To be fair, everyone says this. RT @blakehounshell: Obama says Scott Walker needs to “bone up on foreign policy” http://t.co/5lUEfRZXOg
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) April 7, 2015
The correct answer is “They’re both poorly-educated, not-very-bright hustlers willing to recite whatever their handlers told them, as long as it didn’t involve hard work.” The question, according to the NYTimes, is “How Is Scott Walker Like Reagan? He’ll Tell You“…
…”I often joke that I know Ronald Reagan’s birthday because it’s my wedding anniversary,” Mr. Walker told the college’s Ronald W. Reagan Society. “But truth be told, Tonette would tell you, I know our wedding anniversary because it’s Ronald Reagan’s birthday.”
Expressing reverence for Reagan has been almost a requirement for Republican presidential candidates since 1988, but Mr. Walker has taken to it like an apostle to his creed. As he prepares a White House run, and envisions competing against candidates named Bush and Clinton, Mr. Walker is going to great lengths to claim the Reagan legacy all for himself.
In doing so, he is introducing himself to voters as a product of the Reagan Revolution. He is also trading on Reagan’s legacy while his own stature as a national figure is still uncertain…
On policy, Mr. Walker likens himself to Reagan as a fellow governor who cut taxes and as a leader who proved his mettle by staring down organized labor. Mr. Walker stripped many public-sector unions of their collective-bargaining rights; Reagan, after all, fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
And in his speeches, Mr. Walker strives to sound like another unshakably optimistic Midwesterner facing a challenging world.
“Scott seems, like Ronald Reagan, to have a ‘happy warrior’ aspect about him and to relish, with a smile, spirited combat, as he did in those battles with the public-employee unions,” said Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative commentator, who worked in the Reagan White House. “Also, there seems about Walker — and I do not say this pejoratively — a simplicity, an absence of calculation and deviousness, that is attractive to voters looking for someone fresh and honest to believe in.”…
From Nixon’s old speechwriter, “honest” can be defined as “Walker’s not smart enough to veer off script; just teach him his catch phrases and let ‘er rip.” Bumper sticker: Walker 2016 — He Isn’t Revanchist, He’s Retro!
***********
Apart from big news & small steps forward, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Baud
Almost?
Roger Moore
A whole bunch of Walker’s subordinates have managed to get indicted while he mysteriously knew nothing. Maybe he is just like Reagan.
schrodinger's cat
FWIW, I think Jeb will be the nominee. He seems to be the least clownish among them all.
Steeplejack
His wife’s name is Tonette?! I can’t even. I am not ready for a First Lady named Tonette.
And I say that as someone who was a grade-school Charlie Parker on the Tonette. Plus I just like saying “Tonette.”
Don’t get me started on the Fluteophone.
Comrade Jake
I’m in Santa Fe getting ready to listen to Coates!
NotMax
The youngest people who voted for Reagan (ew!) will be 54 in 2016.
For a huge slice of the electorate (probably a majority, numerically) he’s someone from dusty, musty history books.
terraformer
As a Wisconsinite, I eagerly anticipate when – not if – but when Walker falls on his face. Having watched his “ascent” from city politics to state, and now (unbelievably on one hand, but sadly believable on the other) he is poised to be a freaking Presidential candidate. This guy doesn’t belong beyond the tourist rope in the White House, and yet here we are.
dmsilev
I think the first GOP debate is going to be held t the Reagan library. It’s going to be like that one scene from Being John Malkovich, a whole stage full of people just repeating ‘Reagan’ over and over again.
Iowa Old Lady
@dmsilev: I once tried to explain the plot of Being John Malkovich to someone at the gym. I started with “There’s this puppeteer,” and things went downhill from there.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
I think Santorum’s wife is named Fluteophone.
I still have mine. I love it.
ETA: Always read the thread first. But I do still have my Fluteophone. Isn’t it Flutophone?
lamh36
I saw Joy Reid interviewing the Walter Scott’s family on Chris Hayes for MSNBC. The sit down aired after they showed the interview with the young man who shot the video of Walter Scott’s murder!
Anthony Scott (Walter Scott’s brother) said, “this man is also my brother”. If not for this video the truth may never have come out.
I don’t pray often, if at all, but tonight, I’ll be sending up some good vibes into the universe for the young man who recorded that video…cause IDK, but I fear for him.
Man…this guy should have just stayed anonymous. They will be coming after him now. SMDH…I saw his interview with Craig Melvin on Chris Hayes. I tweeted to Hayes, that I hope this young man is prepared for the shitstorm coming his way.
The MSM don’t give two shits about what may happen to him, they just want the story. But I sincerely fear for him and his family. I hope they all have protection.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/238284-man-who-recorded-walter-scott-shooting-mr-scott-didnt-deserve
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
That’s not quite true. People who were alive but too young to vote may still remember him as president; I fall into that category. My memories are not particularly fond, but there are lots of people who enjoyed their childhoods, remember him as president, and therefore assume he must have been a good one.
raven
Long day at a conference where I learned that my colleague has been chosen to move into my bosses job in August. This woman has busted her ass to complete a doctorate with a year delay while she fought breast cancer. She’s a good bit younger than I am and she really needed and deserved this promotion. We’ve worked together closely for 10 years and I’m really happy for her. It also means that I’ll be able to keep working the way I have been, probably until I’m 67, so that helps the ol’ retirement plans.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman, @gogol’s wife:
Well played, both of you!
