I’m camped out in my yard watching a grill and anticipating some company. Thought I’d see what was on TV:
Netanyahu lecturing us about what’s good for us. As a BFF, you understand.
Then Mittens:
He was saying Obama should have listened to the Republicans and stayed in Iraq. He warned that thanks to Obummer, we’re going to probably need ground troops to settle ISIS’s hash. I’m sure Tagg, Lagg, Bagg, Ragg and Mittlet are at the recruiting office right now signing up for our next glorious Middle East adventure.
I changed channels:
Ah. Much better!
Open thread.
ETA: In college football news, Florida finally shit-canned Muschamp. About damn time. Now, the AD needs to find someone with successful head coaching experience to replace him. Head coach of the Florida Gators is not an entry level job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Willard and his good friend Bibi. Were they balanced by Bob Menendez or Michael O’Hanlon or Leon Panetta to give us the Democratic bomber caucus POV? And then a stellar panel featuring Condi Rice and Bob Woodward? I gave up on all the SUnday shows years ago, but from recaps it always seems like CBS packs twice as many bullshitters in to their half hour sack as the longer shows.
CBS News, Sheryl Atkinson’s bleatings aside, seems to have taken a hard turn right in recent years.
Comrade Dread
We are so fucked as a culture/society/nation.
On a related note, it turns out it’s not too early to start drinking in the morning, provided you drink bloody marys or mimosas.
Gene108
I am sure our media talking head never pointed out to Netenyahu that Bush, Jr. signed off in a status of forces agreement, with the sovereign nation of Iraq, who requested us to get the fuck out.
EDIT: I think if the Reps get the White House, in 2016, we will invade Syria. For all intents and purposes the neo-cons are the Republican foreign policy arm. They wanted to invade Syria, ten years ago, but bowed to political pressure to not push for it. I think we will be back there in greater numbers, and Americans will be glad for it, because we are no longer looking weak against ISIS and Islamo -fascists.
d58826
The wit and wisdom of the third photo outshines that of the first two. You realize of course that if Mittens had won in 2012 he would just be keeping the seat (and not necessarily the one in the Oval Office) warm at 1600 Pa. Ave for our real leader – BIBI!!!!!!!
Suffern ACE
I agree. We’ve got to fight them over there before we end up having to fight them over there. Over and over again.
Frankensteinbeck
Aside from FOX, I have never before suspected the networks of deliberately trying to sink the Democratic party and ensure Republican election. I figured they were just inherently Republican in their beliefs, so it kinda worked out that way. Then, in the last month before the election, I watched the media blanketed by two memes, ISIS and especially ebola. Nothing else was news. It was nonstop ISIS and ebola. I watched the deluge of stupidity depress Democratic voters who’d been previously furious and ready to vote. I watched previously depressed Republican voters go into a frenzy of racist terror and hate. I saw this all myself, in what people talked about and the way they talked about it, and the polls and the election reflected those observations. Now that the election is over, the news has other things to talk about, amazingly – although a big chunk of it seems to be ‘neener neener we told you Democrats are weak’.
debbie
@Gene108:
Well, Obama did choose not to overlook the possibility that soldiers might be put at risk of prosecution if he kept them there. Unlike the GOP, who thought providing body armor was too piddling.
Gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They did hire an ex-Fox News
acolytecultistperson to run their news division.Gene108
@debbie:
Yeah, but the SOFA agreement that arranged that was done by Bush, Jr.
Obama was just honoring an agreement that was already in place.
Tehanu
Betty, that’s worthy of TBogg’s old “America’s Worst Mother” stuff! Thanks!
skerry
A Republican won my county’s executive seat in Maryland. As his first action in office, he has announced that he will restore soda machines to all county buildings, including schools. Parents’ groups (including PTAs) and medical associations fought to have the soda machines removed to help fight childhood obesity.
Freedom
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gene108: and my recollection is that Obama for better or worse wanted to leave that residual force in, but Maliki for his own political reasons wouldn’t budge on the jurisdictional question. One of the most offensive things about Leon Panetta’s backstabbing was his airy dismissal of that whole question as something that just would have worked itself out.
In other news, I see Al Franken has ‘blasted’ Ted Cruz on Net Neutrality. I wish it were on an issue that had greater resonance, but I wonder if now that he’s been reelected, Franken isn’t going to become a little more outspoken.
Ultraviolet Thunder
As long as there’s profit in wars, there will be war. All those taxpayer bucks just waiting to be spent are just too tempting.
Debbie
@Gene108:
I’m agreeing with you. Bush signed it, but I doubt he ever considered any risk of prosecution. Obama took personal responsibility for the soldiers’ safety.
Bobby B.
