Maybe they're all working. Maybe they're all kind of busy. Maybe they don't think primetime cable is a good use of their time. #TBOTP https://t.co/Ecyosrth8F
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 21, 2021
"Aside from yesterday's interview." That's all the public demands. They want to hear the president address a series of questions. No one cares about every reporter getting their little moment in the spotlight. https://t.co/W0XSBdanP1
— Esoteric Geoff (@agraybee) August 19, 2021
These same folks barely thought about Afghanistan for years and won’t care about it again in a month.
— Kevin Bartner (@heshsson) August 19, 2021
The Pentagon has held more press conferences in the last week than they did all last year https://t.co/PBnrGLOFId
— Mike Black (@MikeBlack114) August 19, 2021
more analysis here; https://t.co/UzALF3TZjl
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 18, 2021
instead he… did none of those things https://t.co/fWJMkpzGBM
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) August 20, 2021
also lol at the idea of the media treating biden with kid gloves. the sudden shift from constant scandal (trump) to boring (biden) has created some wildly unbalanced coverage
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) August 20, 2021
Sounds reasonable but no. The amount of coverage of the evacuation vs the lack of coverage of the flailing mess of the 20 yr occupation is a de facto endorsement of indefinite war. Media platforms are not neutral conveyor belts; the priorities they choose are a political message https://t.co/vgNiix7V97
— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) August 21, 2021
It's so telling that reporters who see neutrality as central to their whole identity feel comfortable *blatantly* editorializing about Afghanistan. Hawkishness and American exceptionalism are not matters of opinion in their world. They're just objective truths.
— Joshua Holland (@JoshuaHol) August 19, 2021
fascinating numbers from Andrew Tyndall.
From 2015 through 2019 this is how many minutes network news covered Afghanistan:
ABC: 16
CBS: 25
NBC: 16less than on hour of coverage, total, over five years;
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 19, 2021
ftr, those 5 mins represented the ENTIRE network TV news coverage of Afghanistan last year.
5 mins.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 19, 2021
for 4 yrs Trump lied to the press abt every conceivable topic, everyday of the year
in the last week, Biden hasn’t lied once abt Afghanistan
why does press seem more upset w/ Biden than they were w/ Trump?
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 20, 2021
and, not for nothing, but the small-ball freelancers and stringers and occasional columnists have been pretty much on-the-money this week. it's the staff reporters and book sellers whose brains are melting out of their ears.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) August 20, 2021
Of all the people who might wanna sit this one out…
Psaki has done more briefings in 7 months than Bigliest Crowd Ever, Period! Guy, Sarah Sandwich and Stephanie Grisham did in 3 years. https://t.co/JNXBLAzWUi
— Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) August 20, 2021
Even Captain Obvious is smarter than Tiger Beat on the Potomac…
But I mean this is exactly the angle that has *not* been prevalent at CNN/NYT/Politico/Axios/etc https://t.co/2bsl96HGxd
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 21, 2021
Cermet
The republican media – and very, very few outlets aren’t – can’t get enough if the other outlet is reporting the latest BS story; and since dem’s use information (complete sentences based on facts) they are staving for real news – i.e. 8 second sound bites full of stupidity (i.e. a thug pol or a dead head on fake (i.e. fox) talk shows.)
germy
Last night we watched abc nightly news and they had a reporter standing in front of the white house giving her report. She cut to a clip of Mitch McConnell criticizing the withdrawal as the worst thing in history (or something) and when the camera cut back to the reporter, she was nodding along with Mitch.
Objective journalism!
Baud
Y’all got it all wrong. The media aren’t doing this because they’re a bunch of warmongers who prefer Republican presidents. They’re doing this because Biden mocked them by wearing a tan suit a few weeks ago. You never cross the media’s
redtan line. This is all Biden’s fault, and now the press is out for blood.rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
rikyrah
I appreciate the Twitter detective work gathering the stats about how important Afghanistan was to these news outlets and members of the MSM before this week????
Baud
Also, too, the people who opposed forever wars for the last two decades really need to step up and have Biden’s back on this.
Keith P.
I saw this in spades with the media demanding Hillary (or Trump) apologize for something – when you do what the media demands, all that happens is that every one of them now wants Hillary (or whomever) to do it on *their* show, ad nauseum….everybody will want Hillary on their show so they can get her to redo it in hopes of them getting her to break down. Don’t apologize, and the media pouts for a day and then moves on to the next attempt to get a soundbite by the next week.
rikyrah
How are folks doing that are in Henry’s path????
Baud
@Keith P.:
Agree 100%.
Also, the current complaining about media availability reminds me of the “Hillary isn’t doing enough press conferences” schtick in 2016.
debbie
Those Boehlert tweets about coverage minutes need the widest possible circulation. Giving Americans the benefit of the doubt (with gritted teeth), I’d bet very few knew or understood the terms of TFG’s “deal.” Releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners and excluding the country’s leaders from negotiations! WTF kind of deal is that???
JMG
As has been documented, cable news and the Sunday shows are flat out refusing to put past critics of the Afghan War and/or supporters of getting out on the air. The Washington elite media is even more gung ho for permanent war than the Republicans (you know they’d be cheering withdrawal if Trump was doing it). It is my belief that on some primal level, American military action abroad lets those folks think they’re covering the world’s greatest empire ever, ergo they’re important. Otherwise, they’re just covering a rich but dysfunctional country with lots of complicated problems that’re hard to report on. So much more satisfying to interview generals off the record or show those blurry videos of drone strikes in the middle of nowhere.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Waiting.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Landfall isn’t until this afternoon, around 2 p.m.
