TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2025
This is the best we can tell you: Where in the world is Lawrence O'Donnell?
Live and direct from Yahoo Entertainment, this is the best we can do. Don't let that headline scare you:
Fans Think The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Is Getting Canceled
[...]
Is The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell being canceled?
No, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell hasn’t been canceled.
Speculation about The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell being canceled began when O’Donnell missed Monday’s broadcast. Several viewers took to social media to inquire about the host’s whereabouts and his expected return. Many assumed that he would be back this week after his scheduled week off. But his absence now appears to have been extended. O’Donnell has yet to address his absence on Monday.
For the record, many people "assumed that he would be back this week" because he said he'd be back this week. We aren't going to look it up, but it's our impression that he said that he'd be back on Monday night.
At this site, we hope he's back tonight. For our money, he'd been doing an excellent job describing the recent American carnage.
That said, we've lost any sense that those of us in Blue America will ever know how to extricate ourselves from the political holes we've managed to dig. In our view, we've been digging those holes over the course of a great many years.
There's no obvious, easy way out of this mess. Confusion is widely observed.
Lawrence O’Donnell will be heading the Irish Catholic prayer sessions on F&F weekends.
ReplyDeleteThere's that famous empathy, Cecelia! The most likely explanation is that O'Donnell may be experiencing his own "lost time" due to a medical issue. Second most likely is that he is engaged in contract renegotiations. Cecelia was perhaps never taught as a child that you don't make jokes when others are worried that something bad has happened to someone. Even if you don't like them (or perhaps especially if you don't like them).
DeleteO'Donnell has made a lot of statements about other people's religious beliefs (such as Mitt Romney's Mormonism) and is sincerely Catholic, so Cecelia's attempted joke is not as unlikely as she perhaps intended it to be, based on O'Donnell's Irish name. He won't be on Fox.
Anonymouse 3:51pm, yes, that was such a harsh and mean jest about O’Donnell and the weekend F&F clowns when you’ve already decided, for no reason (other than going after me), that Lawrence is ailing. You’ll call Bob a double agent every day and stay silent when anonymices (perhaps YOU) say that Bob deserves his health issues, however my joking about O’Donnell being on FNC is cruel because he may be ailing. You’re such a bozo.
DeleteYou don't think about other people before you write stupid things. That is what lack of empathy is about -- failure to consider others because you don't think about or care about what they are experiencing.
DeleteWhat good reason can you think of for him being gone? Any of the options would be negative except if he voluntarily decided to extend his vacation, in which case they would just say so.
TDS is bad for your health. O'Donnell couldn't even name one policy position he ever mentioned before 2016 that departs from the Obama or Clinton positions prior to that but his brain has been eaten by TDS.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:24pm, the first reason I can think of for O’Donnell not coming back is that he wasn’t ready yet. But that’s really beside the point. Nothing I said was harsh or mean spirited. The fact that it’s preposterous that Lawrence would be praying on Fox is the jest. No one could entertain it as being true at all. However, they can be concerned overyour notion that he’s very ill or maybe even mentally impaired and then become alarmed for him. His public thanks you for that…
DeleteYes, it was mean-spirited and not funny. Since you don’t know O’Donnell has written articles on religion, the joke was ignorant too.
Delete"TDS is bad for your health"
DeleteAu contraire. Medical authorities have pointed to the absence of TDS as contributing to severe moral flabbiness and orange makeup syndrome
Anonymouse 8:34pm, O’Donnell could write an encyclopedia on religion and no one would ever think that he was actually praying on FNC during his vacation. However, they could easily entertain the notion that he is too physically ill or depressed over the election to continue in his position. With “caring” and sensitive souls like you, O’Donnell doesn’t need enemies. You’d throw O’Donnell off a bridge if you thought it might impugn one of your blog foes.
DeleteWhy not? He is a serious Catholic.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:53pm, he has a contract with MSNBC, but more importantly, he’s too ill and depressed to get out of bed.
DeleteWhat an ugly person you are.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:09pm, your kindness extends to putting O’Donnell in bed and unable to return to his job as a counter to an obvious joke on a blog that no one would buy. You’re such a great person. He’d love you for starting that rumor.
DeleteCatholicism is the best faith.
DeleteI didn’t say he was sick. I offered the possibility and questioned the appropriateness of your mean-spirited joke. You are an ugly person.
DeleteI was retired for a bit and an old boss talked me into some part time work. Then it became like a real job with a lot of hours. Then my wife needed my help with stuff and I asked for time off. Wife all good and job calls wanting to know when coming back; and I said fuck it, I'm done. Hope O'Donnell comes to the same conclusion.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:44pm, a medical issue was the first thing you mentioned in chiding me over my utterly improbable joke scenario of O’Donnell praying on Fox and Friends.