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
Yes, it is “Flutophone.” I misread it in the Wikipedia “Tonette” entry. Okay, mea culpa. I was wrong on the Internet!
lamh36
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
Tonette Marie, née Tarantino.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I guess you mean the first time, the youngest who voted for him in 1984 would be 50 in 2016.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Now am depressed by contemplating those who were children when Dubya was in office.
Mike J
@NotMax:
50 if they only did it in 84 and not 80.
Redshift
Why am I not surprised that Pat Buchanan doesn’t know the difference between a smile and a smirk?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike J: Beat ya to it.
Origuy
The White House really is trolling Netanyahu; notice the diagram near the bottom of the page. Look familiar?
Suzanne
@lamh36: Seriously. I heard that the guy went public. That is….ballsy.
Belafon
@Iowa Old Lady: I always start with the half floor.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Cool! Hated to think of you fulminating about Morning Joe in an office setting.
jl
I’m looking forward to the quadrennial festival of Reagan mythologizing.
I’ve been to California Native American story telling festivals, and to be honest, they are a whole lot better.
But give the GOP credit for trying. The stories are duller, story tellers bland as dust, but the Reagan stories get more fantastical every year. Myth Reagan is becoming like a very boring and stuffy Coyote.
I think I read that Graham said that Walker would be worse than HRC in negotiating with Iran. I guess if the GOP primaries get really out-of-control vicious, someone might say that their GOP primary opponent would be worse than you-know-who. If that happens, the universe will blow up and we will have no more worries.
Edit: yes, here it is
U.S. Republican Graham says Hillary could have reached better deal on Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/u-republican-graham-says-hillary-could-reached-better-170755035.html
raven
@efgoldman: It’s only one and a half until I’m 67 but it works!
Iowa Old Lady
@Origuy: OMG, that’s hilarious.
EriktheRed
@NotMax:
Well, if you count his first election, yes.
I regret to say, however, that I also voted for St. Ronnie, but for his re-election, which was the same year I turned 18.
IOW, I think the correct answer is really 50.
Old Dan and Little Ann
When I start my car after work the radio is on a sports station. If there is a commercial I will flip it to Hannity. Obama is the worst Foreign Policy president in his lifetime. Putin has done nothing but take advantage of him. And Cheney had all the right ideas. All within 30 fucking seconds. It always freaks me out that people listen to that shit for hours at a time. Pure brainwashing.
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
So, full retard, then?
raven
@Steeplejack: It was worrying. I was probably going to be ok going into the office in Athens if I had to but I would have quit if it had been Atlanta.
lamh36
@Suzanne: certainly courageous. As I said, I fear for this young man and his family. I don’t trust LEO and the usual suspects, who love to go after guys like this.
I believe he said that he was a Dominican national, and I totally see anti-immigration thugs going after this guy.
I fear for him…I really do
jl
@Steeplejack: I don’t recall Reagan having that blanked out and disturbing ‘three inch stare’ that Walker has..
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Yes, ought to have specified “elect Reagan” (as opposed to re-electing him).
Sometimes brevity is the soul of omit.
Sue me. :)
scav
@Origuy: Is one allowed to say “Boom.”?
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Good for him. My initial statement was harsh so I changed it.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t get the appeal of talk radio, I don’t like to hear people yelling at me. I don’t miss cable news either. I have been cable free for more than 3 years now.
Hal
I saw a clip of Walker speaking at some forum yesterday, and holy bald spot! I knew he was thinning on top, but Walker looks like he only has hair on the side of his head and tries the comb over. Very shiny head. He should just go Rick Scott or start wearing cowboy hats all the time like Tim McGraw.
Also, I have yet to hear one single critic of this Iran deal succinctly say why it’s so terrible. Cotton says it’s just a giveaway with no concessions, which is total and absolute nonsense. The media needs to start asking about alternatives cough*war*cough because that is another subject not one of these foreign policy experts seems to want to admit to. That if we don’t use diplomacy, it’s war. Period.
schrodinger's cat
Will this winter never end? Its a mess out here right now with sleet and freezing rain. Do.Not.Want.
NotMax
@Hal
The missing hair was recalled.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: They use a similar style to charismatic preachers. Same effect on the audience as well.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@NotMax:
My niece was born in 2000. I’m pretty sure she’s going to have much clearer memories of President Obama than of President Bush.
Flukebucket
Officer Slager being framed? Charles Johnson seems to think so.