Nicole
Biden said everything that needed to be said when he asked if al Qaida had camped out in Yemen instead, would we be in Afghanistan?
Fuck the GOP-placating media. On top of this, they transcribe every single one of Biden’s stutters after four years of cleaning up Trump’s word salads? Fuck them.
debbie
@JMG:
Petreus should shut his fucking mouth already.
HeleninEire
@rikyrah: It’s pretty quiet here in NYC. I expected to wake up to a full blown storm. Local news says the worst is about 5 hours away but it looks as though Henri has turned eastward and will make landfall on the tip of LI and then again in New England. I and mine are hunkered down nonetheless. Staying inside for the day.
Amir Khalid
RIP Don Everly.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
But he’s a neocon corporatist warmonger, and does not have any entitlement to their rhetorical support.
debbie
NPR was reporting on all of the abandoned weaponry. I wonder why they didn’t think to manufacture them with a kill switch or something similar that would make them inoperable. ?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT, here’s some fun at a Stillers game.
Karen fucked around and found out, got her man out to bed, too.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AroundThe412/status/1429284950944194561
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I remember a grade school pal’s older brother had all their singles, and she’d sneak them all down to their basement. We would listen to them over and over.
Immanentize
@Baud: Welcome back! You were missed.
Brachiator
The “cleer goals” thing kinda makes sense, but it is absurd to believe that you can have an absolutely pre-determined exit strategy in advance. But some Americans seem to believe that life is a sitcom in which everything is known and controlled, and the right people live happily ever after.
Anyway, on the media.
Is Ted Cruz still holding up Biden key Biden foreign service appointments?
Cover that goddam story.
Immanentize
The cover of the NY Times today makes the Afghanistan withdrawal sound like the Tet Offensive.
Losing losers lose and are lost!!
Biden Sucks!!!
Democrats decide to quit en masse in shame!!!!11!
JMG
@Immanentize: No organization is more devoted to the ideas of American supremacy and forever faraway war than the Times.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: It seems RI is the target. Already raining and thundering here in the north.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I have been watching some YouTube videos of younger people “reacting” to various songs and movies. Some folks discovered the Everly Brothers.
They were definitely foundational to pop music and rock and roll.
JPL
The other day someone mentioned Borgen streaming on Netflix. I just started season 2 and after several deaths in Afghanistan, the Danish Prime Minister discussed withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The year is 2013.
The media suffers from short term memory loss.
Benw
@rikyrah: just rain so far, thanks for checking!
Looks like it’s mostly going east of long island. Hang in there, CT and Rhode Island folks!
debbie
@JMG:
Reporters gotta protect their per diems! //
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: Henri is going to overstay his welcome.
John S.
Thus far it has been breathlessly reported that 20 people have been killed in Kabul during all the recent chaos.
Realistically, TFG will end up being responsible for the deaths of far more than 20 people as a direct result of his superspreader event yesterday in the udervaccinated COVID-19 hot zone that is Alabama.
Yet the media could care less about Americans being put in harms way.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Weird question for our Russian speakers. I know there are at least a few among the regulars.
I woke up with the word “Nekultura” (некултура?) in my brain, which was a very odd thing to wake up with. I’m sure it had nothing to do my dream, as there definitely had not been anybody speaking Russian in my dream or anywhere else in my recent memory. And I don’t speak any Russian either. I know the alphabet and a handful of words and that’s it.
I’m pretty sure that’s a real word and that I’ve heard it before, but I can’t remember the context, whether it’s a Soviet-era word or something more recent.
What the heck is it, if it’s real?
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Here in central CT it’s just rain so far. Henri hasn’t made landfall yet. I’m happy that we’re now under just a “Tropical Storm Warning” rather than the bright-red “Hurricane Warning” that’s been up for the last day or so. But it could still be hairy, especially for people on the coast.
mrmoshpotato
I’m gonna need evidence of said brains, melting or not.
Kay
@Brachiator:
Fantasy. There’s no difference between a “minimally disruptive exist strategy” and the success of the overall strategy. That was the exit strategy- the success of the larger project.
They’re clinging to this because they refuse to admit the project failed.
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: There’s an adjective, nekul’turnyi, but I’m not aware of the noun nekultura. I’ll look it up.
ETA: My online amalgamation of dictionaries and encyclopedias says there is no such word.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@zhena gogolia: And what does the adjective mean?
NotMax
Cold comfort?
;)
dr. bloor
@JPL:
No matter what happens, Waverly TN is still going to be this weekend’s weather disaster winner.
Immanentize
@NotMax: I kinda want those….
p.a.
@rikyrah: rain/wind in bands, tropical storm/nor’easter level stuff so far, no issues.??
JMG
Here in outer Cape Cod, the sun is actually out right now, although it is windy.
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Literally, “uncultured,” but more like low-class or crass. It is a fairly strong insult. I’m sure zhena can be more literary about it.
Geminid
@Baud: Some of the politicians calling for the end of forever wars are moving on to other important issues. If the networks were to solicit guests to talk about student debt cancellation, these people would be out in force.
More generally, the reticence of Democratic politicians on Afghanistan is disappointing. I understand that Representative Jake Auchingloss (MA-4), an Afghanistan veteran, has forthrightly defended the President’s actions. I expect others have done the same. But there should be more.
