I know I'm going out on a limb here, but this may be the stupidest attempt ever by a pol to glom on to a pop trend: https://t.co/zKmvQJfIIo
— Billmon (@billmon1) May 18, 2015
#MadMen finale – a reminder 20th Century was great, but it's over & it isn't coming back. It's time for New American Century. #TheEndOfAnEra
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 18, 2015
The twitter feed for #WacoThugs is… interesting. And, to a degree, morbidly entertaining. Although not as entertaining as the NYTimes’ fascination with the scene of the shootout:
… On Sunday, at least 12 Waco police officers, as well as officers with the state’s top law enforcement agency, the Texas Department of Public Safety, worked to secure the area before the shootout started because officials “expected issues,” Sergeant Swanton said.
“Apparently, the management wanted them here,” he said, “so we didn’t have any say-so on whether they could be here or not.”
Twin Peaks is a national restaurant chain with several Texas locations. The restaurant in Waco opened last year, and company officials told a local newspaper that it would employ 150 people and be able to accommodate more than 350. In an announcement about the restaurant’s opening, Twin Peaks promoted the location as the “ultimate man-cave,” with at least 55 flat-screen televisions and 24 types of beer. As recently as last week, the restaurant advertised “Bike Night” on Thursdays and promised “beers, bites and bikes at the hottest place in town!”
In a statement, a spokesman for the Twin Peaks Restaurant chain emphasized that the shooting had occurred outside the restaurant.
“We were shocked by the shootings that took place in the parking lot of our franchised restaurant in Waco and are fully reviewing all the circumstances surrounding it,” the spokesman, Rick Van Warner, said. “We are thankful no employees, guests or police were injured in this senseless violence outside the restaurant, and our sympathies are with the families of those killed.”
Later, in a phone interview, Mr. Van Warner said the company was “seriously considering revoking the franchise based on this situation.” He added: “If any of those allegations are true that there was ample warning to potentially prevent something of this nature, then there is no way we would allow someone to continue operating under our own brand.”
Jay Patel, operating partner of the Waco franchise, issued a statement Sunday night defending the restaurant’s dealings with the police and saying that the managers “share in the community’s trauma.”
“Our priority is to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for our customers and employees, and we consider the police our partners in doing so,” Mr. Patel’s statement read. “Our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police and we will continue to work with them as we all want to keep violent crime out of our businesses and community.”…
Why do I get the feeling that Mr. Patel is the spiritual brother of C.M.O.T. Dibbler?
Apart from the usual mayhem and the ritual media deploring thereof, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Amir Khalid
I am disappointed to learn that David Lynch has nothing to do with the Twin Peaks Restaurant.
NotMax
Twin Peaks was chosen because the name Hooters was already taken?
Karmus
If things really go bad they can always reboot as BigUnz and just keep on rocking.
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid: But do they have really great pie?
Aleta
Mr. Van Warner said the company was “seriously considering revoking the franchise based on this situation”
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: In Texas, “rudely displaying a weapon” is called “open carry”.
Botsplainer
It sounded to me to be a 1% summit gone bad. The first I heard it, I instinctively knew that there would be Bandidos in the mix (they’re some filthy motherfuckers), and have seen a shitload of Cossack colors in the photos. Trying to figure out who the third group is.
Aleta
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, I thought it was aiming your rifle while belching in the presence of an unmarried woman.
Anne Laurie
@Botsplainer:
Scimitars, in some news pics. Early reports said ‘five gangs’, though.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
I immediately thought of that Simpsons character who is always shooting his guns into the air/ceiling.
They are supposed to post a new job for me this week. In one way I am looking forward to it. A little (very little) more money but I get away from my boss who is a hot mess despite everyones efforts to help him. The down side is I like what I am doing & have really has done a lot to make things better despite all the obstacles.
Botsplainer
@Anne Laurie:
Did spot one Scimitar cut; they’re Cossack aligned. I thought Bandidos were, too.
Over at Heavy.com, they report that Veterans, Los Pirados and Leather-something cuts were visible in some photos.
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: Hmmmm… interesting thought. I was just thinking that it wasn’t possible to “rudely display a weapon” in Texas. Wonder what farting might add to the picture? It certainly wouldn’t add anything to the “southern chivalry” Texas men are so fond of displaying.
MomSense
I’m assuming Waco will have curfews and riot police and single mother/absent father blaming any minute now.
MomSense
@MomSense:
Oh I forgot the music those thugs listen to.
danielx
Got a Twin Peaks three miles or so from where I live, also located in proximity to an interstate. Kind of like a little more upscale Hooters, from what I understand, which makes its attraction to bikers totally understandable. I’m sure the servers make major tip bucks, but I wouldn’t want to be one.
Aleta
@OzarkHillbilly: That would be
or
depending on the judge.
EconWatcher
Is it just me, or does it seem weird that Fox News is pushing the Republican candidates on this “was Iraq a mistake” question?
I know there must be some angle, but it has the outward appearance of actual journalism. And it seems unhelpful to the candidates in particular and the Republican Party in general.
NotMax
@EconWatcher
Hoping it will winnow the field before the first televised “debate?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: Hmmmmm. Well I know more than my share of Texans and I know they would be shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that such behavior was considered “unacceptable” in a place of business, especially one which served alcohol.
MomSense
@EconWatcher:
Maybe they were trying to knock Jeb down a notch or two but the Republicans don’t know how they feel about (where the base stands) Iraq yet?