Violet
@lamh36:
Heard him interviewed on NBC Nightly News and it didn’t sound like English was his first language. Seemed like a really nice guy. So brave to come forward. I completely expect a full countertops inspection for this guy and his family. I hope they all have immigration documentation. If not, their lives are going to be turned upside down. No good deed goes unpunished by the rabid hoards of Teabagistan.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
Well at least you’ve admitted it so we can all go to bed at a reasonable hour.
https://xkcd.com/386/
Old Dan and Little Ann
@efgoldman: It’s a bad tick. I like peeking into the madness.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Do you mean TV preachers? They come across as snake-oil salesmen to me. God botherers (of all flavors) usually have me running for the exit sign.
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
Payback is a bitch.
MomSense
@Origuy:
Perfect.
Violet
@efgoldman:
The upside for the authorities is to discourage similar behavior by other bystanders. You bring the hurt on this guy and his family and other people will think twice about taking video and going public with it.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Reagan had actual training, as an actor, to project emotions using his facial muscles. But in closeups, he always had the same dead blank ‘shark eyes’ as Sockpuppet Scott.
lamh36
@efgoldman: I’m not worried about the authorities so much as those who consider themselves “allies” of the police and such.
We know that some of those keyboard warriors really can do damage to a person’s life, reputation and what not.
it’s the incendiary outskirts that frighten me the most, ya know, the type of people who see no big deal in contributing to a gofundme account for this murderer cop
ETA: @Violet: yep…exactly my fear. as I said, I don’t fear authorities so much as the idiots who claim that cops lives matter more than average victim.
JPL
The Charleston paper has the Lester Holt interview and the comments are good. Of course there are only 36 comments so far and the ghouls have not had a chance to weigh in.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
As I believe was famously said by the Rev. Martin Luther King (h/t Aasif Mandvi).
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Yes there is: intimidation. They want to make the next person who sees the police doing something they shouldn’t think twice before taping them, and think more than twice about going public.
Belafon
I saw that the State Department is going to recommend removing Cuba from the terrorism watch list. Add this to the trolling Obama does to Republicans and Netanyahu over Iran (look at the graphic down the page) and not only is he getting a lot done this session, but having fun.
Just a thought: Foreign policy was always his strength, and with the economy going, and Republicans preventing anything useful happening, he can finally concentrate on it.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Maybe he is just like Reagan
He has Alzheimer’s?
Roger Moore
@Flukebucket:
That’s Chuck C. Johnson, not to be confused with Charles “LGF” Johnson.
lamh36
@Roger Moore: yes…intimidation is exactly what the LEO have been known to do
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I thought he was scary but I was too young to vote against him. Did wear my Jane Wyman was right pin every day.
JCJ
The Milwaukee newspaper today seems thrilled that President Obama mentioned Walker. The headline of the story is “Walker has Obama’s attention.” The scrotum licking the Journal Sentinel is doing for Walker is truly nauseating.
Mike in NC
Walker needs to go the full Dubya route in mimicking Reagan: wear a cowboy hat and boots on vacation, drive a pickup truck, get photographed sitting on a horse, and buy a faux ranch where he can pretend to clear brush.
Citizen Alan
When I get depressed, I like to imagine Reagan, Thatcher, Nixon and Pinochet sharing a room in hell, waiting anxiously for Kissinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld and EVERY BUSH EVER to show up so the demons will have someone else to torment for a while and they’ll get a brief respite.
lamh36
Here’s the thing. I’ve read somewhere that there is reports of a 2nd video that allegedly came from the police car dash cam.
If it came from car cam, them it may show the “struggle” or when Mr Scott “fled” the traffic stop.
Now if this 2nd video does show that type of footage and was released first, you can best believe it would be used to say “any” struggle from Mr Scott would deem it as enough for his murder by this damn cop.
Will the coverage change? Almost certainly.
Now of course the car cam may not show any struggle, but I certainly expect to see, even in “friendly” sources, commentary about “well why did he resist” or “well he does appears to be struggling with the officer”.
If such as tape exists then that is when the shit will hit the fan. I suspect the PD would have already looked for the dash cam video and if it had shown a struggle, I fully expect them to “leak” the footage ala Mike Brown’s cigarello video, but in this case, the family was able to get this video out first.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/238217-second-video-exists-of-sc-police-shooting
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes. I have the same reaction to radio talks show hosts.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@lamh36:
So far, the various attempts at Go Fund Me accounts have netted zero dollars even before the companies give the beggars the boot. I’m hoping that this may actually be one step too far for anyone who’s not actually in a white supremacist group.
I am also worried about the guy who shot the video. He and his family are going to be scrutinized from top to bottom, and they’re probably going to get pulled over at least once a day for the foreseeable future. But the publicity should hopefully give him some protection from physical injury.
Tommy
@efgoldman: Wow that is pretty darn funny.
I have no idea if we’ll be able to turn the framework into an actionable plan, but at least they are talking with us. And at least for me that is progress in a very positive manner.
cmorenc
@Suzanne:
The young guy who took the video of Officer Stager shooting Walter Scott will inevitably have to “go public”, since the video will obviously be central to the prosecution of Officer Stager, and he will have to testify as a foundation for admitting that evidence in any trial (or sentencing hearing if Stager pleads to some charge instead of going to trial).