It could be that Democratic officeholders worry that the evacuation could still go awry, and are afraid to go out on a limb. That’s no excuse. As a western cowboy might put it, when the going is tough Democrats have to ride for the brand.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Battening down here too.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Gin & Tonic: Interesting. My vague memory is telling me that maybe there was an organization or publication or youth movement calling themselves that. Possibly Soviet-era as I said. But it’s all too vague to pin down.
Weird that it would fall out of my brain that way but my brain is weird. Especially right before falling asleep and (apparently) right after waking.
Danielx
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If I recall, the word is “nekulturny”. I think it means uncultured, with overtones of boorishness, rude, impolite, discourteous….but what I don’t know about Russian language would fill many volumes.
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Ushakov’s dictionary says:
As G&T says, the third meaning is the most common these days.
There go two miscreants
Because the way our corporations do security, it would be hacked and the weapons disabled while the good guys still had them!
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Turns out it’s a band. I’d send a link but I’m on my phone.
rikyrah
Happy Anniversary to MVP and the Second Gentleman?????
https://twitter.com/MyDesiSelf/status/1429377431790620673?s=19
Betty
@Baud: Tan line. Good one!
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0MOQRwDXdbbRnxsuNtpPR
But I had to search in Latin alphabet, not Cyrillic.
debbie
@Brachiator:
Biden’s speaking later today. I want him to say this, to say that this holdup imperils our security. Period.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@zhena gogolia:
@Gin & Tonic:
@Danielx:
Thanks all for being willing to answer my weird question. I suspect it was the band that somehow crossed my consciousness once upon a time. Not for musical reasons I assume, most likely they got in trouble for saying something mean about Putin.
Now I have this other word I think is in Ancient Proto-Romansh…
JPL
@dr. bloor: That is so sad, and highlights the power of water..
Ten dead with dozens missing, is barely a blip on the news.
zhena gogolia
Looks like they’re Slovaks!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@dr. bloor: 15″ of rain in 24 hours. Holy crap!
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Based on that Spotify link, it looks as if they’re Slovak, like me.
We’re the peasants of the Slavic world.
zhena gogolia
Happy Richard Armitage’s Birthday!
MomSense
@debbie:
Word.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
Wow.
Percysowner
Well, now we know who to blame! ‘She failed the country’: Fox News host explains why Afghanistan is Jill Biden’s fault
Let’s just say it’s an interesting take.
mrmoshpotato
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: Another clueless “geenyus” Jackal heard from (sigh).
I am not entirely certain, but considering that every TV reporter on a remote feed bobs their head in exactly the same way when anticipating the anchor will cut to them, no matter when or what the topic is, there is the strong likelihood that it’s a standard signal in the industry for “I hear you, we’re connected” – and not some kind of sinister editorializing.
Tl;dr: You should be ashamed of yourself.
mrmoshpotato
@Percysowner: Hoo boy!
OzarkHillbilly
“Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible with talent is genius.”
Watch to the end, it’s only 1:11 and you don’t want to miss a second of it.
MagdaInBlack
@Percysowner: Without reading, let me guess their angle; Her job as a wife is to keep him from making bad decisions. She failed.
germy
germy
@Uncle Cosmo:
She was nodding after the Mitch McConnell clip, not after the anchor. Go back to bed, moron.
geg6
JMM at TPM has a good post highlighting more of our media’s malpractice:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/you-wouldnt-know-it-from-the-us-news-coverage-but
MagdaInBlack
@germy: I’m in total agreement with the second tweet: Own it.
eclare
@JPL: Sounds like that area got no notice of the coming rain. The photos and videos are devastating.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Raised by wolves, effectively (IIUC). To paraphrase and repurpose the old Hee Haw lament (“gloom, despair and agony on me”),
(ETA: Cf. Danielx at #48 supra.)
zhena gogolia
@Uncle Cosmo:
You’re probably right, but do you have to be so hostile about it?
germy
I’m entirely certain you’re a fucking asshole, and one of the main reasons we’ve lost so many good commenters.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: OMG that kind of stuff freaks me out.
Puddinhead
@debbie: I would love to see him or someone else do a deep dive on the coverage in print (NY Times, Washington Post, etc.) of the lousy deal Pompeo “negotiated” with the Taliban. That is, how much reporting was done, did they accurately describe the terms of the deal, etc. That would be quite informative. Whenever someone (especially Maga Haberman) gets called out for past lack of coverage of something on social media, they poo-poo it. Newspapers have archives. Maybe frequent retrospective airings of their past delinquencies will have an effect.
zhena gogolia
@Puddinhead: I posted some quotations from Peter Baker at the time. It’s all about how decisive and forceful Trump is and how he wants to end the forever wars.
rikyrah
Imma,
How is Little Imma doing?????
Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) tweeted at 1:09 PM on Sat, Aug 21, 2021:
Despite 98.5% student vaccination rate, breakthrough cases lead Rice University to switch to online for now. https://t.co/GKNjmpvBWi
(https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1429143512373551105?s=02)
burnspbesq
@JMG:
I wonder how gung-ho they would be if it was their kids, nieces, and nephews getting drafted and sent off to die for … what, exactly.
Ending the draft was a big mistake, in the sense that there is less political cost paid for going to war.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: Really stings to be shown that your breathless hot take about “nodding” was just another bit of terminal stupidity masquerading as intelligence, doesn’t it?