DeleteYou’re not merely a fraud, you’re a vicious one.
It is sweet that Somerby is worried about Lawrence O'Donnell after trashing him for so many years, but there are more important and more interesting things happening today -- even something affecting the media.
ReplyDeleteYastreblansky makes sense of the ongoing scandal about leaked war-plans:
"Indeed, Goldberg's probity is such, along with his undoubted expertise in security matters, that if you were working, say, in the National Security Council, and happened to discover that all the members of the "principals" committee were unqualified fools who made a habit of discussing highly classified subjects with each other on an insecure chat app, and you wanted to tell the world about this extremely dangerous situation without getting into trouble yourself, you could hardly do better than the thing that has actually happened, getting Goldberg an invitation onto the chat at a big early moment in the Trump 2.0 military history, like this attack on Yemen. You'd be confident he'd be as shocked as you were by their recklessness, and anxious to get the facts out, and you'd know he'd do it right, conveying how bad it is without inaccuracy or alarmism, and without revealing any important secrets; he'd probably even drop out of the chat once he was satisfied it was real, so as not to acquire any more sensitive information than he already had. Which is exactly what Goldberg did.
I'm not saying that happened, but if I were one of the 160 NSC career staffers subjected to a loyalty investigation just around the time of the inauguration, ordered to work from home for the time being and likely to be replaced by a "political", in line with the Project 2025 recommendations for Schedule F, I might think of doing something like that.
Meanwhile, it's at least pretty amazingly lucky that it was Goldberg and not more or less anybody else. But we don't know that other less desirable witnesses haven't succeeded in tuning in to these things—real agents from Russia or China or Turkey or Israel, for instance. I'm told that the Signal app, with end-to-end encryption, is as secure as it gets—they can only get your messages if they get your phone with Signal open, or if they can open it with your password—but it's certainly a violation of the rules to use it to chat about ongoing military options and things like that, which you are supposed to do only from inside a SCIF. Also a serious violation of the rules is the disappearing of messages after a set time: these things are legally required to be preserved under federal law."
Hegseth denied that this happened, as did Leavitt (Trump's press secretary). Then they admitted it. This is way worse than anything Hillary was accused of, but it is entirely in keeping with Trump's stolen classified documents which he showed to journalists and random visitors and who knows who else. These guys are not just fuck-ups but also traitors. They need to have consequences, but they won't, because who on the right cares whether our nation succeeds as a foreign power? Not anyone in government, obviously.
That leak was about as accidental as the leak of Israel’s plans to attack Iraq.
DeleteThe whole point of not using an insecure means of communicating is that someone unauthorized might be able to listen in. So, it was stupidity not accident that someone DID gain access to secret stuff, because they shouldn't have been doing what they clearly did. Whoever "leaked" did them all a big favor by shutting off the leak they were too stupid to stop themselves. Blame Wilke and Hegseth because they endangered national security.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteThe people voted for everyone with a smartphone to have access to the countries war plans.
It's all part of Putin's 11th dimensional chess.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:55pm, we don’t know if this was an accident. It’s YET ANOTHER “accident” and it needs to be shaken down like Winona Ryder in Sak’s
DeleteIf you use an insecure means of communicating and someone gains access, it is NOT an accident, because you chose to use that insecure method. It is not a breach of security either (not a leak) because the method was insecure to begin with. The question is not who leaked by adding Goldberg to the call, but how many others had access to the info discussed. They can't know that because the method was insecure and anyone could have hacked into the messages.
DeleteJohn Radcliffe, head of the CIA, testified under oath that Signal Chat had been an approved means of communication during the Biden Admin. Why would Radcliffe or the former head Burns, have let that fly? So yeah, finding out how Goldberg got on that line of communication is ground zero.
DeleteThe policy was aimed at protecting sensitive info, not classified much less highly classified info. It was aimed at people whose regular emails were frequently being hacked, not suggesting it be used for national security communications. Pretending this is the same as what Waltz and Hegseth did is ridiculous.
DeleteSCIF rooms are used to discuss the kind of thing that these guys were passing around in email.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:55pm, Radcliffe says none of the info had been classified. That’s a question as to “why” too and… how did Goldberg get on that group…
DeleteAlso… Signal Chat had been listed by CISA.gov as a “best practice” means of communication for individuals who are likely to be targeted.
