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Mika Brzezinski has a jaded view of why young Americans choose to join the military. According to the Morning Joe host, they do so "if they need the money." Brzezinski made her comment on today's show during a segment on a book comparing the values and beliefs of the various generations of Americans. When Joe Scarborough challenged her doing-it-for-the-money claim, saying that many serve "for all the best reasons," Brzezinski began to back down. Mika also suggested that her fellow panelists didn't know many people serving in the military, which might say more about the MSM bubble in which they...

You really have to listen to Mika Brzezinski's voice rising as if in a question as she pronounces the very last word in an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal column—and watch the expression on her face—to appreciate how utterly baffled, befuddled and bewildered she seems by the simple notion that increasing the cost of hiring motivates employers to automate their operations. The column, "The Employee of the Month Has a Battery," noted that restaurant chains like Chili's are introducing tabletop ordering devices and eliminating server positions. Author Michael Saltsman makes the incontrovertible argument that "policy makers are encouraging the...

Although to date there has been no evidence directly tying him to either matter, Chris Christie has been accused of playing politics with the GW bridge closure and the granting of hurricane-relief funds to Hoboken. So naturally it's fair game to analogize Christie to the head of cinema's most murderous crime syndicate. Fair game, if you're MSNBC that is. Today's Morning Joe segment on Christie treated viewers to a 'Govfather' logo, based on the famous puppet-master logo from "The Godfather." View the video and images of the original and MSNBC logos here.

Whatever the question, politicians have a way of working their issue of the day into the answer. Dem Rep. Keith Ellison took that tendency to new heights today. Asked on Morning Joe to explain the disproportionate amount of terrorism against the United States that emanates from the Islamic world, Ellison, the first Muslim Member of Congress, asserted that it is the struggle for democracy, not the Islamic faith, that motivates the terrorism. In a giant leap, Ellison then compared people in Islamic countries "who don't want to yield power to the vast majority" . . . to the struggle in...

Let no one say that NBC/MSNBC are reluctant to criticize ObamaCare. A leading NBC light boldly did so today . . . from the left, of course. Appearing on Morning Joe, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC's chief medical editor, declared that there should be "a single-payer system" of health care. That is the left's preferred solution, but brings with it a host of problems, as the Heritage Foundation has detailed. For good measure, Snyderman said that she "made" her young-adult children sign up for Obamacare as their "patriotic duty." View the video here.

Joe Scarborough made a point of mentioning that until today, his MSNBC show hadn't discussed the Obama selfie at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Morning Joe's way too highbrow for that kind of stuff, don't you know, particularly when it might reflect badly on Barack Obama. But when the crew finally got around to it today, opinion from Joe to Mika to Ed Rendell to Thomas Roberts was unanimous: there was nothing to criticize. Mika made her point by seeking to snap a selfie with Scarborough, as Joe jokingly showed her the hand. View the video here.

Sure, he was careful to couch it. But the bottom line is that Zbigniew Brzezinski believes that Iran is willing to abandon its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons. Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser offered that opinion in response to questioning by former RNC Chairman Michael Steele on today's Morning Joe. Brzezinski also claimed that the recent round of negotiations have been "substantive, serious" and that the Iranians have been "very accommodating." View the video here.

On Morning Joe this AM, Willie presented the following chart in an attempt to parlay the Administration line that Obamacare only affects a tiny number of policyholders.

Was someone holding Mika Brzezinski's shoe collection hostage? Because something obviously forced the Morning Joe host, against her will, to devote two lengthy segments today, totalling more than 2.5 minutes, to the story of scandal-ridden Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. With Joe Scarborough away, Mika was in charge. After airing the second long segment she complained "I can't believe he's still in the news. It doesn't make sense." Hmm. Kind of reminds me of another liberal complaining about what was done on his own watch. View the video here.

You're a self-respecting journalist. A guest on your show who is a leading member of one of the world's few absolute monarchies criticizes the lack of democracy in another country. Wouldn't you challenge him on his hypocrisy? Sorry, trick question: we're talking about Morning Joe. On today's show, Saudi Arabia's Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal mockingly referred to the Muslim Brotherhood's approach to democracy in Egypt under Morsi as "one man, one vote, one time," meaning that after the Brotherhood gained power, it didn't intend to permit future fair elections. Of course one free election would still be one more than...

If President Obama has lost Donny Deutsch, has he lost the Hamptons? But seriously, the adman has generally been an an enthusiastic supporter of the President. So when he gives a very pessimistic prediction as to the ability of Obamacare to rebound from its . . . debacular debut, it's worth noting. On today's Morning Joe, Deutsch described Obamacare as so "tarnished" and "damaged" that he doubted that it could ever fully recover, even if President Obama took Joe Scarborough's advice and attempted a total reboot. View the video here.