Tl; dr: You’re a consistent imbecile. Like so many other overcredentialed nitwits who pontificate here on subjects they know fuck-all about as if they were Messrs. Know-It-All.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: How’d she do dat?????
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
?????
MagdaInBlack
@Uncle Cosmo: You really need a permanent time out. No one needs this crabby shit on Sunday morning. Jeezuz, have some coffee or something.
burnspbesq
@Uncle Cosmo:
prove that nonsense or GTFO.
m.j.
I remember in this small town where I live they tied yellow ribbons around the maple trees that line the main street when this fiasco started. There was an excitement about it. I was so much younger then.
The ribbons faded in color, frayed and became an embarrassment.
People forgot.
I didn’t
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe she’s been deboned?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You are joking right? They have come up with another vote getter of a slogan (for Rs that is)
Cancel Rent while being landlords (ladies) themselves
germy
@Uncle Cosmo:
You’re clearly too good for this place, uncle.
It would be such a shame if you left.
Start your own blog! And then stop by here one last time and give us a link.
Biff Baxter
@John S.: Did they even bother to mention this back then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2017_Kabul_bombing
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Mr Glasser and his wife are all in on the Orange Clown.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Gentlemen, gentlemen! You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!
WaterGirl
@debbie: This would be the perfect time for Biden to shame Ted Cruz by bringing this up.
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I’d be deboned by that demonstration.
sab
@germy: pie filter works nicely
ETA I’d have missed the whole thing, but I peeked with the toggle button.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Well said!
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: For both.
satby
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, I think he’s correct as well, but it’s unfortunate that it came with such hostility. Still, it’s a sweet reminder of how the term “jackal” came about.
Cameron
Taking advantage of the fact that this (like most BJ threads) is open, I’d like to post something I fell over this a.m. that sounds like a religion that I could believe in:
https://ultraculture.org/blog/2015/05/08/church-of-john-coltrane/
debbie
@MagdaInBlack:
So, what was Melania’s excuse?
Jerzy Russian
@OzarkHillbilly: That last part with her legs running rings around her head was just showing off.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo:
Oh Kettle, you are so very, very black. Signed, Pot
Why don’t you just fuck off outta here, asshole. Your level of projection would fill up the movie screen in my shuttered theater. Any tiny nugget of anything useful or interesting you contribute is more than overwhelmed and nullified by the sheer amount of abusive, vitriolic crap that you spew over anyone and everyone here. If you’re that damn disgusted with us, why don’t you just leave? Could it possibly be that everyone you know IRL can’t stand you and avoids you, so you have to hang out here taking virtual pot shots to be noticed by anyone at all?
Jesus, if I were Cole I would have banhammered you long ago, just for being an insufferable pricklouse.
Sure Lurkalot
So called journalists who love wars and catastrophes that rarely touch them personally, like the fully vaxxed show hosts promoting fear of vaccines and freedom from mitigation measures harming people they don’t know and could not care less about…
What are they good for? Absolutely nothing.
Stay safe, east coasters!
germy
@Miss Bianca:
You said it better than I could.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Exactly!
Percysowner
@MagdaInBlack: Not quite. No Jill Biden didn’t step up to the plate and tell Joe that he is a doddering, senile old fool who has no business being President. He should have stayed home and let her take care of him in his declining years. No, really.
lowtechcyclist
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, it’s been a long-term solution to a temporary problem, the problem being continued opposition to the Vietnam War.
With that war now a half-century in the rearview mirror, it’s been a bit of a two-edged sword since then. On the one hand, it’s resulted in a military that’s a LOT better at what they do, which is a good thing. (They still can’t do nation-building, nor should our leaders keep asking them to.)
But on the other hand, it’s resulted in a serious disconnect between the military and the public at large, and that’s really a terrible thing. Too many of us don’t know anyone who’s served in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the closer we are to the top of the heap, the more likely that is to be true for any one of us.
And it’s resulted in a military whose rank and file is politically much more conservative than America in general. A military coup would have been all but impossible with an army composed of draftees, but it has to be considered a real possibility in the Trump era.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jerzy Russian: As she should!
Nicole
@zhena gogolia: My grandfather was Slovakian! He was my first lesson that political borders are not cultural borders. In third grade when I asked him our origins for a school project, and he said, “Slovakian,” I replied, “We’re Czechoslovakian?” And he shouted at me, “You are not Czech! You are Slovakian!” ?
Danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
hurts to think about.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Please check site feedback. Can’t reach the Contact Us link.
zhena gogolia
@Nicole:
Yes, very big difference despite linguistic closeness. We Slovaks were heavily marked by being dominated by Hungarians. Czechs didn’t have that experience.
germy
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
The more advanced we become, the fiercer the tribal loyalties. I’m such a mutt, I can’t relate to any of it.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
I’m a mutt too. I recently found out I’m half Scottish.
raven
@zhena gogolia: I had a great buddy who was a Slovak. Crazy as a motherfucker and incredibly smart.
debbie
Even fucking Dexter Filkins! A 20-minute interview and not one word that this was TFG’s fucking plan! ?????
zhena gogolia
@raven:
That sounds about right.
MomSense
@Baud:
I like your explanation.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@debbie: There’s a Russian part of my family, but all the ancestors were very close-mouthed about the past so I don’t know much. I gather that they are very tribal in that part of the world though.
I knew my grandparents came from Ukraine. It was only when I was nearing adulthood that it occurred to me as odd that the language they spoke was Russian, not Ukrainian. I asked my surviving aunt, who explained that they were Russians. Whole different tribe, and I gather Russians were not well-liked in a lot of the places they occupied.