Yes, it’s brave of him to come forward now – but it’s inevitable that the North Charleston police (and others in the community) would sooner rather than later have learned his identity anyway. It’s going to be harder with him coming out earlier for someone to attempt to inflict harm on him and get away with it with him out explicitly in the open rather than trying to stay low when his identity will quickly become an open secret anyway to those most likely to be motivated to do harm to him.
WaterGirl
@raven: That’s great news! Once you’ve worked from home, it’s hard to go back.
scav
@lamh36: Any hope that things might be different because along with the first lawyer, even the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers’ Association isn’t backing him? Only read the detail in the Guard, but I’ve not been reading everything, trying to keep a bare semblance of a good mood.
course, then I stumble like a suicidal moth into Arpaio’s latest: Botched rape investigation in Phoenix leads to major lawsuit settlement
Splitting Image
@Flukebucket:
Just to clarify: the conspiracy theory tweets come from Charles C. Johnson, confirmed white supremacist and doxxer of rape victims. Charles “No-initial” Johnson has been doing good work covering these shootings at LGF. Charles C. Johnson was, along with Jim Hoft, very active in funneling allegations about Michael Brown from Stormfront to Fox News, including the lie that Darren Wilson had a broken orbital bone, which Fox was peddling until pictures of Wilson finally came out. LGF was the first to debunk that story.
Tommy
@cmorenc: I live a pretty “clean” life but I’d be scared to death to come forward. Not so much for the North Charleston police but I don’t need the likes of Hannity going through my trash and finding anything they can in my past to smear me. I mean let’s face it they can say and do just about anything they want and there would be nothing we could do about it.
scav
@efgoldman: Well, on that exact topic there’s still the buy-in, especially weeks from now, on the ground, from the actual boys in blue, and not a politician. Still, not bad for the mayor and there certainly is a solid phalanx of everybody backing away from this Solanum tuberosum of thermal properties.
jl
@efgoldman:
” The mayor, who apparently got lost on his way to a blue state, ”
I read a story someplace that South Carolina state government, for whatever reason, decided to crack down on lawless police violence, and have been several prosecutions and dismissals. Might have been TPM, but not sure. I need to find it again.
So, SC may be too big for an insane asylum, and too small for a country in many ways, but they may be ahead of some other states that have been in the news on this issue. Local officials may be acting with knowledge that the state government does not want any BS. Though, we will see how the prosecution is handled in this case. Hope it is better than what happened in Ferguson.
Tommy
@efgoldman:
Good for him. Cams are just a given IMHO. Heck if I was a cop I’d want to wear one. Not only to they protect the public but they can equally protect the officer from false allegations. It is just a no-brainer.
Cacti
The difference between Reagan and Walker is that one is a dumb, lifeless, corpse, and the other is a former Governor of California.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: That show was so awful that I gave up on it weeks ago.
Tommy
@efgoldman: That is just kind of how she is. I am a fan of the CSI shows and was looking forward to Cyber. I mean they have an endless number of topics to explore but I find the show almost unwatchable. But then again I’ll usually give a show at least half a season to find there footing.
JPL
@lamh36: The chief of police and the mayor have seen that video. He was fired and charged with murder. If the video helped him, it would have been released. Just guessing though.
Baud
@efgoldman: @Tommy:
Cyber is amazingly bad. It’s like it’s made for really old people who have installed 50 toolbars on their Internet Explorer.
jl
While looking to try to re-find that article on SC getting tough on police violence. I noticed this.
Another historic moment in the historic Chris Christie 2016 presidential campaign coming next week.
New York Times: Bridgegate Indictments Coming As Early As Next Week
TPM blog
“Indictments in the federal investigation of the George Washington Bridge closures appear to be coming as early as next week, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nyt-bridgegate-indictments-christie-report
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Keep in mind that if you click the link in comment #14, you are seeing the interview with the fellow that recorded the video, but then without warning they show you the video of the police shooting. Just as I realized what I was watching, the shooting started and I was witnessing a murder.
There should be warnings before they show someone being murdered.
Tommy
@Baud: Yeah and I just lied. I can’t watch it anymore. Off to Goggle Play on Hulu to watch Justified, which is about my favorite hour of TV each week …. which of course means this is its last season :).
Patricia Kayden
@Tommy: I’m hoping this brave young man is relatively “clean”. Not sure what Hannity and his ilk would get from demonizing him anyways. The videotape is so shocking that if the Devil himself took it, that shouldn’t matter.
Baud
@WaterGirl: @Tommy:
I still watch it on occasion. Doesn’t mean it’s not really bad. ;-)
lamh36
@JPL: I hope so. But as I said, I remember how the Ferguson PD selectively leaked footage of the “cigarillo” incident with Mike Brown and they had been sitting on the video for some time. But when “tide” was uncertain for them, then bam the video was released.
