Earlier this year, we cut the cable cord. My husband is thrifty (cheap!), and as we considered streaming TV options, he pushed for an inexpensive Sling TV package that includes CNN but not MSNBC. I agreed, figuring I could get my Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid fix online and watch CNN on TV for breaking news, even though CNN kinda sucks since it lards its panels with raving wingnut assholes in a futile attempt to avoid “fake news” and “liberal media” criticisms.
We don’t watch that much live TV anyway, so this arrangement worked — until yesterday. It was a big news day, and we were watching CNN’s coverage of the Bolton prepocalypse. Then, right in the middle of that, CNN aired an hour of Anderson Cooper interviewing a woman who is so goddamned dumb that she admits she slept with Donald Fucking Trump for FREE! An hour of this moron! On the day the demagogue in the White House appointed a noted Reichstag arsonist as nat-sec adviser!
After enduring half an hour of that agony — which was akin to listening to a punctured blow-up girlfriend lose air in response to vapid questions — I grabbed my phone and upgraded our Sling package to include MSNBC. It’s several extra bucks a month, but, as I told the mister, if we’re going to blunder into additional wars of choice (maybe with nukes this time!) and/or (please FSM) have an opportunity to view impeachment proceedings, I’ll be damned if I’m going to look at Jason Miller’s hideous ass-face during those momentous events.
At precisely 8:59 p.m. Eastern time, our package upgrade completed, and I switched to MSNBC just in time to see Maddow start her broadcast in front of a massive wall with all the names of departed Trump administration villains. Good Christ, how I’d missed her! I know we bitch about MSNBC around here a lot, but friends, it took going cold turkey for a few months to make me realize the value of that network. In our household, at least, the apocapeachment will be televised!
Open thread!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Zell Miller died.
brendancalling
I think Jason Miller’s face looks more like a badly circumcised penis, with his mouth as the urethra opening.
But that’s just me. “Ass-face” is pretty good too.
Corner Stone
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Zombie Zell Miller will be a perfect fit for SecDef in Trump’s Cabinet.
brendancalling
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): … and no one cared.
Corner Stone
I’m doing the YouTube TV free trial thing. My son loves it but I have been meh so far. Will probably try it out a couple months just to drop the GD insane cable cost for a while. It’s almost a car payment now after an increase in January.
trollhattan
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
I hope he gets a 21-spitball salute at his wake.
Corner Stone
@brendancalling: Tweety no longer has to worry about finding a Second for their duel.
VeniceRiley
Are you me? I too just knuckled under to get Sling and the news package to get my live Maddow on! I was catching bits of her for free on PlutoTV and other IPTV of MSNBC but they don’t show the full Rachel, and stuff that free channel with UPChuck Todd, etc.
trollhattan
An actual political hero, unknown outside small circles, has passed in California.
I first became aware of Nancy McFadden from a stemwinding warmup speech at a Hillary rally and only later learned of her impressive and varied career. Had hopes of her perhaps running for office, alas it is not to be.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
Yeah, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell make a hell of a lineup.
Immanentize
So the big, anticipated Rod Rosenstein announcement today was the indictment of nine Iranians in a hacking scheme of Universities here and abroad.
I suspect this will be reason enough for Trump/Bolton to bomb?
Gin & Tonic
@brendancalling: You didn’t have to share that with the class.
Elizabelle
Yeah, I might get cable in the new apartment. Would love to cut the cord, but I suspect we are going to have a lot of cable-ready moments during the Trumpdictments and Trumppeachment. Besides which, I am becoming addicted to TCM and the Law & Order episodes I have not seen. Not to mention Univision. Le sigh.
I don’t watch too much MSNBC, though. It’s NBC corporate, with a libtard interface. Get enough TrumpNews here at BJuice; somehow it’s less stressing when read than watching that buffoon and his enablers, press and staff.
Do tell me how shocked, shocked Andrea Fucking Greenspan is today re the Bolton appt or whatever else Trump yorks up before her airtime. She needs to be retired.
cain
I’m totally happy readaing the news through twitter and other places. I have a hard time watching 24 hour news of any stripe. I think the whole thing is a disservice to the country.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Russia is tearing us apart, and DOJ is going after … Iran.
Haven’t we seen this movie before? I almost laughed when I heard the soundbite with “Iran.” Almost.
rikyrah
That board seem like a smartazz thing in the beginning.
Now, it’s just frightening.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Put together the hacking indictment, Bolton as NSA and the DoD’s earlier announcement that all war-fighting options are on the table in response to cyber-attack, shake vigorously and strain into an old-fashioned glass.
Elizabelle
@cain: I agree. It enthralls, inures, and delivers Trump’s message and visuals straight over the head of the talking heads.
24/7 cable is doing as much damage as smallpox and TB.
cain
Gen Z and Millennials are going to be further be pissed when they are the next generation to participate in the wars Bolton gets us involved in. You can bet Trump is going to try to start up the selective service again. There so much shit hitting the fan right now that why not one more?
opiejeanne
Rachel was excellent last night but I was so disturbed by the news about John Bolton that I could only handle 15 minutes of Lawrence O’Donnell. I usually prefer his show but back to back they make an excellent team. I love that she greets him, and also that Chris Hayes greets her when his show is ending just before hers starts.
Nobody greets Brian Williams, which makes me laugh.
Ryan
That looks exactly like the screenshot I made!
ByRookorbyCrook
Anything happen with the Rosenstein cyber announcement? Is the GRU officer GRUccifer 2.0 400lbs as the Tangerine Tantrum prophesied?
ETA: Missed Immenatize message above
PaulWartenberg
I have to admit that I remember Karen McDougal as I had a Playboy subscription in my younger days (I SWEAR I READ THE ARTICLES (too)). The last I saw of her was getting into the fitness promotional business during my gym exercising days when I worked at UF in the 2000s, she would crop up in a few videos during one of the classes I tried for a couple months.
As bad as it seems that McDougal slept with trump, I can’t entirely feel angry at her. we have to remember that trump is a persistent and driven sleazebucket: one way or another she could have fallen victim to his bullying or harassment. It’s telling to me that *trump* wanted to pay her as though she were a prostitute whereas she didn’t see it that way.
Gin & Tonic
@ByRookorbyCrook: They indicted nine Iranians. Russia? What’s that? Move along, nothing to see.
Yarrow
@cain: The law was changed so women can be drafted as well. It will be interesting to see how that plays.
cain
@Elizabelle:
Indeed. Even shows like Maddow are coached in a way that your eyeballs are glued to the TV set. She’s just better at it than the crazy fox hosts. But ultimately the goal is that you watch her and the subsequent ads from sponsors. It’s the same model as Fox News. Maybe the sentiments are all real but it’s still bullshit. No offense to Maddow who is a great policy wonk and breaks things apart nicely. But I much prefer that she ended up as a investigative journalist than this mess.
Dave
@cain: Millennials already were participants in our last series of stupid wars. The next ones will be Generation Z led by burnt out millennials.
Wild Cat
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): It wasn’t him leaving Life; it was Life leaving him.
GregB
Well, at least when I am huddled under the overpass cooking that sparrow on a curtain rod, I will be feel self satisfied when yelling “But her emails” at anyone in a MAGA hat.
In pop culture news, Billy Corgan from Smashing Blumpkins went on Alex Jones to rail about globalists and SJW’s and the lot. Everything but cucks.
PaulWartenberg
@cain:
Part of me is hoping the resistance refuses any recruitment drives or even the draft should they try to bring that sh-t back.
I’m worried right now that one of my nephews has been thinking about applying to the Air Force Academy (partly because we’re a Navy family dammit but mostly because I dread him becoming part of trump’s military adventurism)
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne:
It’s funny, or maybe sad, that my son asked me last night why he didn’t say anything to him when his show started. I said I didn’t know, a couple of people just have cold openings with no back and forth first.
opiejeanne
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): I like Chris Hayes but he lets too many of the mean girls steal his lunch money.
No Drought No More
Your husband’s instincts are fine. I’d of done the same thing many months ago, no kidding, but realized a great American historical drama was about to unfold, and I am nothing if not an American patriot. I think of it as paying for a cheap seat in the peanut gallery.* That, anb being able to watch the broadcast games of the San Francisco Giants, which allow Giants fans to hang out with the Giants Hall of Fame caliber announcers as they watch a ballgame. In fact, one of them has already been enshrined in Cooperstown- the Big Kahuna himself, John Miller.
There’s nothing wrong with my priorities.