Also they were Jews, which was yet another tribe. But Grandpa was educated in Russia and employed (so the family story has it) by the Czar’s army.
And also I learned that they hated the Cossacks, yet another tribe, who were rampaging through that part of Ukraine (at least among the Jews) and chased them out.
Mike in NC
Perennial imbecile George F. Will today is rooting for Larry Elder to be the new governor of California. He’d make the entire state resemble the fall of Kabul.
Immanentize
@Nicole: Alexander Dubček, the rather famous Slovak politician who stood up to the Soviets in 1968, famously said (at least famous in my Czech family):
“The Czechs and Slovaks will work out their problems in bed.”
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think deboning is what you need to accomplish that demonstration.
zhena gogolia
RIP Tony Mendez (NYT):
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/arts/television/tony-mendez-dead.html
MagdaInBlack
@debbie: Different rules for different folks ?
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: What do you call a Contortionist from the Philippines?
*
*
*
Manilla folder.
Rim shot! ?
mali muso
@Immanentize: Boom cha!
I think you may have killed the thread….lol
artem1s
@lowtechcyclist:
Ending the draft put an end to the notion of a common national service period. It was the U.S. only mandatory service requirement. Israel and a lot of European nations had some sort of mandatory service requirement and an alternative to military for those who want to do something more productive than killing people for a year. Even if males still have to register (it really should be everyone now) everyone knows the likelihood of the US reinstating the draft is nearly nil. The riots would make 1/6 look like tourists for real, I think. Not to mention the deferment rules would benefit the obvious 1% players. Given that I doubt there will ever be a reinstatement of the draft. But if the progressives really want free college, I think mandating a year or two of service (expand AmeriCorp or the US Peacecorp not just military) might be a way to make that happen. And not just for college bound – a year after HS and a year after undergrad for those who elect to continue their education. Another year after grad and doctoral work for those who go on with higher ed. And for everyone, not just those attending State U’s. And everyone get paid exactly one dollar a year above what the current poverty level is deemed to be for their service year/s. A gap year doing service work would do more for a kids emotional IQ than free tuition. No deferments for anyone. Bones spurs or making Cheney babies or being the son of a CEO aren’t an excuse and shouldn’t get anyone off the hook. Hell, give up to a 1% break in Federal taxes to every close relative of those currently service to top everything off. The more you spread around the payoff, the better and the less you’ll see people trying to get out of service.
It may or may not return that sense that we have an obligation to our communities that is more than Armchair Corps or brawling over MY Team in sports stadiums and arguing over how to best appreciate a piece of cloth. Maybe we wouldn’t be arguing about petty shit like mask wearing during a Pandemic. Maybe we’d have governors figuring out how to help citizens rather than trying to kill more of them off.
It’s a pipe dream, but it’s a better to dream about substantive change rather than just handing out money and people forever losing the understanding of what the real costs are to make it all happen. It’s something worth bearing the political costs for and worthy of a once in a century leader. A New Deal or ‘put a man on the moon before the end of the decade’ game changer idea.
numfar
@Uncle Cosmo:
[comment text deleted. the frustration that led to the name calling is totally understandable – just use a different word next time. That is one of the very few words that is not allowed on BJ. ~WG]
debbie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I have similar lineage (Latvian, German, Polish, French; all but Polish were Jewish). Sometimes I think we fight with ourself more than with our siblings.
Geminid
@Mike in NC: The horseshoe dynamic in action: Young Turks cohost Ana Kasparian has come out in favor of recalling Newsome, and doesn’t seem to care who replaces him.
laura
WaterGirl
@debbie: Thanks for the heads up.
Mike in NC
@lowtechcyclist: Rachel Maddow wrote a very good book (Drift) on this subject.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
?
JMG
@artem1s: The draft was ended precisely because Vietnam showed the military, and more importantly the civilian powers-that-be, that conscript armies don’t fight colonial-type wars without major domestic political blowback.
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: say it again! HUH
WaterGirl
@debbie: We get so much spam on the site feedback and report a problem links that I don’t read those right away when they come in. There were 24 from just this morning
I cleared away all the junk and yours is left. :-)
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
He is doing great. Thank you for asking. As I said to my colleagues this morning in an email, you hope your kid’s Uni might make the NYTimes for accomplishments — not for their (really aggressive and good) Covid backtrack.
The Immp moved off campus this fall, mostly to improve his ability to eat what he needs to when he is able (meaning mostly from 9p.m. to 2a.m.). But he is happy right now that he is not in a dorm. As is his Dad.
Immanentize
@burnspbesq: I agree. We gained some efficiency, maybe. But the military is no longer democratized which allows fusterclucks like Afghanistan to continue for a whole generation.
Draft or public service! Some are always saying how great everything is going in Israel. That’s what they do.
germy
zhena gogolia
@germy:
And fuck you very much, Greg.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
It was weird. I could only see the top parts of the letters “Contact Us.” They were blue, but I couldn’t select it.
germy
“Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” (Lord Farquaad)
Another Scott
@Immanentize: I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of reinstituting the draft, or really mandatory public service. The problem with military adventures is the Congress ceding too much power to the executive, IMHO. Mandatory public service can too easily be used to keep down wages for people who chose it as a career.
