC Universo are ALL showing games at the same time, 10 AM ET.  NBCSport.com/tv-lisings

Now, I’m a huge soccer fan…was one before it became more popular. I had season tickets for the Cosmos at the midfield line just behind the players’ family section at the old Giants Stadium, where I saw all the greats.  Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s I was writing letters and calling Don Imus to lobby for coverage because the media was blacking out most coverage. For example, while 34,000 of us were watching a game in the rain, the only news was that baseball had been rained out.  I can say that my letter to the New York Times was published and Imus reported the score of that game! So, my sports activism worked!

So, now, as someone more devoted to political activism, I have to call into question what’s going on at MSNBC…and today, specifically, the decision to push Joy Reid back 2 hours so a Hull-Tottenham match is aired instead of the best discussion of current politics.

Really, MSNBC????

*****

I’ll be revisiting the Lack influence at some point since his bio discusses his former life at Bloomberg…..

Contact Info for Saving Lawrence O’Donnell, What’s left of MSNBC and Our Sanity — Bonus: Contact Info for Lakeland Bank, Which Likes to Hassle Employees Out of a Job if They Dare Have “Unapproved” Political Leanings

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

The main Comcast number that I’ve seen will send you to their Executive Customer Relations office, where a very nice young man chatted with me this morning….but that’s NOT the place to deliver your comments.   After I delivered my speech (see below), he said he was getting a lot of call about this but…

He referred me to NBC-Universal in NYC, which handles the NBC broadcast side.  So, I called there and was able to leave a voice mail. Hit # afterwards which will confirm that your message has been recorded (they don’t give you that instruction, but it is an “option,” so I suggest you do it.)

Here’s the number:  212-664-4444

Of course, in my speech, I brought up Andrew Lack, Brian Williams, the top ratings of  the Hayes, Maddow, and O’Donnell lineup, and Lawrence’s own unique insights that he brings to the political news because of his experience working in the bowels of the Senate.  I also told the message machine the same thing I told the young man at Comcast…that Williams was a known liar that was being rehabbed at the expense of O’Donnell and that if we see Hugh Hewitt with a show, that would make me puke.  I finished by saying that if O’Donnell goes, I go.

I made another therapeutic call for my soul just before calling NBC…over at  Raw Story there is this item:

GOP lawmaker targets New Jersey activist by sending letter to her boss — and she resigns under pressure

Brad Reed
15 May 2017 at 07:45 ET

An activist who lives in Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s (R – NJ) district resigned from her job earlier this year after the congressman called her out as a progressive “ringleader” in a letter to her boss.

WNYC reports that Saily Avelenda, a resident of West Caldwell, NJ, stepped down from her job at a local bank after being confronted over her work for a local progressive activist group called NJ 11th for Change.

MORE

Having grown up in the general area, this name goes WAY BACK for me…and for New Jersey.  This name represents a New Jersey dynasty…lots of places associated with it, including a building at Rutgers University.  See this 2009 NJ Monthly profile:  Like Father, Like Son, And Son, And Son…

So, I guess when you get a donation from a board member at Lakeland Bank by the name of  O’Dowd, who runs an advertising firm, a guy like Rodney feels he can just call the bank up and suggest that they hassle an employee until they feel they need to leave.

Mr. O’Dowd, advertising guy, now has a pretty lousy public relations situation on his hands.  Of course, the Congressman who never holds town halls will be getting a lot of flack, but I found it more interesting to call the Lakeland Bank, where I talked to a nice lady in Customer Service who dutifully took my name and typed up my comments, even asking if I wanted someone to call me!

Well, I declined the offer because I heard her typing what I said…which included my familiarity with Rodney, my background in marketing research that gave me some cred in my comments about O’Dowd the advertising guy, and the fact that I have some wealthy relatives who live in West Caldwell, NJ, whom I will be talking to about where they put there money.  Of course, I said that I would suggest they’d look around for another bank if they do, indeed, bank there and expressed my happiness that I was out Jersey and wouldn’t have to consider banking with them at all…

So, if you would like to talk to a nice lady at the Lakeland Bank, here is the number:

Customer Service Department

Toll free 866-224-1379

• Monday – Friday 7am to 8pm
• Saturday 8:30am to 2pm
• Sunday 10am to 2pm

Lakeland Bank was named on of Forbes’ 2016 “Most Trustworthy Financial Companies” which apparently doesn’t reflect how they actually treat their own employees, who know have to watch their backs if they aren’t conservative enough and apparently have no right to a private life outside of work.  Needless to say, I did NOT add my congratulations to the bank as the nice lady typed my complaints about their treatment of their progressive employee.