Deletehttps://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mobile-communications-best-practices.pdf
As I said earlier, this recommendation was made to get people to stop using regular email, because Signal is encrypted and thus less susceptible to hacking. It was for sensitive info, not for classified info. The National Security staff know this. Signal Chat was for chat, not for discussions of war plans or highly classified material. That occurs in a SCIF, a special secure room:
Delete"A Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), often referred to as a "skiff," is a specially designed and secure area used by the U.S. government to handle and store highly classified information, ensuring its protection from unauthorized access. "
Signal Chat was listed as a preferred means of communication compared to email for discussing non-classified but sensitive things. This appears to be a deliberate effort to confuse the public about what these people did. Biden's administration did not use Signal Chat for classified info, any more than Trump's people should have. Classified info requires special handling. Stop lying about this, Cecelia.
Which is why the participants signaled that they would exit the app to discuss sensitive matters.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:31pm, what am I lying about? All of this was in Radcliffe’s testimony, dolt.
DeleteYou are misrepresenting the purpose of Signal and suggesting Biden’s people discussed classified info using it, the way Trump’s people did. That isn’t what the Radcliffe testimony says. It says they urged Signal to replace email because Signal is encrypted. You don’t talk about classified stuff via any kind of email. Except Trump’s people did.
DeleteGoldberg knows what was said.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:21pm, I said exactly what Radcliffe said in his testimony and even linked to the document that had been linked in the story. I didnt misrepresent anything. That’s what the man (the head of the CIA) said in his sworn testimony. You can add all the context that yiu have or that you can pull out of your butt and you can swear that all of it is gospel. Everyone takes that sort of thing “under advisement… However, that WAS what was said by the head of the CIA during his interview.
DeleteOoh, sworn testimony. Surely Radcliffe would always tell the truth, just like his boss. And if he didn’t, whatcha gonna do? No one in this admin will ever be held accountable for lying, even under “oath.” What part of this do you fail to understand Cecelia?
DeleteThe question is what it means. Say a person uses a blow torch to start someone’s house on fire. Is it an excuse when he says his shop class teacher taught him to use it? Biden didn’t encourage use of Signal to discuss war plans or other classified topics. You are dishonest when you imply Trump’s staff and Biden’s did the same things using Signal. Biddn’s use of Signal is irrelevant.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:47pm, the part where quoting Radcliffe is tantamount to swearing on a Bible for him and the part where your opinion is supposedly down from Mt. Sinai.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:52pm, so you’ve already got all this figured out to the point that it’s a lie to repeat what the CIA director said under oath? You’re a clown.
DeleteIt is a lie to say that Biden’s recommendation excuses what Trump’s staff did, because the situations are not comparable.
DeleteIf the Deep State says it, who is Cecelia, who knows the Republican Party is nothing but a shit pile of bigots, to argue?
DeleteAnonymouse 9:08pm, you’re countering Radcliffe, not me. I’m not at all sure sure either way. I understand that failure to immediately embrace your opinion is always a problem for anonymices, but I don’t care. I want all of it shaken out and said that from the beginning. You don’t need that to happen and you certainly don’t want it.
DeleteYou don't have to tell me, 9:28.
DeleteI was the one trying ascertain the name of the Republican voter who wasn't a bigot, when that false rumor was going around.
Some facts for Cecelia:
Deletehttps://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2025/03/annals-of-intelligence.html?m=1
What difference does it make what Biden's folks did. These guys are fucking dolts, breaking laws, unserious as fuck. Hegesth's stupid drunk denial one for the ages, etc. And at the end of the day they walk. Thing that gets me, not a single question at the Senate hearings on Hegseth's fucked up tattoos. What a sick puppy. Those damn DUI hires aren't worth shit.
DeleteTrump’s CIA Director Blames Biden Team For Allowing Communications On Signal App
DeleteThe party of personal responsibility. They were just doing what Biden told them they were allowed to do, you know Cecelia?
The document, which CBS also reported on Tuesday, explicitly states that “third-party messaging apps” like Signal “are NOT approved to process or store nonpublic unclassified information.”
That language suggests that the ban on using Signal on government mobile devices that existed during the Biden administration remained in effect at the time of the last month’s advisory — suggesting that the entire group chat that included Ratcliffe, Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, top White House aide Stephen Miller and a dozen others — was conducted over their personal cell phones.
Was Biden also the person who told Clarence Thomas he didn't have to report the bribes he was getting as a Supreme Court justice?
Delete"That said, we've lost any sense that those of us in Blue America will ever know how to extricate ourselves from the political holes we've managed to dig. In our view, we've been digging those holes over the course of a great many years."
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of gratuitous knock against the left that Somerby considers mandatory in every essay. What "political holes" have we dug? Somerby never says. In fact, who knows what he is talking about, other than that he is saying something bad about the left?