The DoD is trying to reduce manpower in weapons systems and numbers in harms way. Captured and killed soldiers (understandably and rightfully) cause political problems. Pilots on fighters limit performance and pass out from lack of oxygen. Crews are expensive and limit capabilities (subs and ships have to be large enough to hold the crew and all they require).
But mostly, how does one create a draft that is fair that can’t be gamed, especially when only a small fraction of the population is needed to do the job? It’s much better for people to pay attention and to press their representatives to not get involved in foreign military entanglements.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
@Benw: Good God, y’all!
If you’re posting, you’re not out of power or under water…is that how it works?
trollhattan
@germy: “Minimum”? Compared to…?
germy
@trollhattan:
debbie
@germy:
Really? Where the fuck was he when TFG drew up the agreement Biden had to follow?
Percysowner
@germy: Well, it’s nice that HE has One Trillion Dollars hiding in his couch cushions, but for me, that’s not exactly minimum cost.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: It get the impression those who opposed the war are getting ignored like those who reported on the rampart corrupt in the Afghan government.
J R in WV
@germy:
No skippy, she was nodding in response to what was said to her on her earpiece — she was listening to a director, and nodding to the director that she was ready when they cut to her.
They all nod all the time to the director talking into their ear, because they don’t want to be speaking out loud to staff when the director cuts to them.
If they’re not nodding, the director knows they won’t be able to talk and the mike pick up their voice.
I worked in TV, wife worked as correspondent with The AP, my parents both worked in news media, all you got is “I watch a lot of Cable news lately!”
Kay
@germy:
It isn’t even that. He’s unwilling to admit even that.
It’s magical- stay forever and he guarantees it would be at a minimum cost.
If they could have done that they would have done it 15 years ago, or ten years ago, or five years ago.
They know they can’t do it.
Just astonishing to watch each one of these people DISCLAIM any responsiblity at all or for THEIR WORK and frantically blame Biden.
Are any of them ever going to take any personal responsibily for their work in Afghanistan? For blowing smoke up our asses for 20 years and insisting it was a success when it wasn’t?
Biden’s it? The sole individual who was involved in this and is willing to tell the truth?
I’m actually getting a much better sense of why it failed, listening to these cowards blame Biden for everything. That was the mindset, I guess, at the policy level. Avoid accountabilty at all costs.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Yeah, absolutely.
J R in WV
@burnspbesq:
I was almost drafted, but enlisted in the USN just before they came for me. Served in Key West, Charleston SC, Mobile AL and Pascagoula MS. I would be in favor of a universal draft following H S graduation, IF draftees could pick among federal programs to work in:
Ya’ll feel free to add to the list. Note that I didn’t bother to list any branch of the military — that’s my point here. There are lots of ways to benefit the nation without killing people a long way away from here.
Kay
I also can’t help but notice that we didn’t get out of there for twenty years and at the same time it has become clear that none of the architects and cheerleaders ever wanted to leave, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why we didn’t get out.
They never bothered to tell the public that the real plan was to set up a permanent presence there, with troop levels moving up and down, forever. 2500 this year, next year maybe resume the massive 2019 bombing campaign, the year after that take it back up to 10,000. Over and over and over. Forever.
But now we know, don’t we, watching them scream like maniacs now that the jig is up. They expected a fake withdrawal, another trick, where we’re told it’s over and then when it fades from view they can resume bombing or increase troops or do whatever else they want.
J R in WV
@germy:
Ya’ll act like you never heard of the pie filter. That’s some fine helper app for the blog, you should try it out.
trollhattan
@Kay:
I think this is where we’re supposed to roll out “We’ve been in Korea for seventy years, and nobody complains about that!”
Kay
Biden was the only one with the balls to admit the architects of this have been lying to the public for 20 years and if he left them ANY wiggle room they would have ramped it back up in a heartbeat as they have done over and over and over.
They know they can’t reinvade as easily as they can ramp it up, so they wanted a back door to get back in. Good for him for slamming it shut. He’s had a front row seat to this thing for the whole 20 years. Given my choices, I’m going with Biden’s analysis. He knows these assholes better than I’ll ever know them.
Ruckus
I was understanding that being a reporter/journalist was, you know a job, with a pay check.
I never understood that genital stimulation was part of the pay package.
But then I guess I should have known, seeing as how there is so much dick waving going on….
kindness
I’m not a big conspiracy person. I don’t think there is a widespread cabal set on world domination by overtaking the governments out there. I think there is a small cabal set on world domination by overtaking the government right here in the good ole USA. This is not a moment of history I relish.
Kay
@trollhattan:
“It was the WAY he got out”
That’s a lie. They can’t even maintain the lie through a paragraph in an editorial. Halfway through it becomes clear they object to leaving.
20 years of lying to us and they can’t even muster the courage to defend it honestly. Instead, they tell a whole new pack of lies.
Kay
They haven’t learned a damn thing. There is NO examination of their own work, NO examination of their underlying ideas, they haven’t budged an inch.
They’ll never, ever admit error or take any responsibility at all.
Ruckus
@JMG:
No other organization is as willing to see others fight and die in those wars, as long as their local customers make bank off of it.
Kay
@trollhattan:
Ask them what happens in their bullshit unicorn counterfactual when the Taliban takes more ground. They know what happens. They ramp up troops or start bombing. That’s why they want to be there.
The Pale Scot
@m.j.:
Oldie but a goodie
“Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV”
J R in WV
I’m all over in favor of President Biden’s plan: Get the fuck out. All the way out. Pronto!