*(in 1973, I would rush home from school and/or my job pumping gas in order to watch the Watergate hearings. If I missed them, I’d watch the re-runs that night).
geg6
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Good.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
My car payment is less than my satellite bill.
Corner Stone
@GregB:
You’re going to have a curtain rod? What kind of a globalist cuck elitist do you think you are?!
FlyingToaster
@opiejeanne: I assume Brian films his show at like 4pm, before any of the rest of them. I don’t imagine that it’s live, because I can’t believe he’d still be sober by 11pm. Also, IIRC, he tried to get O’Donnell’s show cancelled so he could take the time slot.
Why can’t the old coots (Matthews, Williams, etc.) just retire already?
cain
@Yarrow:
I suspect that there is going to be civil war. I can’t imagine any Gen Z’s heading out for war especially fronted by a bunch of Nixonian Boomers who can’t help but get us into one war after another. Bolton will need to be caged. I can’t believe that they were able to do a direct appointment without congressional approval.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: @Gin & Tonic:
These were my thoughts, but then I thought (optimistically) that this actually weakens a tool for war with Iran. It will be “old news” by April 9 when Bolton takes over and cannot easily be reworked into an anti-Iranian narrative for immediate action. (In non-Bizarro world, I admit).
So the National Security Adviser is not the producer of intel content, but rather an organizer of the various intelligence agencies. His or her job is to coordinate findings and seek further information as needed. They can set the agenda, in some ways, but other intelligence does not stop. They have no actual authority over the CIA, DOD, FBI, DOJ, etc. That is why the NatSec adviser does not need confirmation. I am hopeful that McMaster is spending his next two weeks Bolton-proofing the intelligence agencies.
john r
you should have checked out pluto tv, they offer msnbc for free.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Thought n Prayers!
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne:
They need a scientist to figure out how to draw a little essence out of Joy and Stephanie Ruhle and make Chris drink a cocktail of it each night before show time.
bemused
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.):
The other evening Rachel had on Emma Gonsalez, Sarah Chadwick and Jaclyn Corbin. So smart, so sane, so composed…they are awe inspiring. I don’t know how they have time to travel on the gun issue while also keeping up with school but have no doubt they are more than capable of handling it. We’re watching a lot of amazing young leaders in action who have managed to make a difference already. I’m looking forward to watching what they do in the future.
FlyingToaster
@Corner Stone: The kind that strips the house of curtain rods and wire hangers before one is thrown out of it, of course.
opiejeanne
@cain: Who watches ads? That’s what a DVR is for, record the shows you like and watch at your leisure and skip past the ads.
P.S. That is the model for every television show, to get you to watch the ads of the sponsors. They pay for the shows, and it has been that way since pretty much the beginning for tv. It’s not something the cable news channels invented.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlyingToaster: I think Williams is probably an establishment binkie for Lack after his play to replace Hayes with Greta van S and O’Donnell with Megan O’Kelly blew up in his face.
I am just loving the MO’K face plant
cain
@Dave:
Let’s create some more homeless vets while our shitty Trumpers drive around with “Support the Troops” while they vote to defund the VA or raise healthcare costs. Can’t wait for Gen Z to take over. I’ve had enough with Nixonian leftovers politicians fucking things up. I mean, I feel like we completely skipped Gen X’er generational politicians.
I really believe there will be a serious blowback coming soon.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
Why would you expect Rosenstein to make an announcement about Russia? Mueller is handling Russia. Rosenstein isn’t going to get in his way. This IS news, and I wouldn’t want him to ignore it.
@cain:
Trump is such an incredible chickenshit that he has to fire people in ways that ensure he never has to see them face to face. Every time he announced he was doing anything militarily, it turned out to be a lie. He was certainly already listening to Bolton in private. Maybe this increases the odds of a war, but not by much.
rikyrah
@opiejeanne:
No lie told.
brettvk
@cain: I get Maddow by listening to the audio podcast. No ads. As I grow older I’m becoming less and less willing to give any corporation any of my dwindling stock of time.
Gin & Tonic
@FlyingToaster: Brian Williams is eight years younger than Lawrence O’Donnell.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@PaulWartenberg:
I went to USAFA at the beginning of the evangelicalization of the place – tell him to stay away and try Navy, West Point, the Coast Guard Academy or the Merchant Marine Academy instead – particularly if he’s been raised east of the Mississippi.
geg6
@opiejeanne:
Yeah, that one pretty had me scratching my head. I mean, is this person less than five years old? Does he seriously not know how television works?
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: Maybe a little sad, but I’ll never forgive him for the way he tried to treat Obama. Obama was having none of it.
And OMG IT’S SNOWING!!!
Raven
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I have a picture of Zig Zag and me when he was governor.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Have you noticed how milquetoast and ineffective TV liberals usually are? David Lying Brooks is always eating Mark Jowls of Concern Shields lunch on the NewsHour.
Ridnik Chrome
@Immanentize:
Not going to worry. I honestly don’t think the Orange Fool and Herr Ribbentrop could organize brunch, much less a bombing campaign.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@GregB:
There is a lot more caloric value to be had from cooking and eating people in MAGA hats….
Ridnik Chrome
@schrodingers_cat: It’s no wonder people don’t respect liberals if Mark Shields is what passes for a liberal in their world.
WereBear
@brettvk: Thanks, I had forgotten about that. I only listen to a few political podcasts (I love Professional Left with Driftglass and Blue Gal, for instance) but that one I’ve been meaning to get.
Flange Gonad
Ari Melber is doing good things on The Beat, as well as Chris Hayes.
Immanentize
@Raven: I was hoping to catch you today. I saw the NYTimes article about finding the Juneau and the 5 Sullivan Brothers. The quote that cut me was the daughter of the eldest saying she was denied the large loving Irish family she would have had if even one of the boys had lived…. I thought of your lucky lucky Dad.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: Mark Shields should invite John Dowd on so they could have a World Class Jowl Off.
eclare
@Corner Stone: Call and threaten to quit. I did that with Comcast after the January increases, and my bill was reduced by $45 per month.
MazeDancer
The only reason I haven’t cord cut is to be able to DVR select MSNBC shows so I can watch them on delay and fast-forward through commercials. Though, often I don’t watch prime time until the next day. Then, I can fast forward easily through events or people of no interest.
Tried Hulu live. Fine if you want live. But MSNBC does not put entire shows on Hulu the next day. Just confusing clips. Somewhat like their own website. (Hulu, itself, is a great service for primetime shows and originals)
Nicole
MSNBC’s coverage of Hillary was terrible, and very disappointing. I used to watch Rachel religiously, but her Trump tax return performance art finally broke me (though Stephen Colbert’s mocking of it was very funny). I have not watched any MSNBC programs since. Or news shows in general. I’m read-only mode for news for the foreseeable future. It’s been interesting. Television is theater, and theater is only entertaining if there’s a conflict going on (ergo the talking heads disagreeing with each other). Given the choice between being entertaining and being informative, cable news is always going to opt for entertainment.
NorthLeft12
I just read the Guardian article about the Parkland school shooting and how some teachers disobeyed protocol to keep their doors open after the “code red” was called. That a teacher, A TEACHER!, has to make a life and death decision like this is absolutely crazy.
And no, armed teachers will not make that decision go away or be any easier.
Betty Cracker
@Wild Cat: OMFG, you win the Internets for the YEAR! I am so stealing that for a tweet!
Ruckus
@FlyingToaster:
Well look at his audience. They are old retired folks, watching one of their own still at it. Those old asswipes have jobs as long as they don’t drool too much and/or don’t have to be propped up or duct taped to their chair so as not to fall out.
sheila in nc
@No Drought No More:
Is that the same John Miller who called the Orioles games in the 1980’s and 90’s? I have happy memories of Sunday afternoons in July, firing up the grill on the deck of our little starter house with the (small, blocky, cathode-ray) TV blaring the O’s game in the background and John Miller’s fabulous voice keeping us all in on the action. My husband thought that Miller was eventually eased out of the job because he wasn’t sufficiently rah-rah for the home team.