“The Bobblespeak Translatrions” is a good blog for shredding the news shows, though it’s appearances are pretty spotty.
http://moonshinepatriot.blogspot.com/
Tenar Darell
@debbie: That’s what drives me crazy about this whole argument about “keeping our troops” in Iraq. We did not have an agreement or permission to keep our troops there, and that was on Bush & Co.! Why isn’t every conversation prefaced by this? Because it serves the feckin’ “narrative” to never remind people of this fact. Grrr! (Makes me soo mad; it’s why I never watch teh Sunday Showz anymore. Who wants to spend Sunday morning yelling at the idiot box and all the idiots in it?)
danielx
What, no Newt Gingrich or David Brooks? They on vacation or something?
Tenar Darell
@Debbie: Just in case, I’m not yelling at your comment but at the stupidity of the Sunday trope spouters. Should have said that in my comment. Drat this lack of emotional nuance!
trollhattan
Lucky–you get color bars!
danielx
Also too, it’s 32 degrees and we are expecting snow in the amount of 1-2″ tonight. No big deal, it’s just that it’s too early for this shit. Plus I don’t have the storm windows up on the back porch, haven’t changed the oil in the snowblower, haven’t emptied the gas out of the lawn mower, haven’t taken down the wind chimes….I really haven’t done shit to get ready for winter, and it’s fucking here, about three weeks early.
dance around in your bones
JPL said something this morning about watching to see if John McCain (did you know he was a war vet?) would be on TV, and I said “WHY!!?? WHY??!! Who needs the aggravation??!!”
I get my blood pressure elevated enough by just reading about stuff on BJ – I’d prolly stroke out if I actually watched news.
I skim the headlines, get depressed, and then start listening to Leonard Cohen or somebody. ((SMILE))
Debbie
@Tenar Darell:
Hey, I stopped watching too. Seeing Bibi would have made my head explode.
ruemara
Screw that. Catching up with Star Wars: Rebels. And, YES!-fixed that hand grip problems and the prop parenting spacing issue. 9:19 am and not bad at all.
Gator90
Well Betty, looks like UF finally pulled the trigger on Muschamp. About damn time. Cheers me up after yesterday’s debacles in Gainesville and Miami. I wonder who will replace him.
MattF
@danielx: Noot was recently spotted in Bethesda MD selling his book and then going out to shop. Brooks, having relocated out of Bethesda MD, is presumed missing and unaccounted for.
d58826
@Debbie: Speaking of Bibbi. I’m just finishing up a book by Max Blumenthal entitled Goliath. Blumenthal spent several years (2009-2012) traveling and living in Israel. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the book/movie Exodus is the biggest pack of lies since Gone with the Wind. Israel was founded on the ethnic cleaning of the Arab population either thru forced expulsion or just plain mass murder. Every one of the founding generation from Ben Gurion to Rabin have Arab blood on their hands, lots of it. The younger generation is just as guilty.
The Shin Bet operates pretty much like the Soviet KGB (no wonder Bibi likes Putin) or the Gestapo. As far as the treatment of the Israeli-Arab citizens, Jim Crow would feel right at home. There are laws on the books that allow for segregated communities. They have a neat little gimmick whereby they drive a Palestinian family from their home, wait three months and then declare it abandoned property. The government then gives it to a Jewish family.
The rabbi’s who make up the rabbinic council are quite conformable with the idea of genocide against the Palestinians. The only difference between some of their comments and the comments of the Iranian ayatollahs is the religion of the victims.
It is open season on Palestinians on the west bank. They are shot, their crops burned and their mosques vandalized. The Shin Bet and the local cops that are so good at sniffing out ARAB terrorism seems totally incapable of finding the Jewish perpetrators of these crimes. The only thing missing are the KKK’s white robes. It may not be full on South African apartheid but it is getting close.
This is what our 3 billion dollars a year in aid supports. It will never change as long as Bibbi can come an give a speech at the western branch of the Knesset (which some jokingly call the US Congress) in which the members cheer as he denigrates the President. The American media will ignore all of this but listen to the howls if Hamas launches a rocket that blows up some dirt in an empty field.
elftx
Betty you missed where Schaefer (sp?) went on to ask the pundit panel if McCain should run for prez. It’s entertainment!
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: SIgh.
Yes. We need more people to figure this stuff out.
Which will happen.
Eventually.
Just recently, I scored a triumph at home when Mr WereBear (he’s an old DC hand) is now cutting down our cable bill to Internet and the bare minimum of channels in exchange for a cell phone instead of a landline (Grandma, who literally wouldn’t call “long distance” to save her life, passed away,) and Netflix and Amazon Prime instead of 60 channels of Honey Boo Boo and Hillbilly Handfishing,
Brave New World.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:CBS News, Sheryl Atkinson’s bleatings includedfixed.
PIGL
On a lighter note, Betty, do you know all the words to every Tanya Tucker song?
Debbie
@d58826:
That it would get to this point leads me beyond despair. That most of my family supports Israel without question just pisses the hell out of me.
burnspbesq
CrimiNoles pulled another one out of their hindquarters, so the hiccup against VaTech is less damaging than it might have been. If Duke wins their last two, they go to Charlotte for the second year in a row.