Evacuate everyone who ever worked for us that wants out. But get the fuck out — right now. yeah!
And fuck all those war-mongers who are pissed that their fairy tale is over now. Killing and pillaging in foreign towns is no way to run the world, and we’re not in charge of running the world anyway.
Fuck the NYT, and now that we see clearly the WaPo, fuck those guys too. They felt free to criticize the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, it wasn’t being done right. Now that the President intends to end it permanently right now, that isn’t being done right either. Fuck that noise!
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: yep. We got passed by, barely any rain or wind.
Chris Johnson
“Nekulturny” is in one of Robert Heinlein’s nonfiction books. He and Virginia visited Russia, which they considered a great enemy of America. Virginia spoke Russian fluently, and never let on that she did. And if anything went wrong or offended them, Bob would thunder ‘NEKULTURNY!’ and Russian functionaries would turn to jelly and give them anything they wanted. Apparently it was a grave, grave insult at the time, unbearable, especially coming from a snotty Westerner.
As for the media: predictably, I think they’re getting paid off by Russia. Specifically, key media entities like the New York Times got captured because they were facing ruin financially (no newspapers did well in the age of the internet, no exceptions) and had far too much ego (another key component of getting turned by foreign intelligence) and were basically a total recipe for getting pwned by a foreign power, just as much as Trump and Giuliani etc. These sad, twisted, evil weasel fuckers all got captured by the Russian mob, and now they’re still running lots of things, such as the media.
This is of course me getting way out ahead of my skis, but… show where I’m wrong, or what wouldn’t be explained by this.
And I don’t sit around credulously getting propagandized by fuckin’ Pravda, so I have absolutely no interest in their opinion on this or any matter. (Beau of the Fifth Column has been good and thinks this is all pretty predictable, sad, and not unexpected or unmanageable. I’m with him. Sucks for the innocents caught up in all this, but the stories of terrible disaster are wildly overblown.)
debbie
@Kay:
I have three worries: First, I’m worried Dems won’t stand up to all these GOP accusations as vociferously as they are being hurled at Biden. Second, I wish Nancy would relent and vote on the infrastructure bill as soon as possible to counter all this crap. She’s demanding a vote by October, but that’s giving way too much time for the GOP attacks to be made permanent. Third, we need an attack dog to set on TFG and not only stop his lying, but attack and blame him for Afghanistan’s chaos—which he created.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Good points.
The draft also allows politicians to know that if a skirmish turns into a war, they will have the bodies to put in harms way. Which makes some of them less skittish about doing exactly that. Take Vietnam. Please. 13 yrs, over 58 thousand US dead. Add on the Vietnamese and other countries dead, the destruction and the devision in this country for the leadership having mis sold it and it was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. At least the 20 yrs of Bush’s war hasn’t killed as many, although it seems they keep track by country occupied so we might have more deaths than it seems. And we are keeping more people alive because of better medicine so that lowers the death count, but not the destruction of lives, for so little. Or nothing positive at all.
I’ve often wondered if wars are mostly about small dicks, because they are seemingly started by small dicks who seem to need to prove that they can be far bigger dicks. And often succeed in doing just that.
PJ
@Immanentize: Unfortunately, Dubcek didn’t stand up to the Soviets.
Ksmiami
@Miss Bianca: points for the term pricklouse…
Just Chuck
@Uncle Cosmo: Even when you’re right, you’re a fucking asshole. Just leave.
Yutsano
I have one person pied on here. The pie filter is (probably) unlimited. It’s also free!
Just Chuck
@Chris Johnson: I really doubt there are any Russian paymasters twiddling their mustaches while they pull the strings of the NYT. They don’t need to: the very much American owners of these outfits are doing a bang-up job of it themselves.
The rot goes all the way to the bottom. Yeah, the bottom, that’s us. We’re not the customers, we’re the product they sell to advertisers, and we’ve been whoring ourselves out as products in exchange for entertainment long before Putin ever came to power. It’s high time we at least extracted a higher price for being jerked around every day.
James E Powell
@burnspbesq:
He’s being a dick about it, but he’s right. It is standard for remote reporters to nod to indicate they are listening & ready.
James E Powell
@Nicole:
My grandmother’s very large family – 11 children- came from what is now the Czech Republic. They all called themselves Bohemian and they didn’t mean that they wore all black clothes & worked in the arts.
MrKite
@lowtechcyclist: This is exactly the problem (i.e., loss of a citizen army to be replaced with a professional military elite) that my father, retired bird colonel an brilliant person, raised when arguing with me about ending the draft, in 1967. What do you expect?: I was 17.
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
And the enemy really is the money. More specifically the way money is made at the upper levels, the way our government is paid for and the what and percentage that the different “pay grades” are taxed at.
@MrKite:
I hated the draft, mainly because I was subject to it, the shitty way people were selected, and the absolute dereliction of duty that was shown in the process.
Local draft board selection lent power to friends, to the wealthy, to those willing and able to pay off people. At least the selection by birthdate was equal, but that didn’t change the maladministration of physicals. I took my physical approx 60 days after I turned 18. The only thing physical about the entire day was standing around in our underwear for the better part of a day. The blood and urine samples were placed in a rack with zero identification. Which means they didn’t care about them because they were never going to test them. The government needed bodies for their war and they were going to get them no matter what. If you were grossly overweight at 18, that might have kept you out. And I think the only reason they cared about that was that they didn’t have the clothing to fit you. When I did enlist in the Navy, the amount of physical fitness in boot camp was less than I got daily in a public high school. The Marines next door did what looked like the normal amount for them. Which is A LOT. We had a kid in boot camp that attempted suicide – there was zero attempt to sort out those at high risk. (I’ve been through training to recognize people at risk for suicide. Low risk people might not get caught as possibles in a wide attempt at checking but high risk people should be relatively detectable.) From stories I’ve heard attempted/successful suicide was not really unusual. It may have even been considered simply thinning the herd – a possibility as to why checking wasn’t done. The other of course is the additional cost.