I really don’t know what is going on but I’ve never been able to watch more than 15 seconds of Fox.
Amir Khalid
@EconWatcher:
It could be that Fox is trying to help out with testing the Republican candidates. But if so, they probably didn’t intend for ¡Jeb! to flub the question too.
OzarkHillbilly
@EconWatcher: I can only surmise that even FOX has limits on the lies they will push.
Sherparick
@NotMax: Bingo! Apparently these guys must thought the Obama Black Helicopters had arrived. Looking forward to David Brooks column about the decline of the white family and the white cultural values in Texas, although. Although perhaps it is “conservative” and a return to the old values of John Wesley Hardin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Hardin
Kathleen
@Sherparick: Also, too, epidemic of “white on white” crime.
A Today chyron referred to this as a “biker gang clash”.
Kay
I don’t know why the administration felt they had to preemptively discredit this as an issue to debate in Congress:
If proponents of the deal get to talk about “650,000” US jobs or “millions” of US jobs as the upside, which is….questionable under the most generous interpretation, why can’t we also talk about the possible downside?
EconWatcher
@Amir Khalid:
I thought of this explanation.
But it seems unlikely that Hillary would make the folly of Iraq a sigificant part of her campaign, given her own vote and the fact that anything more than five years ago is pretty much like Peloponnesian history to us ‘mericans. Heck, since 2003 is faded in the mists of primordial time, I think they could just about get away with saying both parties are equally responsible, especially with Hillary instead of Obama on the ticket. So I’m not sure they’d think such testing is really necessary.
Also too, to this day, I don’t think the Fox News types have ever conceded that Vietnam was a mistake. Stabbed in the back by liberals, one hand tied behind our back, etc. But never a mistake.
But for some reason, Fox seems to want to push a general admission by the Republican Party that Iraq was a mistake. Why?
Botsplainer
@EconWatcher:
In this instance, I see Fox News as Otter in Animal House – happily grinning while saying “you fucked up; you trusted us!”
Amir Khalid
@EconWatcher:
Because they’re aware that the party line (that the invasion was right) is at odds with the public consensus (that it was a mistake) and likely to cost votes?
danielx
Obama administration plans to prohibit federal agencies from providing to local cops certain kinds of military equipment…..
About fucking time, but from what I read it still wouldn’t stop federal agencies from giving away rifles, like the AR15 derivatives that virtually every cop at the scene in Waco was carrying.
Aleta
@OzarkHillbilly: You see, that’s how the whole mishap got started. An innocent attempt by Twin Peaks Waco to bring gentility to the town by inviting the bikers to a sit down tasting of their 24 craft beers and comfort food.
debbie
Why has Rubio named his “doctrine” practically the same as Bill Kristol’s “Project for the New American Century”? Are there still people who thought that little project was a good idea?
satby
Not doing politics today, it’s the 60th anniversary of my birth and I intend to enjoy peace and quiet!
EconWatcher
@Amir Khalid:
Could be. Maybe Roger Ailes thinks the Party needs some kind of 12-step style “intervention” to save it from itself on the Iraq issue. I can’t think of anything else.
But you have to admit, this all seems very out of character for our Fox Friends.
JPL
@satby: Happy Day!
debbie
@satby:
Happy birthday!
Baud
@satby:
Why wouldn’t you want to do politics on your birthday??? :-P
Happy 60th!
Kay
No debating trade deals, Democrats! All trade deals are by definition “not a close call”:
This from a newspaper editorial board who believe the opposition to the trade deal is about “manufacturing jobs” which means they have no idea what either the deal is about or the opposition to the deal is about. They’re not even right about where the unionized jobs are- their belief that labor unions = men working on an auto assembly line is not true and hasn’t been true for at least a decade.
ThresherK
@NotMax: Plus Grand Tetons as well.
satby
Thanks guys!
ThresherK
@satby: Happy b’day!
(Wow. Being around me is hardly ever referred to as “peace and quiet”.)
Elizabelle
I’d like to see the TPP deal fall. Too much not disclosed; too far-reaching, and I don’t trust the corporate types that created it.
Loyalty to shareholders does not trump loyalty to US citizens. Those groups’ interests are not the same, no matter how much people (including, sadly, Obama) try to conflate them.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Yes.
Elizabelle
@satby: Good to hear. Enjoy, with the pets.
Elizabelle
I thought Mad Men’s second to last episode was greatly superb to the last, which seemed to have a lot of empty space in it. Not so thrilled with the grand finale.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Satby,
Happy Birthday to you.
And buttscratchin’s too.
Oooooopps, my bad, that last part is what I sing for my dog, Sorry ’bout that.
satby
@ThresherK: @Elizabelle: Thanks!
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL
Vtr
I sometimes offer maybe a half an ounce of forgiveness for some in Congress who voted in favor of the war: Could anyone in his worst nightmare have imagined that the political and military leadership of the United States could have prosecuted this war with such complete incompetence? From June, 2003 onward, it seemed as though they were trying to lose that war.
danielx
@debbie:
That would be a large yes, with Bloody Bill and Dick Cheney being chief among them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Vtr:
It didn’t take much imagination to see it coming. I saw it plain as day and almost got into a fight with a Marine the day Bush announced it.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I;m sick of the lock-step chorus on free trade and I’m sick of them painting anyone who questions this as “loyal” to labor unions. Why can’t we apply that to both sides? If one side is “loyal” to labor unions is the other side “loyal” to corporations?