Somerby has a lot of essay-space at his sole disposal. He could make a list of those holes and show us what he means. But it is easier to just say mean things about the left without having to provide any logic, evidence, examples, explanation, anything except negativity. In this way, Somerby has dug himself a hole every single day for the past several decades, by never saying what he thinks we are doing wrong, except that we deserve whatever happens, because we're just as bad as Gutfeld, or whatever idiocy Somerby is about.
Somerby IS a hole.
DeleteBob hopes d-politicians will be patronizing, centrist smooth talkers again. He is correct they perform smug, tokenizing sass. But then they have to stop pretending they are edgy and in touch with the rabble and have to perform for more than social media edgelord mic drops. And they will have to adjust their views of lived experiences of the south and cities as more complex than stereotypes. Eww!
DeleteUnlike the sass of real Americans, aka non city dwellers.
DeleteRural living is incompatible with Capitalism.
DeleteThen move to a suburb of a big city.
DeleteThe cry babying about the government not caring about them is pathetic.
DeleteThere is a kind of hypocrisy in Somerby whining that O'Donnell is not back on the exact day Somerby expected him to appear, while Somerby himself teases topics for tomorrow or Friday that he never returns to at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat Hegseth & Wilke did is the eqivalent of this scenario by Harold Meyerson (The American Prospect):
ReplyDelete"Appoint a nest of birdbrains to top government posts and see what you get.
Southampton, U.K., Sunday, June 4, 1944, 9:30 p.m. – In a house a few miles from the English Channel, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower meets with top aides to reschedule the impending invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe. The rain pelting down on the house and the Channel has compelled the Allies to postpone the invasion by one day, but weather officers now predict the storm will probably pass by Tuesday, June 6. After tense deliberations, Eisenhower orders the invasion to begin on the 6th.
Aides scurry to alert the officers who will lead the invasion. Two junior aides, Waltz and Hegseth, are supposed to hand-deliver the order to key officials, but rather than risk getting drenched in the downpour, and after a few minutes in which Hegseth peers into a mirror to make sure his jawline looks tough enough, they decide to send the order out to the list by uncoded telegram. And so it goes, to Gen. Bradley, Gen. Ridgway, and sundry others, including one official identified only as JG.
In Berlin, Joseph Goebbels is surprised but pleased to get the message, and immediately passes it on to the Führer and Gen. Rommel."
Yes, this is invented, but it shows the seriousness of what these guys were doing, except our national security was placed at risk by their stupidity, not the outcome of WWII. First you have to care. Second, you have to be less vain, stupid, and lazy and third, you must follow the rules established to protect American secrets.
Thank you President Trump
ReplyDeleteThe White House said Russia and Ukraine have both agreed to "eliminate the use of force" in the Black Sea following talks in Saudi Arabia
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-unveils-black-sea-deal-russia-ukraine-2049953
Nice job, Mark.
DeleteExcellent! Thank you, President Trump.
DeleteI was told there would be peace in Ukraine on day one of trump residency, not temporary cease fire in the Black Sea. So I assume bombardments was of hospitals and day care centers in Kiev will continue until zelensky capitulates. Thanks, President Trump.
DeleteMoscow added significant caveats, at least some of which the United States appeared to agree to while gaining little in return. In a statement, the Kremlin said it would honor the maritime security portion of the deal only after Western countries removed restrictions imposed on Russian agricultural exports after the invasion began in 2022.
DeleteFuck you very much, Dickhead in Cal.
Trump is the greatest international diplomat since Neville Chamberlain.
DeleteWe all just follow the narrative for our side. @8:15 doesn't know what a good deal or bad deal would be, given the situation in Ukraine today. S/he doesn't know what kind of deal (if any) will be reached. But, s/he know in advance that it will be comparable to Neville Chamberlain. Regardless of the deal Trump actually negotiates, her/his media will tell her/him to say this and s/he will obey.
DeleteYou're such a good little mark, 9:11.
DeleteIt's no wonder that the important Republican voters say your type won't replace them.
Neville Chamberlain made a good deal. Too bad Winston Churchill didn’t honor it.
DeleteWow DiC! You are one tough-minded pragmatic thinker! You would never mindlessly slurp up whatever Fox tells you to. You would keep your powder dry until all the facts were in, let the chips fall where they may.
DeleteHa! I kid.
So DiC, did the greatest President in history do Ukraine a solid by shutting down the organization that tracks the children kidnapped by Russia you fascist bastard. And the last cease fire dear leader negotiated lasted about 15 minutes, so maybe hold your fire too.