Bill Arnold
@zhena gogolia:
That’s an interesting alternative. Does that meaning basically map to “weeds” or “wildlife”?
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
Ending the draft was a big mistake, in the sense that there is less political cost paid for going to war.
How many in our monetary elite’s kids serve? How many were/would be drafted? The cost to most of them is the few dollars they spend to get their kids out of the draft. A friend was allergic to bees. He fought for, if I remember correctly, 18 months to be listed 4F, with a lawyer paid for by his father.
IOW I am agreeing with you, although that political cost seems to be actually pretty small. How many presidents have had to even consider their kids in a draft situation?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Immanentize: My paternal grandfather was Czech, according to my mother, but she also pointed to Dubcek as being Czech, because his last name ending in “ek” (her maiden name was Rezek – imagine growing up with that as a last name in 1930s VA). Anyway, when I found some Rezek relatives on an early US census, they were listed as being born in “Austria”, which I took to mean the Austro-Hungarian empire, in what is now the Czech Republic. But maybe I’ve got Slovak instead of Czech blood as my eastern European side. Hadn’t thought of that before.
JDM
During the Vietnam war it cost $500 to get a psychiatrist’s letter that would get you out of serving.
phdesmond
@Uncle Cosmo:
you’re boring.
Ruckus
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
I know my background is Scotch/Irish and Sicilian but the scuttlebutt is that there is also Blackfoot Indian in there as well, my great grandmother is supposed to be Blackfoot. And not actually knowing where those from Europe actually came from originally, which might make me purebred mutt. Oh wait, I think that designation might be too late….
The wars and gang type affiliation has always baffled me as to why it’s important. It makes no sense, unless one considers humans not of their group to be somehow less. Baffling how many have died over the millennia for such a pissy concept of location of birth/color of skin/religion or lack thereof/language. And we are supposed to be the higher form of life….
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Ruckus: Oh, I’m pure American mutt too. My father is half Irish and half German, and my mother’s father was Czech (or other Eastern European), and my mother’s mother was English and Scottish. I had always IDed as Irish (most interesting of all the ethnicities I could choose from), but the DNA analysis I took emphasized the Scottish. I seem to be more Scottish than Irish, go figure
About prejudice: It amuses me to look back on visiting England since they have such a history of prejudice against the Irish (which I had no clue about originally). My name is Irish, but since I am American, I had no recognition of possible prejudice against me for my name. And there probably wasn’t any, since the English keep this stuff for the people who live there, not the clueless WASP American visitors with an Irish name.
Percysowner
@JDM: Or you could pull what someone I knew did.
1. Rent a coffin
2. Have your mother rent widow’s weeds, the whole 9 yards; black dress, black gloves, black veil covering her face.
3. Get in the coffin
4. Have six friends carry the coffin to the selective service board. Have mother “weeping” behind the coffin.
5. Tell the board “I’m here to present my body to the service of my country!”. I don’t think they really thought he was section 8, just too much trouble to deal with. OTOH,his family also had money, so they (his brother was my brother in law) left out the paying a psychiatrist part.
Subsole
@Chris Johnson:
I fear it is much simpler.
Per Les Moonves “he may be bad for America, but Trump is great for CBS.”
The media are mad because flag-draped coffins, bomb-cam footage and stirring tales of our brave young boys over there are good for business – soneone’s business, anyway.
Would be really curious to hear JR in WV ‘s take. He has some inside experience w/media. Maybe he has some insight on why the entire Beltway seems to resent the fact we aren’t all Republicans.
And it is worth pointing out it seems to mostly be BELTWAY media. Local journalists, who actually know some folks that drink their beer out of a can on occasion, seem a lot more even and mild in how they’re covering things.
Subsole
@Ruckus:
We are.
Ants just kill each other.
We take the time to cook up an excuse. Much more advanced.
Chris Johnson
@Subsole:
Thing is, when you say Beltway media, you’re mostly saying ‘deeply tied in to the Republican establishment’ and when I’m saying ‘captured by the Russians and actively serving their interests’, well…
I feel like nobody really wants to deal with what’s happened there (Mueller found some of it) and most of all nobody wants to trouble the American people with the unpleasant reality of it, and it’s not like we’re talking a super-efficient fighting force here. Just that if you’re looking for explanations of why Republicans or Beltway pundits might seemingly be just plain out to get Biden and everybody actively trying to govern this country, I think that can be literally true.
It’s a motivation thing, they don’t get secret decoder rings. I bet they know who to listen to, though, and that there’s some way to disseminate desired attacking points out.
quakerinabasement
@germy: UC’s fiery hot reply was uncalled for, but his point is correct. The reporter isn’t necessarily watching or listening to the clip. She’s probably listening to her producer or director telling her when she’s going to be on camera again.
quakerinabasement
@Miss Bianca: Is “pricklouse” a real word? If it isn’t, it should be.
numfar
@WaterGirl: Apologies WaterGirl.