Seanly
I love Maddow’s politics & insights, but I can’t stand her delivery. It’s the equivalent of a kid playing with a toy airplane – the kid is making it crash so they hold the plan up & dive down. Then they wind it back up and repeat the dive 8 times. Maddow says the same thing over & over – it takes her 20 minutes to deliver a 3-minute piece. And I’m not including the 12 commercial breaks…
Fester Addams
We’ve taken to greeting the Board of So Many Names with shouts of “please don’t read them all, please don’t read them all!”
tobie
@Immanentize: I’m wondering if Mike Pompeo orchestrated this in his tenure at the CIA. Someone needed to collect the intelligence for this indictment, and as it involves foreign activity I would think it would fall under the purview of the CIA, not the FBI, though I could be very wrong about this. It is, however, just the sort of intelligence Pompeo would want to deflect attention from Russia and turn it toward Iran. Rosenstein doesn’t collect the evidence; he decides whether to prosecute or not. Who is behind the evidence? That’s what I would like to know.
germy
@geg6:
Cable TV was supposed to be different. The consumer pays to subscribe.
I understand commercials on old fashioned, free, antenna TV.
Which is why advertising commercials in the movie theater irritates me. I paid for a ticket.
Corner Stone
@PaulWartenberg:
Breaking News: She does not seem all that bright.
Another Scott
@eclare: My step-mom often did that with Time-Warner. Then TW got bought out by Charter/Spectrum.
Her: “Give me your Retention department, please?”
Them: “We don’t have a Retention department”
:-/
They’re playing hard-ball now, daring people to cut the cord.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay S
@Seanly: Hear, Hear! There used to be a distillery of shows much like condensed books. Maddow needs a service like that.
Ruckus
@germy:
And not an insignificant amount either, dagnabit.
Elizabelle
@Seanly: Yeah. I can’t watch Rachel either. Cannot stand her delivery.
I just get the highlights from you guys. It’s too traumatic to watch any cable news, except very small bits of breaking news (non-Trump audio) and an early morning dose of Headline News, which is pretty much “what, me a newscast?” It’s pretty much cat video programming.
Elizabelle
Univision: Escandalo Amoroso. Photos of Trump and Karen McDougall. LOL.
Jay S
@opiejeanne:
My wife said the same thing.
Immanentize
@tobie: That is a possibility and it would certainly be a Pompeo-like action. From the briefing, however,it looked entirely like an FBI operation — and we know that the CIA and FBI don’t play nice. Further, the targets were Universities — research information and email addresses. Kinda of an odd target, especially as the Trump administration is trying to marginalize higher ed. But that is the quality of our times — “the falcon cannot hear the falconer.”
Peale
@Corner Stone: But you’ll miss out on the new Karate Kid sequel show!!!
Joey Maloney
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
All that bile ruins the flavor.
James E. Powell
@Seanly:
I agree. Maddow should maybe try doing something rather than just talking about what other people are doing. As for the rest of the MSNBC crew, that they didn’t resign in protest when the network brought Brian Williams back was enough to convince me that none of them really care about anything but their careers.
Gravenstone
@FlyingToaster: He’s live at least during significant moments. Happened to be awake for his show the night of the PA special election, and he and Kornacki were going back and forth as the late results came in giving it to Lamb.
Peale
@Immanentize: Our enemies are SPYING on us! No not fair! They make it hard for us to spy back. Also unfair. This will be the first war started because things were perceived to be “Unfair.” I think. If I were a more unwoke commentator, I might say, this will be the first war instigated by sissies having a hissy fit. But I won’t say that out loud.
germy
@Ruckus:
We save by consuming purse snacks.
Gravenstone
@cain: This is certainly a strong argument for making the NSA a confirmed position, going forward.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Charter.
Yeah I like them. No contract but they do like to be in one provider service areas. That allows them to jack the rates and tell you to go fuck yourself when you complain. They kept trying to tell me the rate was competitive. I’ve gotten to the point I always ask “How the fuck can it be competitive when there is no competition?” Well it’s competitive in your area. “There is no fucking competition in my area!” Logic is not available at Charter. Way over priced crap is. Funny though they do keep sending me offers for cheaper service, as long as I take cable. But if you read the small print it’s the price for each segment of service, so the total bill is a lot higher. I call bullshit on them. Fun times.
I’ve filed a complaint with the FCC but since Jan 20 of 2017 that has been a complete waste of energy. I wonder why that is?
tobie
@Immanentize: Thanks for the details. These operations are a long time in the making, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Iran was interested in hacking universities–especially those with powerful science and engineering departments.
Jeffro
@Nicole: amen to read-only…so much better for the blood pressure
Dave
@cain: I certainly hope so. I for one am very tired of having fought those wars and it would break my heart to see the kids coming up fed into the grinder. Not to mention whoever is on the receiving end of our folly. I’m hoping Trump’s cowardice and chaotic nature overcomes Bolton’s chickenhawk blood-lust.
Louise B.
@Seanly: That’s one of the things I like about Rachel – I can take breaks during her show to cook dinner without missing a thing.
Betty Cracker
@PaulWartenberg: Stormy Daniels shook the bastard down for $130K, and it looks like she may parlay that into an even bigger payday. I can respect that sort of moxie — more power to her! McDougal claims Trump is “brilliant.” She’s a goddamned idiot.
Immanentize
Hmmm, I was just looking up the ages of Trump appointees — Bolton is 69. I really think their age/perspective is a huge part of this story. Generational last gasp. All by people who didn’t actually end up in the military. Bolton’s out was the Guard (1968) and then the reserve. I am not knocking that path at all. In fact, I support those who could (afford to) avoid the draft. But then in his Yale 25 anniversary book he wrote: “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.” But now he is happy to let others fulfill that purpose.
Meanwhile, I noticed Kelly Ann Conway is several years younger than I. I know none of you know me IRL, but I am thinking, Damn, I look good.
germy
@Ruckus: Should be a government-regulated public utility.
It’s not a luxury anymore, or some weird gizmo for hobbyists.
It’s become a necessity for jobseekers, etc.
Same with cell phones. They used to be a luxury. Now all the payphones are gone, and the numbers in the phone book are never up to date.
Cellphone coverage can be a matter of life and death if you’re stuck on a road someplace. You can’t walk to a payphone with some dimes in your pocket.
Ruckus
@Joey Maloney:
Not to mention the nutritional value. Sparrow, while lacking in volume would have to be a better meal.
manyakitty
@Nicole: I highly recommend watching Ari Melber. He’s live at 6pm. Super smart guy, and a decent interviewer.
dww44
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): And, Ari Melber at 6 p.m. Love his hour. Chris Matthews not so much, although he was appropriately and genuinely horrified by the Bolton Appointment.
germy
@Betty Cracker: I watched the CBS Morning show today. Gayle King was extremely uncomfortable with McDougal’s interview. Gayle said “I wish she’d stop talking.”
Gayle, I disagree.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I never used to watch the cable news networks, but during the 2016 election campaign and the advent of the Tяump* regime I bounced around the channels and eventually settled on MSNBC as my go-to. It has its problems, which we bitch about every day, but it is still miles ahead of the networks and CNN.
I’m not a fan of Morning Joe, and I’ll pop in randomly during the day, but I catch the evening lineup almost every weeknight. Ari Melber is a strong addition at 6:00 EDT. I sort of hate-watch Chris Matthews. Chris Hayes is hit or miss. Rachel Maddow has been pretty good, especially as the torrent of news has forced her to speed up her usual routine of “I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, then I’m going to tell it to you, then I’m going to tell you what I just told you.” Lawrence O’Donnell has been surprisingly good lately, especially his long editorial opening block. Any time Joy Reid subs in is a huge bonus, and her weekend show, A.M. Joy (10:00 a.m. EDT) is great, although I often miss it.
Even if you disagree with the hosts’ or panelists’ takes, the shows play enough of the “clips of the day” that you can get a feel for the content and better inform your own opinions.
—————
* Note for SiubhanDuinne: Further research led to
я
as a probably better code for я. Recalibrate if you want; no biggie.cain
@PaulWartenberg:
Understandable, a lot of people like the continuity of being a military family. It is the same for coal miners, and various others even if it is detrimental personally. It is a powerful force though to resist.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
She proves hate ages you.
GregB
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I am sure they would be and shitty tasting. Plus I don’t like white meat.
Immanentize
@Peale:
Dogbert predicts the liberal hissy fit
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
For interested readers:
Tяump
= Tяump.SiubhanDuinne
I understand the Zell Miller hate. It was despicable the way he turned on the Democratic Party, which had given him a home for the entirety of his political life. During his years in the Senate, he shamefully listed to starboard. He was as bad as, or worse than, Joe Lieberman.
But I can’t condemn him across the board. His public education initiatives, at both ends of the academic spectrum, made a positive difference to well over a million students in Georgia. Both the Pre-K program and the HOPE Scholarships became models for a number of other states.