DeleteI think you finally flipped your lid, Dickhead. You're so fucking eager to rush here to wave some good news you can claim from Trump. You're a nasty piece of shit too, as though President Biden wanted this invasion of the Ukraine. Fuck you.
Deletehttps://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/25/seven-reasons-trumps-entire-national-security-team-should-resign-in-disgrace/
ReplyDeleteThis is worth reading because it discusses the implications of what just took place.
Not David's comment about Ukraine, but the screw-up by Trump's national security staff.
Delete"Remedy Supported by RFK Jr. Leaves Patients More Ill
ReplyDeleteMarch 25, 2025 at 5:09 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary,” the New York Times reports.
“One of those supplements is vitamin A, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted as a near miraculous cure for measles. Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.”
Lawrence is curled up in the fetal position sobbing about Trump ruining his golden years.
ReplyDeleteTrump is ruining everyone’s golden years. Thanks, Republicans.
DeleteOnly because they watch unhinged leftist cable and low-IQ TV shows that cause this particular mental illness.
DeleteIgnorance is bliss, or so they say. That must explain why republicans are so clueless about Trump’s depredations. Right wing media is essentially functioning as North Korean state media.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:21pm, Anonymouse 5:24pm would agree. She thinks that O’Donnell’s health- which would include mental health- is likely the reason he didn’t show up for work on Monday. We should all be concerned about Lawrence and his ability to carry on in his job.
DeleteAt my last physical, my primary care provider said he didn't like how low my TDS levels were.
DeleteHe recommended thinking about how badly the J6 hostages were treated and now my TDS level is stronger than ever!
We should all be concerned, Cecelia? You mean like Bob is?
Delete8:13,
DeleteReverence to rapists is a sign of early on dementia.
We'll be praying for you, because it's nothing but virtue-signaling.
Anonhmouse 8:49pm, Bob is concerned that O’Donnell has been canceled in the way that MSNBC has said adios to several of their former talents. You’re just concerned about impugning everyone who doesn't march in lockstep with you.
DeleteLook at you, Bob whispering again. As if you know what he is thinking. Mindreading.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:40am, as usual, you didn’t actually read Bob’s blog, you scanned it for attack fodder.
DeleteI thought MSDNC was only ditching the Muslims and assorted darkies. A white Irish boy should be fine.
DeleteThese people tried to overthrow the USA because black people's votes counted in a Presidential election. What makes you think they wouldn't gladly give the nation's war plans to our sworn enemies?
ReplyDelete9:25,
DeleteYou'd do it too, if you were a Republican President, and Russia was blackmailing you with a video of you being nice to a black child.
There's a common sense solution to the problem of more children being killed by a parent, than by immigrants.
ReplyDeleteTrump will have met all of his marks, once he personally meets every Republican voter.
ReplyDeleteI love Cecelia.
ReplyDeleteShe's breaking my heart.
DeleteEntitlement Joke: The village milkman gives the town beggar a kopeck. The beggar says, “One kopeck? Last week you gave me two kopeks.” He replies that he had a bad week to which the beggar retorts, “So, if you had a bad week, why should I suffer?”
ReplyDeleteSoap opera: A young man gives his sister in college $500 each month. One month he finds out that she has dropped out of school, so he gives her $300. She screams , “You have taken $200 away from me. I demand to at you give me the $200 that you owe me!”
Not so funny (hypothetical numbers): Working Americans donate $200 billion to various foreign charities via USAID, much more than any other country donates. The charities complain, “last year you gave us $300 billion. You have taken $100 billion away from us! You’re stealing $100 billion of our money. You’re killing people.”
An actuary is a parasite.
DeleteAnother not funny joke, Dickhead in Cal.
DeleteIt only took King Orange Chickenshit a couple months to fuck up a system that has been running smoothly for 100 years.
Don't understand why the following was excised from my comment above.
DeleteThe Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones in place of receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. Amid all this, the agency no longer has a system to monitor customer experience because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors, and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining the already struggling organization’s ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.
(Hypothetical numbers). So you want to make a point about spending at USAID but you are too lazy to know the numbers.
DeleteWhen Trump's press secretary promoted the dissolution of USAID she cited four spending examples. Fact check.org found that three of the four did not receive funding from USAID. This is a clown show but one whose "mistakes" always comport with their agenda.
DeleteWhere on earth did you come up with those fake numbers DiC? A five second Google search shows total 2024 USAID expenditures was less than $80B. Just another Nazi jaggoff.
DeleteMake Anyone With a Text App a National Security Advisor Again.
ReplyDelete