The murder charge and firing came AFTER this first video. If they had the alleged cam video was it not enough to doubt the officer’s story, or to support it. All the coverage prior to the NYT video was one that was not skeptical of officer’s story.
jl
@efgoldman: i finally saw the video while watching the interview with the guy who took it. Chiling.
I don’t know how that behavior can be excused, but I am sure many racists will try to excuse it.
And the guy who took the video says the victim was under control. So I guess he was just being tazed (tortured) for kicks, to pass the time, for what reason?
WaterGirl
@Baud: I don’t quite understand your comment. Not the “Cyber is amazingly bad” part, i definitely get that! It’s the sentence that follows that left me perplexed.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: Can’t the officer just claim that the dude was rushing him and threatening him with his own weapon? Sure, there’s the video this time; but if Glenn Beck taught me anything, it’s that you can show someone a video and claim that the video shows whatever you want, regardless of actual content. People who want to believe you will.
Baud
@WaterGirl: My assumption is that people (typically, the elderly) who aren’t that savvy with regard to tech issues and the Internet might find the show more plausible and realistic (and therefore interesting) than I do.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, and Mannix were all great shows. I liked Rockford Files, too. And Homicide, Life on the Streets.
I have never seen Patricia Arquette in anything before, and I struggle to figure out how/why people think she is a good actor. She is just awful. I have always liked Peter MacNicol who is on the show, but even that wasn’t enough to keep watching.
Hal
@Tommy:
I’ve tried to watch CSI (my mother loves the show) but I just cannot take it seriously. Crime scene investigators who interrogate suspects with no lawyer in sight? “We found this substance on your shoes, and after my spectro-graphic analysis, I determined it could only come from the rare quartz you used to remodel your kitchen!” “Oh know! Yes, it was me. I killed her!” Case closed.
lamh36
@WaterGirl: damn, sorry for that.
JPL
This is what I see happening… if the guy had nothing to hide, he should have cooperated. He made the cop kill him.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Got it now, thanks. I had no idea what the reference to 50 toolbars in IE was. It’s still hard for me to believe people still use IE.
Lame plots + terrible acting = I couldn’t watch the show after the first two episodes
Tommy
@Baud: I just had high hopes for it. Back in my ad agency days I had some very high-end IT security clients that did software (Intrusion Detection) and hardware (VPNs). There are just so many “cool” topics they could explore but the cases are just terrible. I don’t really like that SVU does the “ripped” from the “headline” shows. Seems lazy to me. But Cyber could be better if they just set up a Google search for “Information Security” and “stole” some of those stories.
Kropadope
@JPL: If that cop weren’t such a lazy ass he might have tried to chase him. Dude was a coast guard, though, one would think he’d be the type to respect authorities.
Maybe the cop was threatening his life before he started running.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Thanks. My comment wasn’t aimed at you so much as it was aimed at CBS for not displaying a warning before they flip to the video of the murder in the background while they are interviewing the guy who recorded the video.
Hal
@JPL:
Honestly, I’m shocked I haven’t seen more of this sentiment yet. If there wasn’t a video, I can only imagine how many people would be saying this type of thing.
lamh36
@JPL: yeah, you already see glimpses of that sentiment already, just with the release of the NYT video, those glimpses aren’t holding up.
But if the 2nd video shows some sort of struggle or ANY type of altercation, those sentiments will become a tsunami.
Baud
@WaterGirl: The multi-toolbars in IE is a common Internet meme. Search “IE toolbars” in Google and you’ll see the images that pop-up.
Kropadope
@WaterGirl: I alternate between IE and Google Chrome at home, everything at work is designed to work with IE. No toolbars whatsoever.
Firefox eats my computer.
Tommy
@efgoldman:
IMHO one of the best shows network TV has ever produced.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: Half my job is info sec. Interesting to me, but I can’t see how it would make compelling TV. Analyzing syslogs and packet traces looks, for lack of a better word, deathly dull.
Tommy
@Kropadope:
Can I ask what you mean by that?
NotMax
@efgoldman
Please, please tell us you don’t watch Cop Rock. :)
Kind’a liked Cagney & Lacey at the time. Unsure if it has aged gracefully.
Same reason haven’t sought out The Defenders or Checkmate to re-watch. Eminently watchable when they aired, but may well seem positively dreadful now.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Loved Homicide. Amusing in that now I have family living in that neighborhood.
I was also a big fan of the period piece Crime Story with Dennis Farina and a whole ensemble (including a pre-“Dice” Andrew Clay.)
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: I had thought I was going to have to buy The Wire after you got it as a gift (if I recall that correctly) and raved about it, but now Tivo has Amazon Prime integrated into the software, so I just created a
season passOnePass that included streaming video so it’s got all the episodes of all the seasons nicely lined up for me to watch on my Tivo box.The bad thing is that my Tivo box that can hold a zillion HD programs is 95% full, so I have to watch some of those other shows before I can start watching The Wire. I might have to quit my day job to catch up!
edit: I didn’t realize until your comment about it being the precursor to The Wire David Simon was involved with that Homicide.