The Washington Post has decided to portray anyone who won’t rubberstamp this as a “hard-liner” even though that “fringe” group incudes the majority of Democrats in Congress. They’re deliberately marginalizing opposition to this BEFORE the promised “debate” begins. The truth is they want to control the debate to minimize any political damage to those who support this in Congress because there are plenty of GOP districts and states where this is unpopular.
danielx
@Kay:
Where and when corporate interests are involved, the Post can generally be counted upon to leap to their defense.
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: All I rememeber is the relentless hyping of the approval for invasion, poll numbers frontpaged on all the newspapers every day as if were the final score of the Super Bowl, for what seemed like weeks on end.
I thought “This will hit escape velocity, i.e. 50% +1, and then the spit will hit the fan”.
I didn’t have to worry about anyone’s approval, let alone the Freedom Fryers. Never been a congresscritter; never had to have a staffer tell people they were wrong. It’s like anyone with a public profile who wanted to ask any questions about the bullflop going down had to be Jefferson Fucking Smith.
OzarkHillbilly
In a widely-reported study of orchestrated deception, the Center found that President Bush and seven top officials made 935 false statements leading up to the Iraq war — and offer them in a database for all to see.
Handy dandy link to refer all your RMNJ friends and relatives to.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Until you read the first comment. Sigh.
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK: I get really ticked off every time I hear a politician say, “Who coulda knowed?” when the people who knew better were legion and screaming at the top of their lungs “STOP!!!!” But nobody would listen. Makes me want to ask them, “What do you think I am? Some kind of genius? Cause I’m sure as hell smarter than you!”
Steeplejack
@EconWatcher:
It feels like an early attempt to inoculate the presumptive (or Fox-desired) nominee—¡Jeb!—from his brother Dubya’s cooties. A touch of cowpox now is better than smallpox later. And if all the other Republican challengers have to take a dose too, it prevents them from using Iraq as a stick with which to beat ¡Jeb! The thought may have finally penetrated the Fox-o-sphere that invading Iraq was not a great idea—or is no longer considered such by the public at large.
ETA: Or maybe it’s an attempt to inoculate all the Republican wannabes. When the real campaign heats up next year the line will be: “This is old news, everybody admits mistakes were made, let’s move on.”
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I never read the comments. It’s too depressing.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, this.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Happy birthday! Many happy returns, etc.
Nancy
@MomSense: Un, huh. Exactly. Because it’s never about race, as the esteemed Charles Pierce might say, and equal justice absolutely prevails.
Great comment, so sad that it’s so true.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Yup. “Innoculate” is exactly what Fox GOP propaganda arm is going for. Although Iraq is not the worst of voters’ concerns about the Republican radicals.
Paul Krugman blogpost, Blinkers and Lies:
and on (re)writing history, he concludes:
PurpleGirl
@satby: Happy, Happy Birthday. Taking the day off from politics sounds good. Enjoy yourself!!!!!
Geeno
Forget it, Jake. It’s Texas.
D58826
Re:Waco – thank goodness it was good old fashion patriotic murkins doing the shooting. why if it had been moooooooslims. Pam Geller and Frank Gaffney would be in ICU on permanent life support.
Patrick
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same here. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery to figure out it was an idiotic idea before the war started. When Hans Blix practically begged Bush/Cheney to share with him and the other UN weapons inspectors as to where US intelligence thought the WMD’s were, there was complete silence from Bush/Cheney. How that wasn’t enough for all the people in Congress that voted for this idiotic war is beyond me.
Steeplejack
@D58826:
I will be interested to find out how many of the dead and wounded were shot by the cops, as opposed to the battling bike gangs. That the cops “returned fire” was a minor detail way down in the story I read earlier this morning.
Kay
@danielx:
The best part about it is they don’t know what it’s in it.
Members of Congress have had an opportunity to see it. The media cheering squad are promoting a specific deal that they have not even reviewed.
Gosh, I hope those negotiators did a good job since 99.99% of the people supporting it haven’t read it.
Aleta
@EconWatcher: Perhaps whoever calls the shots at fox is opposed to Jeb? Opposed to his position on immigration?
If they are thinking more about the campaign they will run against the Democrat, they’d be less able to use xenophobia if Jeb is the candidate. And because Jeb is tied to W, it would weaken any attack against Hillary for her ties to Bill Clinton or against another Democrat for ties to Obama. (They want to run someone who represents “a new future.”)
Maybe they want Romney to come in, but he won’t unless Jeb doesn’t run?
MomSense
@satby:
Happy birthday!
Elizabelle
Krugman distilled his blogpost into a barnburner of a column today: Errors and Lies.
And never mind Jeb!’s foreign-policy team, since it’s not likely he will ever need one.
The poobahs who concocted, massaged and/or fell for the lying into an unnecessary war are still Very Serious People accorded Very Serious Respect today. By Charlie Rose and the rest of the gilded. When we’d be better for them being swept away.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Do you think the TPP will pass? I’m rather hoping it fails, and any new negotiations are done with transparency and less hubris.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
International negotiations will never be done with transparency, and we shouldn’t want that. Can you imagine of Obama had to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal in public?
The better argument is over whether Congress should approve fast track before TPP negotiations are complete.
debbie
@Kay:
I wonder how long it’s been since anything’s been reviewed before being voted on. This was the complaint about ACA, Patriot Act, etc. They’re all grifters at this point.