Dont even think about Cut, Betty. Not even for one second. It is a measure of how far Florida has fallen that Duke is a better job.
Mike in NC
Who could ever forget when Rmoney bleated that his five young bucks were doing their patriotic duty by trying to get him elected? Entitled assholes.
d58826
@Mike in NC: no they are all just plain garden variery assholes.
d58826
@Debbie: Over the years I had learned about some of this but it was truly depressing to see the depth of the racism and how it permeates every aspect of Israeli society. Even the supposed liberals go along with much of it. It’s not just a few bad apples, rather the entire orchard is rotten to the core.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sweet Jesus. Is there some kind of dementia unique to Beltway types?
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
Most of the time the difference doesn’t matter, but they did the absolute most effective thing they could have done to help the GOP in the election. The only reason I merely suspect is because I’ve seen few or no signs up until now that they know what they’re doing in manipulating the public. The national news media does a terrible job at controlling how people interpret the news, but they do have the power to control what’s talked about. I’ve never seen signs until now that they grasped this, thanks to how far their head is up their own asses.
Felonius Monk
Sorry, Betty. Urban is not available.
Gator90
@burnspbesq: UF could easily double Cutcliffe’s salary while providing resources and a recruiting base to realistically compete for national championships. Which is not to say he would or should leave Duke (it depends on what his priorities are), but to imagine that Duke is a “better job” from a football perspective is not tenable.
raven
GO DAWGS!!!!
Fred
@Frankensteinbeck: Let’s face it, GOPers make better TV. They are all emotion and screw the hairy details.
Democrats go on and on about policy details and the pros and cons of the blah, blah… And they’re such goody two-shoes. And Howard Dean screamed while Al Gore pretended to invent the Inernets.
Republicans rant and rave with simple solutions to their pet peeves. Bomb ’em, jail ’em, starve the beast and the Libruls are Satan’s spawn. It’s sooooo sexy and the rubes get way excited and buy more sponsor’s products on their credit cards.
And yeah, GOPers are a corporate person’s bestest friend so the networks like ’em a bunch.
burnspbesq
@Gator90:
By the time the Wally Wade renovation is complete in 2017, Duke will have spent over $200 million on facility upgrades during Cut’s tenure.
There’s a famous (among Duke fans) Cut quote that says it all in terms of any possibility that he would ever go back to the SEC. Something about getting on the bus for his first road game as Duke coach and seeing that every player had textbooks and a laptop with him. Said he’d been in the SEC for 25 years, and had never seen anything like that.
Cut and Duke are a perfect match.
Florida’s best hope is to grab a hot young head coach from the AAC or MAC.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m looking at your yard. It snowed here last night.
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: who’s a consistent Top 25 team, Florida or Duke?
Gator90
@burnspbesq: Define “consistent.” I would say Florida has been a consistent top 25 team since the early 80s.
Daniel'sBob
When the #1 priority of the “News” is to earn a profit for the parent company, I guess it’s naive of me to expect it to be like the news I used to know.
Keith
@burnspbesq:
A – Florida. Duke’s rankings have been sub-par in football for well, most years since AP was in existence.
Of course, Ohio State still rides high atop that AP index, now with Urban’s help.
rk
@skerry:
People get what they vote (or don’t bother to vote) for.
dmbeaster
@Gene108: Not so much honoring it, but trying to renegotiate it and leaving in compliance only after that effort was unsuccessful. So much GOP and media lying on this subject.
dmbeaster
@d58826: The Israeli settler movement represents the true founding spirit of Israel. Israeli historians who acknowledge the ethnic cleansing also forgive it as essential for the founding of Israel. That spirit still infects the state even though no longer necessary. Amazingly, most Arabs are more reconciled with the creation of Israel than Israel is with Palestinians
Tree With Water
I tuned out “TV journalism” many, many years ago. People can read the handouts of corporate PR departments and stay as well informed. Corporate barkers all, whose vested interests are, more often than not, at odds with my own.
redshirt
You have outdoor TV?!
Wow.
another Holocene human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It has a lot of resonance among young, educaTed persuadable voters, the same ones Rand Paul has been pitching to and Dems badly need to make a stronger play for. (We’re not Republicans is not enough. That demo knows the GOP sucks but thinks libertarianism looks appealing. )
Culture of Truth
@Bobby B.: Hi, thanks! I took a break during election season, but I’m back now!
mclaren
Everyone ought to read the Washington Post’s 6-part series on police abuse of asset forfeiture laws.
Latest revelation?
Journalist’s investigation reveals that “D.C. police plan for future seizure proceeds years in advance in city budget documents.”
Source: Washington Post, op. cit.
Every police department in the country is turning into Ferguson Missouri. Muggers with badges, thieves with nightsticks and prowl cars.
grascarp
Sample photos of our November Southwest Florida lifestyle could shatter the expectations of northern observers. That backyard seems like a great way to buffer the muck presented on the Sunday morning political shows.