RaflW
Scott Walker is the most beady eyed, joyless “happy warrior” imaginable. Of course, Pat Buchanan is a viper, so nasty that my lifelong Republican dad actually apologized to me for his 1992 GOP convention speech in Houston (where my dad lived, and where I was outside protesting and barely evading entrapment/arrest). So I suppose compared to himself, Scotty is just a ray of sunshine.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: Many Web apps written for internal use at a lot of companies are not browser-agnostic, but are written to work to the idiosyncracies of IE, and then nobody ever does anything for portability. If you control the desktop environment that is an understandable trade-off.
Tommy
@Gin & Tonic: If you like cop dramas I strongly suggested getting Hulu. The BBC has some amazing cop shows. In many a women is the lead character. Also no guns but they are still compelling and fun to watch.
Kropadope
@Tommy: The software we work with is web browser based and optimized for Internet Explorer.
Tommy
@WaterGirl: I might be about the only person in the world that didn’t like The Wire. I like to watch shows from the start and never got started on the Wire when it was airing on HBO. Last year got it into my Netflix queue and started to “binge” watch it. I didn’t even get past the third season.
WaterGirl
@Baud: What? I am not aware of all internet traditions? Shocking! Thanks for clueing me in.
Baud
@Tommy: I felt that way about Mad Man. People were talking about how great it was, but I couldn’t get past 3 episodes.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: Thanks, but I watch very little TV these days. The fact that I referenced two programs that aired from 16 to almost 30 years ago might be what they call “a tell.”
JPL
@Kropadope: That is why I think police officers need both cameras and mics.
Scott obviously felt threatened.
Mike in NC
Apple TV —> HBO to Go —> The Wire
Also, too, the entire CSI franchise is past its expiration date.
Tommy
@Kropadope: Wow you don’t hear that very often :). I do web sites for a living so I have just about every browser installed to test sites to ensure they render correctly. But honestly I am not sure how I’d live without Chrome. A few of my most used programs (to do list/CRM) have both desktop apps and Chrome extensions. Makes it very easy for me to run all of them across my desktop, Chromebook laptop, phone, and tablet.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I laughed the first time I heard someone on a TV show say they “modemed” something to someone. When they first started showing off technology on TV shows, it seemed more like a MadLib where they were just spewing out technical terms and talking nonsense. I got a real kick out of it.
WaterGirl
@Kropadope: I am always skeptical of anything that specifically requires IE in order to work. Of course, at work you use what they want you to use, that’s just the way it goes.
Tommy
@Baud: I couldn’t get through the first season of Mad Men. Everybody told me how amazing it was and said I’d have to love it since I worked 15+ years at ad agencies. I didn’t enjoy it in the least. But I guess that is why we have hundreds of channels. Not everybody likes the same thing :).
Hal
@efgoldman:
There are plots in TV and movies that my suspension of disbelief just don’t work for, like police or legal shows. Medicine is another. That’s what really drove me crazy about Grey’s Anatomy. One Chief Resident for every surgical specialty? A Doctor who purposely causes a patient to go into heart failure so he can be moved up on the transplant list, he ultimately dies of a blood clot, and the Doctor is ultimately returned to duty, Instead of going to jail, and the hospital being shut down.
On the other hand I have no problem with sci-fi or fantasy.
JPL
My son convinced me to watch the Killing. I just finished season 1 and although it is engaging, Broadchurch season 1 was better. imo
Cervantes
@Citizen Alan:
Consider this:
That was Cheney, yesterday. If there is a hell, he seems to already be in it and not doing too, too well.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: That was one of several reasons I couldn’t tolerate “24”.
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: I love my Apple TV, but you have to have an HBO subscription in order to see The Wire. At least you did when I looked into it a few months a go. It was rikyrah, I think, who put me on to the fact that Amazon Prime has all the episodes of The Wire, which is a better deal for me since I already have Amazon Prime.
I am intrigued, though, with the new Apple plan that lets you subscribe to streaming HBO directly without going through the (dreaded) cable company.
Kropadope
@Tommy: @WaterGirl: I mean it will work with any browser, I think. They just recommend IE because that’s what it was built for. ETA: I once ran it in Chrome briefly and didn’t really notice any difference, didn’t play around much though. I stick with the IE mainly cuz it color codes my tabs.
Whenever someone recommends Firefox to me for any reason, I just assume they create malware for a living.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@scav:
And yet there are trolls right here on this very website who will claim that the saddest thing about that story is that the 13-year-old rape victim was allowed to get an abortion rather than being legally forced to carry the rapist’s child to term.
Tommy
@JPL: Broadchurch is much better as you said. I enjoyed the Killing a lot. But from the one TV blog I read it just got slammed 24/7 because people said it was too slow. I personally liked that there was character development and something wasn’t exploding every 10 seconds. But it would seem I might be in the minority here.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: I found the characters unlikeable as well as unreal, watched it for one season. Bt unreal they always felt like actors and not real people.