Aleta
@EconWatcher: @Aleta:
That is to say, it’s the very question that will (has) put Jeb in a tough spot in particular, and perhaps their intent is to injure him before he declares.
rikyrah
I disagree. They don’t want to govern this country. And, they like their constituency stupid.
……………..
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/how-fox-news-is-hurting-the-republicans/393485/
How Fox News Is (Still) Hurting the Republicans
“There is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these [factual] questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.” A political scientist on what Roger Ailes has wrought, including the problems he is creating for his own GOP.
James Fallows
May 17, 2015
Let me recommend for your weekend reading, or for your weekday reading if you’re seeing it then, a detailed study by Bruce Bartlett called “How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics.” You can download the 18-page PDF from this site of the Social Science Research Network.
The idea that Fox News operates with different aims and by different norms from those of, say, the BBC is familiar. But this presentation is notable for two reasons.
The first is its source — for those who don’t know, Barlett is a veteran of the Reagan and Bush-41 administrations and was an influential early proponent of supply-side / tax-cut economics. He also worked for Ron Paul. Since then he’s harshly criticized the Bush-43 administration, but in no sense does he come at this as a Democratic party operative.
The second and more important reason is Bartlett’s accumulation of detail showing (a) that Fox’s core viewers are factually worse-informed than people who follow other sources, and even those who don’t follow news at all, and (b) that the mode of perpetual outrage that is Fox’s goal and effect has become a serious problem for the Republican party, in that it pushes its candidates to sound always-outraged themselves.
Howard Beale IV
BREAKING: Yes, Huckleberry Closetcase plans to enter the clown car June 1st.
D58826
Totally OT but the GOP has just announced that they are replacing the clown car with a mini-bus. Lindsey has announced he is running and Kaisch in Ohio is hinting he will do the same.
I registered as a republican back in days of Ike and Bill Scranton of Pa. I wonder if I can throw my baseball cap in the ring. Of course would have to reconvert to a republican I guess :-) (sigh)
Southern Beale
Hey check it out, a Tennessee Tea Party wackaloon who tried (and failed) to run for Congress was just arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on a community of Muslims in New York state. Slow clap, Tennessee conservatives.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie:
The complaint about the ACA was it was too big and they weren’t given enough time to read the whole thing. I thought I recalled they knew exactly what was in the Patriot Act, but we didn’t?
rikyrah
When it comes to the Mad Men Series Finale, I have to say, I’m happy with the way it ended. No disappointment for me.
lol
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Whocoodanode”? I like to point out the current President of the United States for one. Democratic & Indie Congresspersons for another 149. Protesters across the country and world for another several million.
Cervantes
@satby:
That’s a lot of sunrises. Here’s to many more.
ET
Am I the only one who thinks it is odd that biker gangs hang out at chain restaurants? I know it is one aimed and men and I understand the restaurant was hosting some sort of Bike Night – but still it is just not where I expected bikers to gather. I guess my image of bikers needs to be adjusted.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
On the ACA, it was about a year in the making. They had time to acquaint themselves on the contents. As for the Patriot Act, one of the sponsors, James Sensenbrenner, now claims he didn’t know what was in it.
Cervantes
@rikyrah, quoting:
As one might guess from the title of a book he wrote: Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Revolution (2006).
OzarkHillbilly
@ET: These aren’t your father’s bikers. Or mine for that matter. (for all I know, I am old enough to be you father, so that might be redundant)
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Any port in a storm. No sense in pointing out to him that it was his fwcking job to know what was in it.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
None whatsoever.
Here’s how Sensenbrenner presents the issue at the start of his infamous letter to Eric Holder:
henqiguai
@Kay (#67):
And ditto, those opposing it.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Glad to see James Fallows weighing in on the Bruce Bartlett article.
Here’s link to original article by Bartlett. For download or in PDF form.
Fox News is bad for just about everyone, even though Republicans are getting the worst of it (at the presidential election level) now.
That channel is all about making America ungovernable, by spreading lies and mistrust and planting outright falsehoods that other media outlets (the corporate-owned ones, with the biggest megaphones) don’t work that hard to correct. Because Fox News makes money for spreading its filth.
Fox is hurting Democrats plenty too.
Wish we could go after them for elder abuse. People who watch Fox are more poorly informed (per Bartlett) and angered up to boot.
Do you think there’s any chance of bringing back a 21st Century Fairness doctrine?
rikyrah
about the Waco shooting…
1. On a Sunday
2. In broad daylight
3. Around other people, including families.
4. And yet, the killers lived to be arrested.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
do I need to ask what color they were?
Karen in GA
@satby: Happy birthday!
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
Clinton is banking on the Obama coalition to win
By Anne Gearan
May 17 at 9:56 PM
Hillary Rodham Clinton is running as the most liberal Democratic presidential front-runner in decades, with positions on issues from gay marriage to immigration that would, in past elections, have put her at her party’s precarious left edge.
The moves are part of a strategic conclusion by Clinton’s emerging campaign: that it can harness the same kind of young and diverse coalition as Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012, bolstered by even stronger appeal among women.
Her approach — outlined in interviews with aides and advisers — is a bet that social and demographic shifts mean that no left-leaning position Clinton takes now would be likely to hurt her in making her case to moderate and independent voters in the general election next year.