Let’s dial down the Zell hate just a notch or two, could we? There are people running our government today doing damage Zell Miller wouldn’t have dreamt of.
Corner Stone
@germy:
I continue to maintain that banks should be treated as a utility. And I agree that cable companies should also be a utility. They maintain monopolies in segmented areas so a refusal to do some business with them is near impossible.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: As one of my clients once said: “[she looks like she] done a lot of hard living, and never did like none of it much.”
ETA clarity
cain
@opiejeanne:
Sure, I understand that is the model. It just never was the model for news until the 90s. News became entertainment, and there is less reason to inform because they are competing with other tv shows, movies and channels etc. So everything has to have a flair for the dramatic. That’s okay if we are talking about fiction. But when talking about the news, how that news is delivered shapes your view of the world. If everything is scary like they do at Fox News, then people are susceptible to other suggestions.
The whole idea that we need a channel filled iwth news that are constantly showing the same thing, where you bring in ‘pundits’ and then ‘crazy people’ and then let them debate is just so preposterous to me.
tobie
@Immanentize: Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if James Comey and Andrew McCabe were the ones who launched the FBI probe into Iranian cyber-activity? Just a thought.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Thanks; noted.
opiejeanne
@Jay S: Are you in the Seattle area? We’re up on Hollywood HIll, so we get different weather from Woodinville sometimes, and sometimes different weather from everywhere else in the PNW.
patrick ii
@bemused: I don’t know who the social science teachers are at their high school but those kids are not only well spoken but very knowledgeable. I know I couldn’t make the debate team there.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Why make it a confirmed position? Congress most of the time just rubber stamps these, maybe because so many positions are confirmable. Sure some get pushback but most get confirmed and so congress looks like they are working, but they are just pushing paper, not actually their job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I always considered O’Donnell the weak link among the big progressive three, but I share and feed off his seething, relentless hatred of John Kelly. I’ve become more of a political-TV junkie in the last few months, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. I often watch Brian Williams, even though I kind of hate him, because he does have good guests. Ari Fleischer can be great, as someone pointed out here, he’ll interrupt a guest who is trying to evade his questions, but I want to reach through the screen and slap him when he makes one of his tortured, stammering efforts to make a humorous allusion to hip hop. We get it Ari, you’re the young guy at MSNBC. Hell, even I’m younger than Tweety or O’Donnell.
eclare
@Immanentize: She is within a year or two of my age, and I have thought that on several occasions. Along with the saying that by the time a person is fifty, he or she has the face they deserve.
manyakitty
@Immanentize: I’m completely sure you look great! Kellyann is ugly on the inside and that’s tough to keep under wraps.
cain
@Dave:
Worse, nothing changed after being sent there. Have the Gulf Wars changed anything for the better for our country. Was the price of having broken, homeless vets out there?
A couple of days ago, I gave a man a dollar who then told me he was a homeless vet, and was 65 and he’s been having trouble getting his social security check. I listened to him rant about it. Then he stopped. He said, “Thank you. Thank you for listening.” I walked away with a lump in my throat. Makes me ashamed to be an American when we treat those who answer the call, so poorly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@patrick ii: When Maddow asked how they deal with the personal attacks, and Emma Gonzalez pretty much said, by laughing at them, it was fantastic. And she was utterly sincere. “Can you believe the sad shit these sad Olds trot out?”
Jay S
@opiejeanne: North King county close to the freeway. Large flakes of snow and 36 degrees.
Ruckus
@germy:
Agreed.
However there is money to be made selling a product that everyone has connection to in one way or another. And stifling rich assholes getting richer at everyone’s expense is NOT the republican way. Letting the rot run wild, now that is how they roll.
eclare
@germy: As a former employee of a government regulated public utility, I agree 1000%. It is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Currently the companies enjoy monopoly status (mostly) but have market pricing, it needs to be cost plus rate of return, overseen by a board.
Cermet
@PaulWartenberg: If he isn’t pilot material, his career path is very limited as an officer. However, if it is just for a degree, then that is great. Most air force officers who have no rating are in safe bases doing standard paper pushing type work over seeing flight operations personnel. Safe. The religious nutcases are insane but I’d think one could handle that aspect.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh man, that would enrage them so much. All their life’s work and they are dismissed as “olds”. Love it.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
Worse, none of that hard living liked her.
patrick ii
@Frankensteinbeck:
Calling Iran on cybersecurity may be Rosenstein’s job pitch on a matter that impresses Trump while also pushing for more cybersecurity, which we need generally, since it is Iran on the attack, not Russia it night get approved. After watching McMasters and Tillerson go out the door after bad mouthing Russia it is probably the Smart play if you want to upgrade cybersecurity • Always work towards Trump prejudices if you are in his employ.
cain
Denver is up to 72 degrees here. We are truly enjoying the warm weather and sunshine. :-) Sorry y’all who is having inclinate weather.
Corner Stone
Another write up of Uber and driverless cars. ArsTechnica. I found it to be worth the read.
Video suggests huge problems with Uber’s driverless car program
“But zooming out from the specifics of Herzberg’s crash, the more fundamental point is this: conventional car crashes killed 37,461 in the United States in 2016, which works out to 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Uber announced that it had driven 2 million miles by December 2017 and is probably up to around 3 million miles today. If you do the math, that means that Uber’s cars have killed people at roughly 25 times the rate of a typical human-driven car in the United States.”
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
“GD insane cable cost” is right. I actually like my Cox Cable service, which is kind of amazing, considering that cable companies are Satan incarnate, but the bill is steep and periodically I get a random increase with no explanation. They’ve been small enough and far enough apart that I haven’t been prodded to action, but last month the bill went up a full 10 bucks. WTF? So now I’m gathering the motivation to go on line, go through my bill and see what I can cut out.
My DVR/cable box is very old (at least eight years, maybe 12), and I would like to upgrade it. I don’t need fancy voice control or recording in eight rooms of my one-bedroom apartment, but I would like a bigger hard disk on the DVR and maybe the ability for more simultaneous recording. (That situation doesn’t come up often, but it would be nice to have.) So if I could get a new box and some version of the whoop-de-do Cox Contour service at my current rate or a little less I would consider it a moral victory.
Mnemosyne
@NorthLeft12:
I was thinking on my drive in how my schools in IL used to do tornado drills every spring.
We’ve been trying to teach our kids that having a guy with a gun come into their classroom and start shooting is just another natural disaster that they need to be taught how to survive. I’m very glad that the Parkland kids are refusing to go along with the program any longer.
Damned at Random
The “leader of the free world” is going on TV live in 10 minutes to fuck over Ryan & McConnell, who thought he had agreed to the omnibus spending bill and went on recess. “Freedom caucus” is cheering him on.
Elect a clown, expect an apocalypse
germy
Adria McDowell
If those Millennials and Gen Z’s that will be fed into the meat grinder want to hear what awaits them, they can always hit up us young Gen Xers that were there in the early part of the Global War on Muslims I MEAN Global War on Terror. Even the most conservative among us will have some, um, critiques.
Jay S
@Cermet: I hear Air Force mechanics keep their head down and feet on the ground most of the time, with good employment post service. ETA not that the Academy works for that.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
ruemara
@brendancalling: I do. I’m sipping this tea in remembrance.
I am so confused by these porn stars, playboy models et al, who willingly sleep with Trump. I mean, money makes sense, but for just $130k? The man was always slime, so up your prices. The one that goes on about not taking money? Her I don’t get at all. I legitimately do not understand boinking that skin sack of donkey excrement. Admiring him? Helping him cheat on his wife and holding yourself out as principled because you didn’t get paid? Girl, who hurt you?
I guess it’s that “teenage artist trying to navigate the art world” thing, but rich greasy old guys make my stomach churn. After a while of meeting them at college parties and openings, I learned to cringe at the heavy, intrusive hand on your shoulder and the way a look made you feel like they’ve stripped your clothes off in public. They’re so gross.I do not get it. at all.
opiejeanne
@cain: Yes it was the model for news before 1990. There were ads during the news shows when Walter Cronkite was on tv, when Edward R. Murrow was on tv. We had a television set in 1950 and I remember the news shows.
Ads are not what caused the news programs to change to entertainment shows, and it has been discussed ad nauseum just as to the cause of the loss of actual news content in favor of titillation and entertainment. I don’t remember all of it but here’s an article from 1982 discussing the change:
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/17/arts/why-tv-news-is-increasingly-being-packaged-as-entertainment.html
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
We used to hide under our desks, which were supposed to be designed to stop an atomic bomb, or at least that was the concept. I don’t think any one was fooled by that, even the class dunce. It was around 10-12 yrs after the bombing of Japan and we’d seen the pictures. It was fucking stupid and we knew it was as we hid under them.