JPL
@Cervantes: Cheney is the type of individual, that even the devil doesn’t want him. He is that bad.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Tying threads together, Wikipedia tells me that David Caruso appeared in the first two episodes of Crime Story, as a friend of Ray Luca’s.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Ugh. I hated David Caruso and refused to watch CSI:Miami. I can’t even recall just why I hated him – I think he may have gotten too big for his britches and left some show in a lurch ?? I don’t even recall the show, but I still feel the antipathy.
I’m someone who doesn’t carry a grudge in real life, but I am ruthless and unforgiving with actors. Warning to actors who care about my opinion: Do not piss me off!
edit: in case you are wondering, i realize that “actors who care about my opinion” is an empty set.
WaterGirl
@Kropadope:
Good one!
jl
@Cervantes: Cheney is nuts, and getting nuttier every day.
I particularly take exception to ‘wants’. Cheney is saying that Obama has bad intentions.
I wouldn’t even say that about Bush II.
I wouldn’t even say that about Cheney, at least overall. But I have to admit that is only because I think he is nuts.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@WaterGirl:
Caruso left “NYPD Blue” after the first season, because he was going to be a Big Star.
It all worked out in the end, because it allowed the hardworking Dennis Franz to become the star of the show and now nobody really remembers Caruso was on it.
Tommy
@WaterGirl: Just an FYI.
http://markets.cbsnews.com/3-things-to-know-about-HBOs-new-streaming-service/3321c82c6c440676/258742/
I got rid of cable about a year ago this exact day. Went with Hulu, Netflix, and recently added Sling (which I get through my Roko). For a few other shows, like Helix and Justified, I get them on Google Play.
The only thing I am missing is HBO, and frankly it is killing me. I’d love to buy the above service, but Apple has a three-year deal with HBO so I am screwed. I know I could Bit Torrent the shows, but I am not into stealing content, but I have thought about it.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: For some reason, that never bothered me on 24. We fast forwarded through all the torture and laughed a lot about the bag Jack always carried with him, but somehow we watched it anyway.
Steeplejack (phone)
@efgoldman:
Hie thee over to Battle Creek (CBS, Sunday), a new cop show that is actually good.
CSI: Cyber is so bad it could sink the whole franchise. And I say that as someone who likes Patricia Arquette. On the micro level, the prospect of watching it drove me to bed early tonight.
Mandalay
@lamh36:
Hopefully we can see it tomorrow…
If that video exonerated Slager in any meaningful way I think we would have seen it by now. But it does seem odd that they charged Slager with murder, and fired him, before they released the dash-cam video.
Kropadope
@WaterGirl: I figured it out after three iterations of “if I install Firefox, I can read 10 more free articles on the New York Times this month aaaaaaaannnnnnnddddd looks like I’m wiping my hard drive and reinstalling Windows.”
Howard Beale IV
@terraformer: Seems to me ol’ Scottie thinks he’s a political version of Bill Gates.
He couldn’t be more wrong-especially when he got crank called in 2011 by the Buffalo Beast writer Ian Murphy. And further showed his rapier wit when during a Jewish ceremony (of some sort) he said ‘Molotov!’ instead of the more correct “Mazel Tov!”.
Christ, what an asshole. (And even worse are the naonocephalic mouthbreathing slackjawed imbeciles who not only didn’t recall him but voted his sorry ass back in for another term.)
Wisconsin gets what’s coming to them. Like excrement, Walker and his GOP minions contain just enough digestible nuggets to sustain life. But it is not a tasty pie-for it reeks to much of contempt for the rank and file citizen.
Bon Appetit!
(Too bad we haven’t had a ’50 most loathsome person list’ since, what, 2012?)
WaterGirl
@Hal:
But, but, she loved him! And everybody deserves a second chance. Just one bad judgment, nothing to see there…
Kropadope
@Tommy: HBO GO, bro.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Three episodes of Mad Men? You beat me by two.
Kropadope
@WaterGirl: So you watched five?
SiubhanDuinne
Haven’t read any of this thread yet but I just had to jump in and say that I have just come from an absolutely extraordinary theatrical experience — King John, a live performance filmed for cinemas, from the Stratford Festival in Ontario.
I’m not a “theatre person,” but I’m pretty familiar with most of Shakespeare’s plays. I lived in Michigan for nine years, and usually drove over to Stratford at least two or three times each summer, and oftener when I could. In my university days I wrote scholarly papers on musical interpretations of many Shakesperean plays and characters, and I’ve watched some of my DVDs so frequently that I can say some of the lines along with the actors (for fun, I like to watch the Olivier and Branagh Henry Vs back to back — It’s really interesting to dig out the contrasts and how each one reflects its own time).