The strategy relies on calculations about the 2016 landscape, including that up to 31 percent of the electorate will be Americans of color — a projection that may be overly optimistic for her campaign. It factors in that a majority of independent voters already support same-sex marriage and the pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that Clinton endorsed this month
The game plan also hinges on a conclusion by Clinton strategists that the broad appeal of issues such as paid family leave, a higher minimum wage and more affordable college will help outweigh any concerns about costs. And while the early liberal tilt focuses on domestic issues more likely to drive voters this cycle, Clinton will also have to win over liberal voters still skeptical of her hawkish reputation on foreign policy.
http://linkis.com/washingtonpost.com/lkUxM
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah:
Seems to me that being the Not Rubio/not JEB!/not Graham candidate would be enough in that department.
EconWatcher
@Elizabelle:
I would add, Fox News is bad for families too. I have a personal grudge with them.
My dad was always a diehard Republican and a bit of a wingnut, but until he became a regular viewer of Fox News, you could have interesting talks with him about politics and many other things. He was a smart guy, interested in the world, would listen to facts, and even adjusted his views a bit every now and then in response to mounting evidence.
When he first started watching Fox, he was “in on the joke,” but gradually he came to the view that it was no more biased than the “liberal” alternatives, and then eventually basically wouldn’t believe anything he didn’t hear on Fox. And finally, he would succumb to whatever paranoia of the week they were peddling.
And it really damaged my last years with him. He stayed with us in his last stages of cancer, and even then he wanted Fox blaring all day as he was bedridden in our spare room. They’d rile him up (not hard to do, as he had brain cancer) and it was really hard to have a conversation with him. And then he was gone.
So f— you, Fox.
henqiguai
@Elizabelle (#71):
Variations on this complaint keep appearing here. Can anyone point to any international trade treaty negotiations that *are* done ‘out in the open’? Hell, to a certain extent, even domestic legislation negotiations are done away from public scrutiny, until the
perpetratorsarchitects/authors are ready to start discussions and negotiations.Cervantes
@EconWatcher:
Really sorry to hear about your dad and how you lost him.
EconWatcher
@Cervantes: Thank you. I’ll bet many others have had similar experiences.
satby
@Steeplejack: @PurpleGirl: @MomSense: Thanks! Appreciate!
boatboy_srq
@Vtr: @OzarkHillbilly: I saw the hostilities announcement on the TV at a bar, two pints into happy hour. I walked out immediately – stone cold sober – from the announcement alone. Anyone with a gram of intelligence and any recollection of the 80s (when Reagan sold Iraq arms by the tonne to fight Iran) saw that sh!tstorm coming a mile off. Afghanistan was one thing: between Taliban iconoclasm, Northern Alliance fracturing and AQ holing up there, there was reason for some kind of action, and there were defensible arguments for the US going in. Iraq was obviously voluntary from the outset and the GWB [mal]administration already had a track record of effing things up; expecting anything other than a total c0ckup was pure Fauxnews cheerleading.
@rikyrah: Waco. Enforcement is still a bit traumatized from the Branch Davidian business, so they might well hesitate before shooting because Religious Liberty (and Gummint-Cain’t-Do-Nuffin’-Right). But it doesn’t really matter because only Those People are murderous perps, unlike the Good Patriotic Citizens who just happen to pack serious shootin’ irons as part of their everyday wardrobe. (/snark)
boatboy_srq
@satby: Many happy returns!
Kay
@henqiguai:
Those opposing it are asking for specific legislative fixes prior to granting Fast Track, because they know from past trade deals that “priorities” like labor and environmental protections tend to become less urgent when 60 large corporations want a deal.
It would be great if we could have a negotiation “on behalf of the United States” that wasn’t so ridiculously stacked with business interests. Why is it 85% representatives for business and 15% every other interest in the country?
I can paint anything I want as “progressive”. Ted Strickland,m the former governor of Ohio presents himself as a friend to the common man. When he was in the US House he voted to advance the bankruptcy “reform” bill which was an absolute gift to lenders. When he was called on it he said he did it for “credit unions” because that’s an acceptable “progressive” answer. It’s also absolute nonsense,
satby
@Cervantes: Thanks!
@Karen in GA: Thanks, and how’s Phoebe doing?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@satby: Happy Birthday!!
@OzarkHillbilly: At least I’m not the only one who picks fights with Marines!
satby
@EconWatcher: I agree. My mom, who now is suffering from the early stages of dementia, was a lifelong Democrat from Chicago and now is an old lady who spews whatever vile BS Faux Noise is hyping this week. I honestly think it contributes to her decline, as people in my family happen to be pretty long lived, and not a one developed dementia before now.
Just had to say that, and I have particular animus for O’Liely and Hannity, for shaming the rest of us Irish-Americans by association.
satby
@boatboy_srq: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Aww, thanks! I do intend to enjoy it!
Elizabelle
@EconWatcher:
Very sorry to hear that, it’s losing your dad twice.
You have a lot of company, on this blog and elsewhere.
Fox News is bad for families on a micro level — tearing the (usually) elders and inlaws away from the family and making real and rational conversation not possible — and on the macro level — trying to lie away any improvements the government — which is all of us, really — wants to make for Americans. ACA, death panels, climate change, wage inequality, respect and adequate compensation for women, minorities, gays.