Steeplejack
@opiejeanne:
Nobody segues in/out with Chris Matthews either.
Adria McDowell
@ruemara: Thank *clap* you *clap*!!!!
I read somewhere McDougal thought Dolt was “interesting and brilliant.”
In what damn universe, woman?!?
opiejeanne
@Jay S: It’s 38 here, according to our thermometer. My niece is in Federal Way and it’s snowing there and starting to stick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
trump is going to give a press conference, I hope all the questions are about Stormy, Karen and Melania. Somebody ask about pre-nups, please!
Steeplejack
@opiejeanne:
Hayes’s style is much better suited to his old, leisurely weekend show: velveteen smoking jacket, pipe and comfy slippers, wonks talking to wonks about wonky stuff. On his current show he faces too many RWNJs and lets them run roughshod over him as he tries to have a reasonable back-and-forth discussion.
I have said several times here that he needs to be sent off for a couple of weeks at a John McLaughlin-style spa/reëducation camp. “Eleanor Clift! Wrong!” Ginger him up a bit.
James E. Powell
@Corner Stone:
I hope we can avoid disparaging this woman. That’s exactly how Trump & his supporters want people to respond and it’s how he will deflect whatever she has to say.
Raven
@Immanentize: Yea, that same underwater operation found the Ward, my dad’s sister ship that was sunk at the Battle of Ormoc Bay 3 years to the day after she fire the first shot of WW2. The Crosby took some of the crew aboard.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack:
Mine has gone up six times in 18 months. It is literally $40 more now than same time last year, with no change in service. I go through the packages I have (no movie channels) but the way they get you is by putting Basic with most normal channels and then Basic Plus or Premium or whatever it’s called with like three channels you really want to watch and 50 you never even check the guide listing for. I figure with keeping internet service plus adding YT TV as well as Netflix and Hulu I will still be saving about $120 a month by dropping cable TV.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Iraq War II, build up to.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
Many years ago, my boss at the time tried to argue to me that Fox was “fair and balanced” because they had Alan Colmes on against Sean Hannity. I had to explain to him that in professional wrestling, there is a thing called a “jobber,” which is the guy brought in to deliberately lose matches to make the star look good. Which is why reasonably good-looking blowhard Hannity was paired with milquetoast lizard-person Colmes. The principal remains the same today.
scav
@opiejeanne: Is there a part of the Seattle area that has shared weather? Over here in the OP it’s overcast but entirely dry — even tiny hints of blue sky.
Mnemosyne
@eclare:
You guys made me look her up, and she’s 2 years older than I am.
My boss is 4 years older than I am, and is a tall, skinny blonde, but she looks 10 years younger than Conway because she’s not a horrible person being eaten away by hate from the inside.
Repatriated
@Gin & Tonic:
This will apply some pressure.
If this is a causus belli for war against Iran (and I’m sure our new NSA will push that point), then the proof that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian government agent means they’re at war with us too. And that turns the Russia business from mere conspiracy against the United States to the next level…
opiejeanne
@cain: Snow is exciting in the Seattle area. Sometimes it’s a bit too exciting, like last March when we had a late, very wet snowstorm that damaged trees and took out power for thousands. We dragged the sofa up to the fireplace in the living room because we discovered that we couldn’t run the heating system with the generator* so we just hooked it to the refrigerator. We bundled up in heavy blankets with our e-readers and the cat joined us. I can’t remember how long it was out, probably for 24 hours.
*My dad’s generator, which he had never used and decided to give it to us just before he bought a bigger one, which has never been used. We’ve used it a lot here; wind takes out the power lines once or twice a year, sometimes for an extended period.
Corner Stone
@James E. Powell:
I didn’t call her a low down dirty fucking moron. Sorry if it offends but although I believe her story and find her credible, I am also of the opinion that her words and actions indicate she may not be sharpest spoon in the drawer.
Spanky
Ah well. CNN is now reporting that he’ll sign the damn bill after all. That was a quicker flipper flop than usual.
Another Scott
@Corner Stone: Haven’t read the linky yet. But on another site I saw a pointer to a video of that road at night taken with a different video camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRW0q8i3u6E (0:42)
The site of the accident is at about 33 seconds according to the uploader.
Nobody with licensable vision should have had trouble seeing her with her bicycle.
Cheers,
Scott.
RemindsMeOfThatMovie
People pay extra to watch MSNBC? Can’t you buy boxes for streaming anything you want from the internet to your TV if your TV doesn’t already have that option? Really just need a web browser on the TV but I am assuming there is an MSNBC app like there is a youtube app.
Brachiator
@Spanky:
Congress is on their Spring break for the next two weeks. Ryan had already ordered some kegs of beer, McConnell was splashing in the pool and no one wanted Trump to harsh their buzz.
One of the Gizmodo sites was already calling Trump “President Pump Fake.” Nobody was taking this veto noise seriously.
However, this does mean that Trump must quickly arrange a rally where he can insist that Mexico is going to pay for his wall.
cain
@opiejeanne:
Right, I’m not really focusing on the ads exactly. Today, and yesterday, when we watch tv shows we accept that there will be a commercial break, and then we are back to watching the show we are interested in. Because the content is pretty unique within the course of an hour or a string of hours, I speculate there isn’t as much fear that a viewer will switch channels to something else.
In 24 hour news, though, much of the content is repetitive. There is only so many dimensions one can explore a piece of news before you’ve pretty much covered everything. So given the start of any commercial break there is a fairly good chance that a viewer will switch to another channel and not come back. So you create ways to keep them on the channel as long as you can. I suspect you already are fully aware of all this, but I wanted to just explain why to the peanut gallery reading.
Jamey
I love Rachel, too. But her hour-long daily show is probably the best five minutes of actual news reporting/analysis per diem on TV.
She does love her some wheel-spinning.
WereBear
She means he’s rich. That interests her.
cckids
@opiejeanne: Snow, huh? Here in Bellevue, just steady rain. Snow sounds like more fun.
Corner Stone
MSNBC is doing some weird shit with whatever camera feed the have of the WH.
ETA, I think they have BillinGlendale trying out some of his fancy photog tricks. Either that or an NFL wire suspended camera gone haywire.
ruemara
@rikyrah: Shit, I saw Hope Hicks’ mug & thought, “that is a HARD 28 years”. And then, laughed, with my ridiculously smooth face
bemused
@ruemara:
Was it McDougal when reporter asked if she was physically attracted to the jackass and answered yes? I have a lot of trouble believing she was being honest.
EthylEster
I think you reasoned backwards, BC. I would have asked Sling to remove CNN.
I just saw this above:
her hour-long daily show is probably the best five minutes of actual news reporting/analysis per diem on TV.
YES! I cannot watch TRMS for this reason.
Betty Cracker
@James E. Powell: Sorry, no can do. Calling a moron a moron isn’t doing Trump’s work for him. McDougal didn’t say anything Trump would want to deflect anyway — she called him “brilliant” and said she voted for him. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if he paid her to go blab on Cooper’s show.
Ruckus
@James E. Powell:
You are right of course but still, she seemed to like him. What’s up with that? He’s never been likable, not in the least. I’d say not even tolerable, even if you were just looking for a payday of some sort, but that’s just 63% of the country.
TenguPhule
@Joey Maloney:
You’re supposed to remove their internal organs before you cook them.
bemused senior
Bolton’s take on the Vietnam war.. Didn’t read all the comments, so apologies if this was already posted. Specially for Raven.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I was saying last night that the odds that someone who chose porn as a career had emotionally abusive family members with Cluster B personality disorders like narcissism are … pretty high.
Trump probably reminded her of Daddy, especially since he kept telling her how much she resembled Ivanka. Ick.
cain
@opiejeanne:
Sounds super cozy! Yeah, being from the northwest for 21 years, I can understand how exciting snowfall can be! In Denver, the weather can change drastically. We could have 70 degree weather and then snow and 22F the next. At least in the northwest I knew I was not going to see the sun for 8 months. :-)
Incidently, I’ll be in the seattle area next month to attend a conference. NOt sure if I’ll have my own car though or not.
NorthLeft12
Just read this on Digby’s Hullabaloo;
The sad thing is that he probably still believes that today. The funny thing is that Bolton continually disparages the UN as a waste of time, toothless, corrupt, etc. yet it seems that he thinks it is important that the US should dominate it. Because…………..?
