I've highlighted the Crash Course YouTube series before, and if you haven't had a chance to watch them, I highly recommend it.
I love what John Green has done with this series: looking at US history with a clear eye, absent ideological filters or political horse race overlays. Contrast that to what is laughably called our Beltway media. One sought to inform in an entertaining way and one was just another episode of narcissistic navel-gazing where politics is paramount.
I'll let you guess which one of the two we'll get more of this Sunday:
ABC's "This Week" - Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Roundtable: Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., CNN “Crossfire” co-host S.E. Cupp, former Obama White House senior adviser and ABC News contributor David Plouffe, and ABC News senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny.
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio.; Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia. Roundtable: NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, New York Times Columnist David Brooks, Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne, Chief Executive Officer for Heritage Action for America Mike Needham, and Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Mona Sutphen.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. Panel: Michele Norris of NPR, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times, as well as CBS News State Department correspondent Margaret Brennan and CBS News political director John Dickerson.
MSNBC's "UP with Steve Kornacki" - Pre-empted for Olympics coverage.
MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" - Mark Alexander, Law Professor at Seton Hall University / Former Senior Advisor to Barack Obama; Bob Kincaid, Co-Founder of the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Campaign; Heather Haddon, The Wall Street Journal; Tara Dowdell, Democratic Strategist; Nikki Silvestri, Executive Director of Green for All; Diane Brady, Bloomberg Businessweek; Lauren Young, Money Editor at Reuters; Jeremy Richardson, Senior Energy Analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Staci Berger, President and CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ; David Sedlak, Author of “Water 4.0: The Past, Present and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource” / Co-Director of the Berkeley Water Center/ Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley.
MSNBC's "Disrupt with Karen Finney" - Jonathan Alter, MSNBC Political Analyst; Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, MSNBC Contributor; Jared Bernstein, MSNBC Contributor; Steven Dettelbach, U.S. attorney; Andre Johnson, President & CEO, Detroit Recovery Project.
CNN's "State of the Union" - Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, diplomat Nicholas Burns, and Russian expert Dimitri Simes. Panel: CNN Contributors Cornell Belcher, Ana Navarro, and A.B. Stoddard, Associate Editor for The Hill newspaper.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia; Ruchir Sharma, managing director and head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley; Yale professor and ‘Tiger Mom’ Amy Chua; Erik Brynjolfsson, professor of management at MIT's Sloan School, and Andrew McAfee, a scientist at the MIT Center for Digital Business.
"Fox News Sunday" - Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo. Panel: George Will, Julie Pace, Laura Ingraham, Juan Williams.
If the above list strikes you as the same old, same old white male conservatives speaking on behalf of the 1 percent, you have a point. If you'd like to make your voice heard on it, please join me in signing Karoli's CREDO petition asking to see some more diversity--gender, socio-economic and racial--on the Sunday shows.
And then tell me, what's catching your eye this morning?