And it makes money doing this, and is being emulated by other feeble-minded and greedy “news” channels.
boatboy_srq
@EconWatcher: I just managed to avoid something similar with Mum and Dad (separately). It did NOT help that Fauxnews began with reasonably accurate news content: Ailes and Murdoch seem to have engineered a gradual switch from “all the news fit to print” to Full Metal Wingnut over an extended period – and between the insistence on “Fair and Balanced” and the inevitable slide Rightward it was easier (early on) to get sucked in. Anyone just joining the conversation recently and viewing Faux alongside other outlets would never be so easily persuaded that Murdoch is generating anything but wingnut propaganda; back in 1985 the distinction was far less clear. Slightly OT here: reading the Wikipedia item on Faux’ entry into the US Market, does anyone else get a Working Girl vibe from NewsCorp’s purchase of Metromedia (“Trask: radio… Trask: radio”)?
Elizabelle
Good points about the unfeasibility and undesirability of “transparency” in negotiating trade deals. I pull that comment back.
scav
@Steeplejack: Never fear, according to Sergeant Swanton“There were so many rounds fired from bad-guy weapons here, it is amazing that innocent civilians were not injured here,” only “bad-guy” bullets are apparently a danger to innocent civilians. So, anyone hit by a “good-guy” butter is automatically not innocent. Seemingly toddlers all, including the restauranteurs and their ultimate man-cave determined to wring the last possible buck out of everyone, so long as all shooting happened tidily outside.
Elizabelle
@satby: That’s especially awful, for your mom’s health and sanity — and dementia brings its own increase in paranoia, never mind an outside source.
And it’s awful politically, because your mom would have supported Democrats. It’s one thing when lifelong Republican headbangers inhale Fox — they’re not that likely to vote for another party, barring an epiphany. But pulling away elderly Democrats with fear and nonsense and anger is something else.
Fox News thrives in isolation. It is isolating your mother and others’ family members.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
1985?
boatboy_srq
@satby: Interesting thought. Mum passed early (for us) from early-onset dementia – and caregivers before/around me had a knack for finding Fox programming. Pity there’s no way to make a direct connection. Is it possible that dementia is an intended consequence? We already know Fox viewers are underinformed as well as misinformed; extrapolating that to contributing to diminished capacity isn’t really all that big a stretch.
OzarkHillbilly
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Truth be told, I didn’t, it was just that after Bush’s announcement somebody said “God Bless America!” I almost said “Allahu Akbar!” but instead settled for “Fuck Bush.” as I was just really disgusted with them at that point. Somebody jumped up and said, “WHO SAID THAT??? I’M GONNA KICK THEIR ASS!!!” I jumped up and, now pissed, said, “I DID AND I’VE GOT 2 SONS WHO COULD END UP IN THAT MESS! WHAT’VE YOU GOT?”
Fortunately, we knew each other well and were in fact friends so he turned and walked out. Fortunate for me ’cause I wasn’t backing down and he would’ve easily kicked my ass even if he was 10 years older than me and 30+ yrs removed from the Marines***.
***you know how it is- once a Marine, always a Marine.
Kathleen
@satby: Happy Birthday! For some reason when I turned 60, my carefully cultivated Bullshit Defense System crumbled quickly and my tolerance for many things (particularly in the work place) plummeted quicker than the media’s attention to crimes committed by white people.
EconWatcher
@satby: Very sorry. Dementia and Alzheimer’s are terrible.
MomSense
@Cervantes:
I thought it started in ’95 or ’96.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Newscorp’s official entry into the US TV market. By then they had 100% of 20th Century Fox and the Metromedia broadcast network. Metromedia formed the backbone of Faux Broadcasting. Fauxnews itself didn’t debut until later, but the backstop of “legitimate” entertainment and the established stations gave Faux clout it in hindsight clearly didn’t deserve.
EconWatcher
@Elizabelle:
The mom of one of my closest friends is an elderly Jewish lady who marched on Selma (for real, doesn’t just claim she did). She and her husband, who passed before Fox News became popular, proudly called themselves radicals or socialists their whole lives together. Her husband regularly got himself arrested at protests, etc., right up until his last years.
Guess what she watches all day now? My buddy now has the same experiences with her that I had with my dad.
FoxinSocks
@satby:
Happy Birthday!!
Cervantes
@MomSense:
Yes, a few weeks before the ’96 presidential election.
J R in WV
@satby:
Oh, you spring chicken, you! Happy birthday. I’ll be 65 my next birthday, so many people are spring chickens to me now.
Best of luck in your next year!
NotMax
@Elizablee
Last fall, while visiting elderly Mom, elicited a promise from her to not watch FOX ‘news’ and also removed that channel from the line-up accessible via her remote.
One small step for mental health, as it were.
She still habitually watches whatever the former MacNei/Lehrer Report is now called on PBS, as has been her wont for decades.
D58826
@boatboy_srq:
Actually the ‘snark’ is to close to the truth for comfort
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
Wow, that’s possible? I need to get a hold of my son-in-laws*** remote the next time we eat dinner there.