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
Did your boss also think that pro wrestling was “real?”
Good Hannity analogy.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Yep. It’s a sad pattern.
Just reading a fascinating forensic psychiatry profile: Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson by Keith Russell Ablow, MD. He traces severe dysfunction from his mother who was placed in a Catholic orphanage at the age of two.
Scary stuff.
Kay
They do.
MattF
WaPo sez Trump will sign spending bill, despite veto threat. Confirms ‘Trump is chickenshit’ theory.
p.a.
tumblr’s statement on media manipulation:
https://staff.tumblr.com/post/172170432865/were-taking-steps-to-protect-against-future
the news literacy project (B-J jackals won’t need this, but pass it on):
http://www.thenewsliteracyproject.org/sites/default/files/GO-TenQuestionsForFakeNewsFINAL.pdf
Sloegin
@brettvk: I get the podcast as well since I ditched my cable; the podcast of that day’s show usually shows up in my feed around 730-800pm (west coast). The only times I can’t listen to a segment have nothing to do with Rachael (she’s great!), it’s the toxicity of the news she’s passing along.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Steeplejack: I signed up for DirecTV Now on the first day it was available and I get 100+ channels for $35 a month for the rest of my life. I also received a free Fire TV stick that I use all the time.
Corner Stone
Can “The Democrats” sue Trump for slander?
Steeplejack
@cain:
That reminds me: looks like 49° and partly cloudy in D.C. for the march tomorrow. That’s not bad at all.
LAO
@MattF:
Spanky
Somebody in this damn office has Trump blathering on about the bill, and I have to hear this shit.
Unhealthy workplace.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Trump allegedly said this to Karen McDougal, the Playboy Playmate of the Month and Playmate of the Year. She was not the p0rn star, Stormy Daniels.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: I always remember Jon Stewart mocking Alan Colmes back in the day: “Ooooh, that Colmes, he gets me so steamed!”
Kelly
Here at 600 ft in the Western Cascade foothills of Oregon we can see snow on the ridges at around 1800 ft. That’s about where I like my snow. Close enough for an easy visit.
I quit with TV news soon after the Iraq 2 invasion. Ranting at the set every night seemed unhealthy. Discovered I could read the news in 10% of the time without getting quite so worked up.
Spanky
With help from Mueller, that’ll be damn sure.
Ruckus
@NorthLeft12:
Because he’s a fucking idiot. There is no logic, no thought process with an ideological idiot. There is only some twisted meandering among random bits of hate. Trying to make sense of his thought process will only give you motion sickness as it bounces around in empty space.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: Supporting the Museum of Psychopathology’s long-term funding campaign for a Trump Pavilion.
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: The guide they gave us is out of date and doesn’t list channels like MLBtv. We just spent a big chunk of time trying to find MLB Extra Innings, to which we subscribe, and ROOT, which is the local sports station. I’ve now written them on the stupid channel card, like I did with the old one that is now lost somewhere.
Raven
He signed it.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
A couple of years ago, I read a series of long web articles by a guy who had gotten involved with the whole “Pick-Up Artist” (PUA) scene and realized that all of the techniques they taught were designed to attract women who had Cluster B personality disorders. This was because the big PUA proponents were either clinical narcissists/borderline personalities themselves, or because they were trying to re-create and “heal” the relationship they’d had with a Cluster B parent (and often both).
Damaged people who refuse to believe they’re damaged can do a hell of a lot of harm in the world.
opiejeanne
@scav: Maybe not. When we moved here in 2010 we discovered that we were in the “convergence zone” and the weather guys couldn’t tell us what was going to happen here, but we noticed that we got the same weather as Lynnwood. That worked for the first 4 years but not any more.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I thought he (allegedly) said it to both of them? ?
GregL190
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): And Ari Melber, too. Nobody does the “I’m sorry, what did you say?” face better than Ari.
LAO
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, I need to go through a whole “audit” and figure out what to do, but it sucks that I need to.
Def hear you on the “this module has three channels you want and 50 you will never watch” conundrum.
And then last week Bro’ Man was ranting to me on the phone about some stock market thing and I discovered that I don’t have Bloomberg at all. Don’t even want to know what crap comes in the extra module to get that.
The main reason I like Cox is that the on-screen interface is really well done: clear and easy to navigate. And I say that as a grizzled software U.I. guy. I’m reminded of it every time I’m at Bro’ Man’s house and I try to do anything with his crappy Fios setup.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: I’m lazy. What’s a Cluster B personality disorder?
Gin & Tonic
I’m seeing that Joe DiGenova is having second thoughts about getting on the Trump bus.
Adria McDowell
@ruemara: HA HA! I love you.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Apparently pron stars and playboy playmates have them. //
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
I want to get a titanium spork from Amazon. That is all.
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: It does appear that way. (the noise you hear in the background, is just me cackling).
Brachiator
@cain:
In talk radio (and maybe tv news as well), news directors know the formats of competitors, so they would often schedule a commercial for the same time that a competitor would play a commercial, so if you switched you would not encounter new content and so might likely switch back to the original station.
TV news was originally often 15 minutes, Just enough time to be a good headline service. A local news block followed by the national news is going to have a lot of repetition and stretched out segments. And I’ve seen situations where the late shift of 24 hour news services have a lot of pre-recorded segments and cannot adequately cover a breaking news story.
Corner Stone
“I was thinking about doing The Veto.”
LAO
I’m not watching the signing, but I can’t believe he actually said this:
eta: If CS says he did, then he clearly did.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: Stay out of my Order History!
Gin & Tonic
@LAO: Can you imagine being too shady for him?
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: No, and I’m pretty shady myself.
ETA:
Damn, this is funny (for now).
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: I was thinking about doing the Hully-Gully. Or The Twist. I can never tell them apart.
TenguPhule
$3 Billion in counter-tariffs announced by China so far today.
Begun, the Trade Wars have.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic: Its now the Monster Mash.
VeniceRiley
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I almost went with them but they don’t have an app for my NVDIA Shield TV box. But they’re a screaming deal for sure. I will likely switch over when it becomes available and cancel the sling.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s the cluster of anti-social personality disorders: narcissism, borderline, antisocial (aka sociopath), and histrionic.
From Wikipedia, they are “characterized by dramatic, overly emotional or unpredictable thinking or behavior and manipulative, exploitative interactions with others.”
SmokeyB
Betty I enjoyed your post a bit more than usual today because Mrs B and I did the same thing. Cut the cable cord. Stopped the subscription to the NYT. Began a subscription with the WaPo. Moved to Hawaii.
Rachel and Joy are truly national treasures. I wish they were running this country.
Next time my phone says “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A TEST.” I will know for sure it is not a test. Now that Donnie Sprinkles and John Bolton have teamed up to bring us “the end of the world as we know it”.
Mahalo
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Who’s pron screen name is Veto?
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: Good. Because that one I can do.
Spanky
Ahhhh, fuckit.
TenguPhule
@SmokeyB:
See, this is why I sleep late on weekends. And don’t turn my cell phone on.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Does Playboy modeling = porn? The former seems kind of tame these days.
TenguPhule
And for those who were trying to say that the tariffs are no big deal because allies were exempted?
Jokes on you.
The exemptions are temporary and expire on May 1. Of this year.
sukabi
OT…very good interview with the Parkland kids
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I’m thinking more of Stormy Daniels, but someone who’s flattered when her lover says she reminds him of his daughter has more issues than National Geographic.
Saying she probably had a parent or parental figure who was also an unpredictable narcissist is a pretty fair bet.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
McDougal made a big deal about it, with Trump specifically saying that she reminded him of Ivanka. From People:
It would be very interesting if it came out that this was a line that Trump used often with women he slept with.
This is doubly creepy in that Trump seems to think more of Ivanka than his two doltish sons. Even though he once said it was Ok for Howard Stern to call Ivanka a “piece of ass,” I think that if Trump thought he might be reincarnated as a woman, he would want to be Ivanka. Her beauty and intelligence confirms his manliness and superiority in breeding, and she is not only his perfect mate but the yin to his yang (or vice versa).
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Seriously, when I make my quarterly trip to Taco Bell because I cannot quit their hot sauce I always skulk out with extra plastic sporks. Love ’em! Finding a permanent version is a constant back-burner thing.
sukabi
@LAO: which new (old) attorney is that? DiGenova? or someone else?
ruemara
@Adria McDowell: Namashade. The petty in me honors the petty in you.