You could call him the storm after the storm. First there was Hurricane Sandy, and then, in the far reaches of the Republican Party, there was Hurricane Christie. The former was a devastating act of nature, the latter a desperate act of conservative frustration that came when the New Jersey governor embraced Barack Obama in the final days of the 2012 campaign. To hear the right wing tell it, the PDA between the Republican Chris Christie and the Democratic President should have been as lethal as a Michael Corleone kiss. Romney's campaign sulked. Talk-radio Republicans demanded blood. Tea Party leaders...

Political anaylst Charlie Cook bills himself as "non-partisan and independent." But on today's Morning Joe, Cook couldn't curb his enthusiasm for Chris Christie. Cook said of Christie that there is "testosterone coming out of every more pore in his body" and that Christie's attitude "inoculates him against being called a RINO, pantywaist liberal Republican." For good measure, Cook said he would "pay money" to see Christie reach down the throat and pull the lungs out of Tea Party member daring to call Christie a liberal! View the video here.

Although he didn't dare mention him by name, there's little doubt that Joe Scarborough had Mark Levin—who has taken strong shots at Scarborough's criticize-conservatives-first approach—in mind as a radio talk show host who is "jealous" of him and for whom Scarborough feels "sorry." On today's Morning Joe, James Carville told Scarborough that the hard core of the Republican party does not consider him one of them. Scarborough defended himself, claiming that whereas some basement-dwelling, underwear-clad bloggers and a couple of "jealous" radio hosts might not like him, Republicans regularly come up and hug him, proclaiming "thank God!", when he's out...

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is no fan of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The New York congressman made it clear on Monday’s "Morning Joe" that he will work to stop Cruz and his allies in their tracks. “I’ve been speaking out against Ted Cruz and this whole crazy movement since it started,” King told MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski. King also said he thought that “there’s no doubt that the Democrats are winning,” and that President Obama needed to play “a more aggressive role” in the negotiations to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling. King also warned that Cruz and...

Nicolle Wallace is the perfect MSNBC kind of Republican: the kind who isn't sure if she opposes Obamacare. On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough was seeking to make the point that while Republicans are divided over tactics, they are ideologically united in opposition to Obamacare. To demonstrate his thesis, Scarborough asked Wallace whether she supports Obamacare, taking it for granted that she would express her opposition. Amazingly, Wallace hesitated, said she "wasn't sure anymore," then quoted her husband who had asked "what do we hate about it?" She eventually did admit to not supporting Obamacare, on the grounds that the...

Did you really have to be a pluperfect political prognosticator to have foreseen that none of Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann or Donald Trump was going to be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee? Yet on today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough—by way of establishing his fortune-telling street cred—boasted of having made those predictions, before proceeding to claim that: 1. Ted Cruz will not be the 2016 Republican nominee; and 2. there's a "very real chance" that Cruz will break from the GOP and run as an independent. View the video Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2013/10/14/scarborough-very-real-chance-cruz-will-run-president-independent-2#ixzz2hhcVlMnX

Imagine that Jeff Bezos asked his vice-president for sales IT how many people had purchased products from Amazon the day before, and the veep said he'd get back to him "in a few weeks." How many nanoseconds do you think that hapless employee would last in his job? But on today's Morning Joe, there was the Obama admin's David Simas, sporting the lofty title of Deputy Senior Advisor for Communications and Strategy, smiling insouciantly while saying that it would be a "few weeks" before the Obama admin would say how many people had signed up for Obamacare. Conclusion: either: 1....

Move over, Lord Voldemort. Ted Cruz has taken your place as the man so evil he must not be named . . . Today's Morning Joe featured a strange trope in which Cruz was unmistakably being referred to by various members of the panel, but, at least in the first hour, never mentioned by name. Instead, Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle and Willie Geist variously alluded to Cruz as "one Republican senator specifically" or as one of "a couple of Republican senators" or "certain members of the Senate." Why the aversion to calling Ted Cruz by name? Were the Morning Joers...

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough is waking up to the fact that despite all the hype that accompanied President Barack Obama when he made his 2008 presidential run, he wasn’t ready for primetime. “Barack Obama has proven over the past five years that he wasn’t ready to be president of the United States,” Scarborough said on his show Tuesday, according to Newsmax. “And he proves it still today.” Scarborough said Obama “came out of nowhere” as a freshman senator, and “a couple years later, people elected him president of the United States.” Obama served less than a decade in...