*** a nice guy. we just don’t talk politics ’cause he knows if he calls me a socialist I’ll say, “Thankyou.”
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Is it me, or does nobody treat a “journalistic” enterprise that got its start in protoconservatist rags (NYPost, National Star, Adelaide News and Weekly Standard) as a cancerous growth from its inception and Fauxnews as a planned development from the outset? Take a look at the company’s history: it’s a study in How To Expand a Propaganda Machine: there’s a distribution first / content second approach, there’s cooption of previously-legitimate sources (Metromedia, 20thC Fox, etc), and there’s a gradual ramp-up of the hysteria until the present, where Fauxnews is all the way up to 11 24/7 and trying to find an amp that goes to 12. People treat Fauxnews’ launch in the 90s as a turning point: in broadcasting it may be accurate, but in Newscorp’s history it’s just another step on a visible and predictable path.
sharl
@satby: Happy Birthday, satby! (I’m about five months behind you.)
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
In your original comment I thought you were referring just to Fox News, hence my question.
You’re obviously right about the fact of Murdoch’s adventures in the ’80s — and you may be totally right about the import thereof — but Ailes has been doing this stuff since 1967 with Nixon.
Anyhow, thanks for reminding me about Murdoch’s earlier depredations. Damn near ruined my day, you have.
J R in WV
@EconWatcher:
Same here. I was able to shift Dad’s TV habit to college football and other sports stuff in order to spend lots of time with him as his chemo-caused COPD did him in. He was a Rockefeller Republican back in the day, anti-union as a strike caused him to lose his dream job in the 50s.
But he wasn’t hateful about politics until he caught the Faux News bug. I worked hard to get along, and it worked, but it was hard.
F U Fox!
J R in WV
@boatboy_srq:
I think teaching a brain to accept contradiction is a generally accepted way of inducing insanity and / or dementia. Isn’t that what Faux News does as a business practice?
A well functioning brain will see contradiction and know immediately that there’s something wrong with that group of data, a Fox viewer is forced to learn that contradictions occur in data all the time, no big deal.
No wonder they get strange! Buy this car, is doesn’t matter that you can’t afford the maintenance cost on top of the payments! Success and profit! But a demented voting population… what’s wrong with this picture? Oh, long term profits might suffer, but who cares, that’s not what drive stock prices right now.
sharl
I had never heard of the Twin Peaks franchises. Descriptions of them as similar to Hooters appear to be apt, and the avatar (“avi”) of their twitter account would seem to bear that out as well.
TIL (“today I learned”) that the term “breastaurant” has been coined for such establishments.
Glad to see that our national culture is twirling, twirling, twirling ever forward.
Tenar Darell
@Howard Beale IV: I do not understand this. Is he trying to get forced out of his semi-open closet, where his constituents don’t care what he is as long as he does his job and doesn’t emphasize his orientation? Is this going to be one of those “open secrets,” where journamalists don’t need to be vulgar and bring this up in front of the rubes things? No one will mention his longtime companion, or all the rumors. Then, someone who is a journalist (or TMZ) will finally point out in the full public glare of a presidential campaign that Lindsey has no clothes, and that person gets dog piled for outing the guy. Should we start a pool?
boatboy_srq
@J R in WV: I go along with you right up to your last sentence or two – and there, the only distinction I would make is that Fauxnews has a political agenda as well as a commercial one, and sNoozecorp has had the same since its inception. Profits are excellent – but ensuring that those profits stay with the Right Kind of People (e.g. execs and major shareholders) requires a particular style of government, which Fauxnews propaganda is (in any democracy-resembling nation) apparently designed to deliver.
Cervantes
@sharl:
TIL “TIL.”
Thanks.
Vtr
@boatboy_srq: To clarify, I was against an Iraq invasion as soon as it was a possibility. I was never in favor of it. Once it was underway, though, I thought it would be carried out as though there had been some sort of competent military plan made. In the newsroom where I worked at the time, no one thought it would last decade, or that it would be such a tragic disaster. We knew something was very wrong when the Administration sent a 21 recent college grad to Bagdhad to set up a stock exchange. His only previous employment was a summer job driving an ice cream truck, but his dad was a semi prominent GOP official.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Elizabelle: Less than zero, more’s the pity. And the opposition is bipartisan, which to me seems insane, as only one party benefits. We could sure use it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Elizabelle: My mother is a casualty. Gone from a more-than reasonable Clinton Democrat to explaining, very patiently to all in the room, why black people are physically superior but have underdeveloped frontal lobes, leading to lower IQs and lack of impulse control.
This is a woman with advanced degrees and a license to practice psychology. But man, they found an argument that can finally justify her lifelong racist tendencies (she fought them long enough to insure that her children would always be appalled by racists, and she now can’t understand why we don’t “see the truth about that fake president”) and she is picking it up and running with it.
She wonders why she doesn’t see the grandkids very often. No way no how is my little bro letting his kids be around that horseshit. Not to mention the loaded pistol in the house. She lies about that, so I told him. You have the right, as a parent, to know that.
boatboy_srq
@Vtr: It’s hard to argue that the colossal cl#sterf#ck that Iraq became was obviously predictable going in, it’s true. But trusting the GWoT to the same people whose first stab at recovering from the dot-bomb was a massive weighted tax cut, and whose responses to other comparable events showed both a style-over-substance approach and an overvaluation of incompetence provided that incompetence was executed with Moral Clarity™. We were expecting a cl#sterf#ck – but a military cl#sterf#ck; that it would be a financial one and an oversight one as well wasn’t something most of us foresaw at the time either. Powell fooled a lot of us: after GW1 most thought he was a decent commander, and not one to listen to Rumsfeld and the rest or commit to engagement that was thought out by those !d!ots.
Elizabelle
All your stories about Fox News Derangement are very sad.