None of you writers steal, that it’s in my next romantic comedy script.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Trump keeps bleating how the allies are begging to come to him to do a deal. If he tries to impose tariffs on them, he is going to get his ass handed to him.
Damn, it’s good that Trump has a brilliant economic adviser to help him with this. Oh, wait ….
Leto
@Cermet: Yes, if he doesn’t pick one of the 10 pilot AFSC then his career options in the other 140+ officer career fields will definitely be limited. /s
Also never suggest going enlisted. What the fuck could that side of the aisle offer, right? Nothing useful there.
Anyways, here’s the listing of officer career paths within the Air Force. Officer AFSC Classifications
LAO
@sukabi: DiGenova.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
God, this is what’s so bad about the Trump regime—new stuff keeps happening so fast you can’t remember the old stuff. “Doing the veto” reminded me that there was some other “the” thing, and it was driving me nuts until I remembered: “the cyber.” Was it Barron who was good at the cyber? That’s gone completely down the memory hole.
And to think that we were able to milk “also, too” and “all of them, Katie” for 10 years.
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack:
You do know they sell it separately in retail now?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
IANA psychologist, but as a layperson who’s read quite a bit about narcissism, it fits the very common family pattern that narcissists set up.
Ivanka is the Golden Child who can do no wrong, but she has to watch her step, because if she goes against what the narcissist wants, she can be instantly demoted. Watching the way her brothers are treated is a huge incentive to continue to play the game.
Eric is the Scapegoat — anything and everything that goes wrong is his fault, and he’s been told since he was a child that he’s too stupid and lazy to get by on his own.
Don Jr cycles between the two — he’s the Golden Child when compared to Eric and the Scapegoat when compared to Ivanka. This is probably the worst spot to be in, because it’s the ultimate in intermittent reinforcement. Some days he gets “love bombed” with praise for being better than Eric; other days he gets berated for not being as good as Ivanka. And there’s no way to know what kind of day it’s going to be.
Mike in DC
@LAO:
Lionel Hutz on line 1, Mr. President.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@sheila in nc:
Yup, same guy. (It’s actually Jon Miller.) Back in the 80’s when I live in DC, I used to watch O’s games with the sound off and listen to Jon Miller on the radio instead, because Brooks Robinson was so incredibly dumb and annoying. I was thrilled when he came here to San Francisco with the Giants. He’s the best.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Dollar is being taken out behind the woodshed and corncobbed by the yen in a flight to safety.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Not arguing about McDougal’s psychological issues, but “chose porn as a career” doesn’t seem to fit what I have read about her.
smintheus
@PaulWartenberg:
She wasn’t after Trump’s money?! Her self-delusions are intriguing, but at least the fat old creep didn’t bother too hard to pretend he wasn’t using her.
To put it another way, McDougal voted for Trump just as Trump voted for Trump, even though both of them knew exactly how he treats other people. They’re two peas in a pod.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Immanentize:
Heh, I think that every time I see her. She’s 7 years younger than I am, and looks like 7 miles of bad road.
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
They do?! Be still, my heart.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I was confusing her with Daniels since I know that “Daniels” is actually a pseudonym.
Spanky
@Leto: I’m gonna be a 96A0 when I grow up!
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack: Yep. Amazon and Walmart, among other places all carry it now.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
Thanks. I look forward to reading this.
Wait. What? This is nonsense. Are they extrapolating from a single death?
The first segment of this Tech News Weekly episode also discusses the crash, and comes out fairly strongly that the vehicle and the driver both failed to stop the car and prevent a needless death. This is streaming video.
I did not know that these vehicles have three different types of sensors, including a camera. All of the sensors should have been able to detect the woman with the bicycle at 100 yards, especially since she was apparently already in the street walking from the left to the right and into the path of the vehicle.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Okay, got it. Daniels definitely did choose porn as a career.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@VeniceRiley: I had Sling first but didn’t like it as much as DirecTV Now. I think the picture quality on DirecTV Now is far superior and the package of channels for the price on their intro offer was just too good to pass up. I have Amazon Fire TV downstairs and a Roku TV upstairs and the app works well on both, as well as Chrome on my pc/laptop.
frosty
@No Drought No More: I still miss Jon Miller from way back when he was calling Orioles games. He deserves the HoF recognition.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Wasn’t there at least one other death with a driverless car? It may have been Tesla’s.
I doubt that the technology is so different that you can’t group them together.
Leto
@Steeplejack:
Yes, it was Barron:
WaPo article: The answer that best exemplifies how badly Donald Trump was out of his depth in the debate
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
Will have to check Safeway and my usual grocery (local chain). Haven’t been in a Walmart in years. Thanks for the tip!
Although I have to admit that I’ll probably still hit Taco Bell occasionally, because there’s just something irresistible about the whole sleazy experience. I’m still grieving over the departure of the enchirito from the menu after several decades of valiant service.
Jay S
@Steeplejack: https://www.rei.com/c/camping-sporks?r=c&origin=web&ir=category%3Acamping-sporks&page=1
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Me neither, so allow me to have some fun here.
I think that narcissism can be loosely descriptive of a personality type and not describe a disorder.
I’ve never seen Ivanka demoted since she entered to public sphere. And she is a woman as well as being the favored child. I think she has been immune to the weird and harsh methods that Trump used with his sons. There is a different dynamic at play here. Now, if looks faded or she gained a lot of weight (and these are huge hangups for Trump), then that would be another matter.
And note that while Donald Jr sometimes speaks for his father, I haven’t seen him represent him as Ivanka has unofficially done at the Olympics and elsewhere. While googling I ran across a photo of Ivanka sitting at the presidential desk in the White House, flanked by Trump and Trudeau. Also, Ivanka has an office in the White House. The brothers do not.
I believe the version of Eric that I see on SNL! Dumber than dirt.
Don Jr knows that he can never live up to his old man, not even with mistresses. And he will never outrank his sister.
Steeplejack
@Leto:
I could have sworn there was at least one time when he specifically said “the cyber.” I remember us joking here about CSI: The Cyber.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Don Jr. seems to be the most egregious Nazi of the bunch. I wonder if there’s a connection.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: The Ars article goes on to say that there is not much you can do with such a small sample size, which was my contention when BJ previously discussed this issue and some cited numbers saying driverless cars were *much* safer than all the deaths that happened with people driving.
It also quotes a lead engineer at Waymo and then Uber says about how redundancy is trash and they just need to get their garbage on the road ASAP.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: …also, it’s interesting that Tiffany manages to basically stay out of her dad’s immediate orbit, when all the other adult kids feel this need/opportunity to work as lackeys for him.
Leto
@Spanky: Legit LOL in the office; well played sir! I believe we have an overabundance of 92J3s running around this blog ;)
Raven
@Leto: You can’t swing a 2×4 without hitting a damn officer!
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
It can be loosely descriptive, but we need to not fool ourselves here. Trump is not just a garden-variety egotist who otherwise has normal responses to human stimuli. He is a clinical narcissist, which means that he will take actions that seem totally illogical to other people because they are actions that protect his damaged core.
We’ve already seen this behavior over and over again, and we need to stop pretending that the usual methods for publicly reining someone in will work. Trump gets away with shit because people assume that nobody will do X because it’s just too destructive. Trump doesn’t care how destructive his actions are to other people as long as they serve the purpose of defending his core.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: I have only ever seen the TB salsa in jars, like other salsa but TB branded. I have never tried it but don’t think it’s like the hot sauce in tiny packages. In that category Del Taco’s Del Scorcho hot sauce rains supreme.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s the constant trying to stay on Daddy’s good side and hoping that if he does everything Daddy wants, he’ll finally be the Golden Child that’s so destructive. Intermittent reinforcement is a bitch.
And it sounds like Marla Maples wisely kept Tiffany out of the whole dynamic as much as possible. She mostly gets ignored by everyone, except when Trump needs her to keep the others in line by threatening to make her the new favorite.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: A driver of a Tesla was killed a while ago using their “Autopilot” feature (which, despite the name, is not a true autonomous driving feature). If memory serves, there was a truck at an intersection crossing in front of the Tesla, and the car didn’t stop (may not have even tried to slow; I can’t remember).
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Chipotle’s hot salsa is pretty good.
Leto
@Steeplejack: I seem to remember that too, but I’m on a gov computer and I’m sort of afraid to type “the cyber” into the search engine.
sukabi
@LAO: wow, his tenure doesn’t even qualify to be measured in Scaramucci’s…
Jay S
@Corner Stone: Probably safer for passengers. Given how new self driving is you should probably compare the accident data with teen drivers. /snark
Jay
@Ruckus:
Of the internal organs, You are only supposed to eat the heart, and the liver, ( after checking it for cirrocis),
It’s chapter 9 in Torches and Pitchforks for Dummies.