@EconWatcher: The story of turning a Selma marcher into a Foxbot is particularly awful.
If the Fox News Channel broadcasters were individuals instead, would we let them into the homes of our elders and other loved ones to misinform/frighten/threaten/anger/isolate them?
We would not. We would see it for what it is.
But Ailes and Murdoch have a broadcast license, and so they are allowed to polarize and prey upon the gullible, for profit.
And other media outlets, too many, pick up the idiocy fomented by Fox, so the elders/gullible get a double-dose. And too much of the media is too profit-driven to call Fox News Channel and the wurlitzer out for what it is.
Elizabelle
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Isolation for the elder, again, and I cannot blame you for protecting the kids.
Wondering if your mom might vote for Hillary after all, or if Fox will prevent that too.
Tree With Water
@EconWatcher: The Bush-Cheney War will remain a third rail with American journalists until that day they acknowledge it began as a plot to war, and was sold to the American people with blatant lies. It will remain a third rail until journalists cease parroting that patently false, two party narrative, i.e., that honest mistakes were made by honorable people. That’s not what happened, and everyone involved in perpetuating the fairy tale does their country a disservice..
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: I do wonder if you have to be socially primed somehow. My grandmother recently died at age 96. Toward the end of her life, after her husband passed, while she watched a lot of news on TV, she didn’t become a Fox News Geezer at all; if anything, her politics moved leftward. But she wasn’t Silent Generation or boomer; her young adulthood was during the Great Depression and World War II, and that whole cohort was somewhere leftward of most of today’s oldest voters.
gian
@rikyrah:
The reports are pretty clear the cops shot their weapons.
The guy interviewed on the radio indicated they were set up outside before the brawl started. What’s not clear is how many were killed or wounded by cops versus other rival gang members.
The cop I heard interviewed on the radio made it sound like law enforcement knew that something bad was going to happen sometime soon at that establishment and the owner didn’t want to help them prevent it by running off the gangs rather than marketing to them
Cpl Cam
@EconWatcher: Hillary is the only candidate running who was in the senate at time and voted “yes” in the AUMF. Who says Fox can’t play a bit of a “long” game…
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@EconWatcher:
We lost my dad to Fox News, too. It was painful to have to listen to an intelligent man explain that communism and fascism were the same thing because Mussolini had started as a communist.
I wonder if there’s some kind of class-action lawsuit we could file, starting with intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@satby:
Happy birthday!
Tree With Water
@gian: That remains my impression from the follow-up reports after the news broke yesterday, i.e., , the police had established a perimeter around the place, and were locked and loaded when the fighting spilled into the parking lot. When the first shots were fired, they opened fire (with automatic weapons, I assume). I sure won’t be surprised if it’s determined the majority of the dead were killed by police bullets.
Tree With Water
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I heard a politically ignorant friend once say something that betrayed a profound ignorance. I mentioned it to my father, adding I found it surprising because he was an otherwise intelligent person. To which my dad replied, “I doubt it”.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tree With Water:
My dad was not like that prior to Fox News. He was a Republican, but I could have actual conversations with him where we could each disagree.
Then came the 2000 election and his obsessive Fox-watching, and he was lost to us. All he could do was regurgitate Fox talking points without being able to actually explain them. Propaganda works.
SuperHrefna
Happy Birthday Satby!
Tree With Water
Geez, that sounded terrible, and I no sooner posted it than regretted doing so for that reason. I’ll leave it alone after this quote: “For however loftily the intellect of man may have been gifted, however skillfully it may have been trained, if it is not guided by a sense of justice, a love of mankind*, and a devotion to duty, its possessor is only a more splendid, as he is a more dangerous, barbarian”. Horace Mann 1845
*(“No one but Jesus Christ ever loved mankind”… Ambrose Bierce)
John Revolta
“This is one of the worst gunfights we’ve ever had in the city limits” Waco police sergeant Patrick Swanton said.
0_0
satby
@Kathleen: @FoxinSocks: @J R in WV: Thanks guys!
Kind of shocking how many of us have had the “Fox effect” damage family members.
satby
@sharl: @Mnemosyne (iPhone): @SuperHrefna: Wow! feeling the love! Thanks to everyone!
And if we file a class action suit against Fox (maybe we can use “alienation of affection”) I’m in!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tree With Water:
I think people who haven’t seen the Fox News effect in their own lives tend to underestimate it. My dad went from someone I felt comfortable discussing tough issues (like gay rights) with to someone with whom I had to avoid any mention of politics whatsoever. Even smart people can be suckered by propaganda, especially as their health starts to decline and they feel scared/insecure about other areas of their lives.
John Revolta
Well, and it’s not just Fox. I have to tread softly around Mrs R. in certain areas because she’s convinced that BIg Pharma/ Big Agro are completely running the country, if not the entire planet.
Tree With Water
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Right you are. Submission to propaganda, unthinking or not, will serve to corrupt the good judgement of any individual. It’s a big reason I haven’t watched cable news going on decades now.
Tree With Water
“There were no plainclothes officers in the restaurant. Swanton said that was partly because the officers felt they weren’t welcome inside* and were concerned with legal issues”.
* (i.e., readily acknowledged they’d be stomped to death).
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Aleta: Fuck not with the Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission (TABC). They can ruin your day in a heartbeat.
ottercliff
The problem is that a lot of your fans are still denying that the 19th century ended, Marco.