Leto
@Raven: The best thing in the world is still meeting that one former enlisted LT while you’re outside in a group of people, walking from point A to B, telling the group to line up, and then having the LT individually salute us all. What should have been a group salute turns into 6-8 individual salutes. You know what you did. He knows what you did (because he used to pull the same crap). By the third salute he’s looking at the rest of you like, “You mf’ers…” Laughs all around :)
Basically this gag from the Robot Chicken Star Wars episode.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: I like their salsa also. Too bad the Chipotle near me has gone severely down in consistency and overall quality. Haven’t been back in many months, probably before whatever their recent scare was.
sukabi
@Leto: Barron being “good at the cyber” probably means he can help his dad get on the internet, and or fix his phone when it freezes, ie he force quits it.
Corner Stone
@sukabi:
God. We’re not going to fall back in to the Rational vs Irrational numbers civil war again, are we?
Corner Stone
Samantha Power is married to Cass Sunstein? What in the hell happened there?
cwmoss
@Gin & Tonic: FBI can and should do more than one thing at a time. Motherfuckers need to learn that if you try to hack into US shite, your ass is at high risk of getting caught.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
You ain’t lying about Hicks. and, then, their insistence that she’s just some naive girl..
PHUCK OUTTA HERE.
PaulWartenberg
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ve been telling him. I don’t see him often though. He’s already in the high school RTOC for the Air Force (MacDill is just down the road).
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
I agree with you. Anyone saying that today’s driverless cars are safer than conventional cars is an idiot. Also, I hope that I didn’t write anything suggesting that I might believe anything like that.
I’m not as harsh about this as you might be. And it is not just that there is redundancy. The sensors are looking for different things.. This is where the Tech News Weekly segment is helpful. And from another story on these vehicles.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator, @Mnemosyne:
Okay, I don’t want to get too heavy, but I will strongly recommend The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment (1994), by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Ronald Pressman. It does an excellent job of looking at the whole family constellation rather than concentrating on one individual. In many families there is no one who really fits the classical narcissist diagnosis, but all of the members together combine to create a narcissistic structure.
In my own background, the “neglectful” part was a huge realization for me. Nobody was a villain, but there were blank areas that I didn’t even realize until much later. But ’nuff said about that.
Anyway, you guys obviously have thought about the narcissistic personality in depth, and this is a great book on the topic.
PaulWartenberg
@Corner Stone:
I work in a library, I have to help people like that all the time. Can’t judge them on that.
I do, however, judge a shit-ton of trump voters who may have been morans but they still knew he was a racist scuzbucket and still voted for him out of sheer spite. THAT’S the distinction I make.
Leto
@sukabi: He knows how to use the dvr and can bring up Fox. Yeah, “the cyber” is basic computer stuff that befuddles him. So pretty much anything? Probably.
rikyrah
@Mike in DC:
BWA HA HA AH HA HA HA HA HA
No Drought No More
Marcy Wheel at Emptywheel notes: “Bullet 1 — seven words slipped into the CNN story between stuff we’ve long talked about Trump’s involvement in — ought to be blaring headlines…“Robert Mueller’s prosecutors are going to ask the President about the circumstances surrounding the meeting at which some Russians, including representatives from Trump’s old business associate Aras Agalarov, pitched Junior, Jared, and Trump’s corrupt campaign manager, on dirt about Hillary in the context of relaxing sanctions,” the headline should have read”. Wheeler then added: “Call me crazy. But I doubt Mueller’s team would ask the President about this unless they had reason to believe Trump knew something about it”.
If Flynn has a sense of humor- and that’s a very big “if”- he’ll now publicly reciprocate the advice Trump once offered him, soon after he left the White House but before he cut a deal with Mueller. He should publicly call for Trump to “stay strong” (remember that message to Flynn from Trump?). But he should also add this twist of his own, and caution Trump: “Because they know everything”.
Steeplejack
@Jay S:
Thanks for the pointer. I am an REI member. I occasionally look there and at Amazon, but I can’t find one that has the exact shape I have in my mind. The GoBites Uno Spork comes pretty close. Might have to fondle one the next time I’m at REI.
ETA: Hmm, actually, holding up one of my Taco Bell plastic sporks, the Snow Peak spork might be a pretty good match.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
Because drumpf suspects Gary Busey is the real father.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
None of are Trump’s shrink. Kind of tough to talk with certainty about who or what he is.
Even if Trump is a narcissist, he is a successful narcissist. Somehow, people keep overlooking this. Who can rein in a person who is president of the United States? And look how Trump can use the power of the office to surround himself with fawning staffers and officials who know that they have to pump up his ego in order to keep their jobs or get the goodies that they want.
Also, consider Biden’s stupid challenge the other day. Trump is deeply in need of an ass kicking. But he is also going to have Secret Service protection for the rest of his life. He will be able to use the bubble of protection and fame that is accorded to a president to give himself a perch to preen on as long as he draws breath. Even if he were to be impeached, convicted and removed from office, some courtesies of the president will still be available for him.
Mohagan
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): True that! My 3 favorites too, plus Joy Reid, of course
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
I used to love Del Taco in Atlanta. Much better than Taco Bell. Then they all mysteriously disappeared. Haven’t seen one in years.
Don’t push me into my Whataburger rant.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Forget that. Sebastian Gorka’s wife is still embedded in a government job. Nepotism rules!
Jay
@Brachiator:
The Secret Service doesn’t protect Politicians in jail.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
This looks like an interesting read. It’s on my list now. Thanks for the recommendation.
sukabi
@Corner Stone: Corner Stone, with this crew (Drumpf enablers) they’re ALL irrational.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I’ll have to take a look — thanks! As I’ve said, this all came up when I realized there was something very wrong with my late brother’s ex and that she did things that a normal person would never dream of doing (the infamous U-Haul story).
Brachiator
@Jay:
We haven’t had a president in jail. Yet. Probably would not have one with Trump. If Trump were impeached, convicted and removed, Pence would hand out a pardon faster than he could say, “Oh, Mother!”
ruemara
@Brachiator: Not for state sentences.
Mike G
@Steeplejack: I liked Del Taco. As far as I can tell from their website they’re down to about a dozen locations in Southern Cal.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: Take Pence out first.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
I would love it if ever get to a point where we can speculate about what jail term should be handed out to a convicted Trump.
Gravenstone
@WereBear: Just so you know, Keith Ablow is a wingnut (first class) and Fox “contributor”. Take any and everything he says with a mine’s worth of salt.
ruemara
@Brachiator: I’ll wait for an actual charge, since impeachment removes from office, not actually charges him with a crime. IANAL, so if that’s incorrect, please do enlighten me.
Jay
@Brachiator:
Dense is on Meuller’s shit list too. Remember who “managed” the Trump Transition Team and the Campaign.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mike G:
Did Bain Capital invest in them?
Brachiator
@ruemara:
Impeachment, which happens in the House, is a formal statement of charges, which supposedly adds up to high crimes and misdemeanors. The House would have to pass articles of impeachment.
The Senate would then consider the charges. Conviction would require a 2/3 vote. Conviction by the Senate would remove the president from office. The Senate could add on other punishments, such as barring the person from future federal office.
Presumably, after this, there could be state criminal prosecution.
Remember that Bill Clinton was impeached, but the Senate failed to convict him.
@Jay:
Impeach and convict Pense, then Trump. Ryan becomes president and deals out pardons.
Switch up the House, get Pelosi as Speaker, and impeachment and convictions and I will laugh my ass off.
The Other Chuck
@PaulWartenberg:
Honestly, I’m not sure how credible she is. I mean, Trump actually paying anyone?
Corner Stone
@The Other Chuck: She didn’t say how much, AFAIK.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Maybe the computer was looking at porn. Or talking on the phone. Either way distracted. They are trying to operate like human drivers aren’t they?
SFAW
I realize this is significantly off-topic, but apparently Scotty Walker and the rest of the WI GOP traitors are trying to get WI law changed so that he doesn’t have to have those darned special elections until he’s certain that a GOPer can win.
It’s unfortunate that Mueller’s charter does not extend to addressing shit like this.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
The scary thing is, this kinda makes sense.
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
Who knows? If Russian money is involved it just might.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
This could be subject to change.
The Lodger
@Mike G: And one in Hillsboro, Oregon.