Anyhow, though, for some reason I have never read King John and until tonight had never seen it. And holy crap, what an extraordinary, amazing experience! I admit I didn’t have very high expectations — I figured it was a relatively unknown play for good reasons — but I was blown away. If you live in Canada, you can see it in your local movie theatre tomorrow or Sunday, and I urge you to do so. No, I don’t care if you don’t like history, or Shakespeare. Go anyway, you won’t be sorry.
http://t.thestar.com/#/article/entertainment/movies/2015/04/07/king-john-on-film-masterfully-acted-and-directed-review.html?referrer=https:%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F
Howard Beale IV
@Cervantes:
Substitute Cheney for Hitler. (or maybe the other way around…)
Mike J
@Tommy: Amazon has a lot of the HBO shows, and you get free delivery with Prime. Or since I was already getting Prime, I got free videos.
WaterGirl
@Kropadope: Um, hmm, no, I barely made it through one episode. Does that mean I beat Baud by two?
Steeplejack (phone)
@WaterGirl:
The “cutting edge” cyber part of the show feels about 10 years out of date. Sort of like clueless old people who let sites install toolbars, add-ons and other cruft to their browsers.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s nice to see you so jazzed about this! ThurstonHowl was the high point of my day.
Kropadope
@WaterGirl: Suppose that depends on your definition of winning.
RaflW
@NotMax:
50, actually, since 18 year olds could vote for Reagan for re-election in ’84. It’s my one great shame.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): It does feel 10 years out of date. And I really don’t like the way they try to scare you with the opening: “This could happen to you!” Be afraid, be very afraid.
WaterGirl
@Kropadope: Not watching a bad show = winning
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Bad TV I can generally ignore and move on, but I actively despised that program. It was awkward, because my wife liked it, so I’d have to adjourn to another room, or go work in the garage or something, or else I’d yell at the TV and piss her off. “Suspension of disbelief” my ass.
Fucking thing still annoys me.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: Don’t Malwarebytes and other such software tend to make you pay after an initial trial period? I’m too broke/cheap/enthralled by my bad spending habits/something to pay for those. I like to go the external storage and recovery route.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
That’s it! You’re right, though, it was a much better show after Caruso left.
Gin & Tonic
@Kropadope: There’s a free version that is good forever. The paid version does more things, but the free version is a useful tool.
I paid them money years ago, and got what seems to be a perpetual license for the “pro” version, but it looks like they’ve changed to a subscription model like most of the AV software now.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): I am enjoying Battle Creek, but I am a sucker for a good buddy movie or tv show.
Kropadope
@Gin & Tonic: Good to know. Perhaps they just tricked me with all the “pay me” messages to think that they shut it off.
ETA: That said, I’ve had my computer about 10 years, which seems like a long time, especially in my house. I must be doing something right.
Tommy
@efgoldman: One of the main reasons I got rid of cable. And how I got Sling, where I can get ESPN, ESPN 2, AMC, and the History Channel I am getting everything I want to watch (outside of HBO — don’t get me started) for about $30/month. I was paying almost $120/month (I got everything). Now with the almost $100 I save each month I get subscriptions for Loot Crate, Blue Apron, and Bean Box. A box of nerd stuff, good food, and stellar coffee delivered to my house each month is much more enjoyable than 100s of channels I never watch or didn’t even know I got.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I used to watch 24 with a friend whose husband felt exactly the way you do. He also hated JAG, it annoyed the hell out of him that there was this lawyer who was a pilot and could do anything or everything, and do it well, and everything always worked out in the end.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Thurston Howl was the high point of my day, too, until I got all caught up in medieval monarchical mayhem.
Kropadope
@Tommy: I think they made or are soon to make HBO Go a subscription service not tied to your cable provider.
ETA: Just checked, not yet. But I know I read that they are working on it.
Tommy
@efgoldman:
Those are two of the four programs I run, Spybot and PCTuner being the other two. If folks here are online a lot, and I bet most of us our, those two apps are a lifesaver.
Mike in NC
We like “Battle Creek” (as do our neighbors from Michigan) but it seems to have a 50/50 chance of renewal.
Tommy
@Kropadope: It is not totally clear that is true and believe me I’ve looked into it. The Go services seems to be locked into Apple for three years. So you need Apple TV or a iPad/iPhone. I am not going to change from my Samsung tablet and phone (both of which I flat out love) just to get HBO. I really WANT HBO, but not that bad. You would think they would be clear on what they are going to offer but I’ve read a number of articles and I still am somewhat confused.
It was like when I got rid of DirectTV years and years ago and I couldn’t get the NFL package through Charter Communications. Why the NFL and now HBO would lock in with one provider makes NO sense to me.
Tommy
@Mike in NC: The one TV blog I read say the ratings are terrible, and when you have the “lead in” of the Good Wife, my gosh you should be somewhat successful. Clearly I am not slamming you because we all enjoy different things, but I find Battle Creek unwatchable, which is strange since I like both lead actors.
Mike in NC
@WaterGirl: “JAG” was complete bullshit, as are all of the “NCIS” shows. The NCIS used to be called NIS, for Naval Investigative Service. They spent 90% of their time looking for gays to kick out or pot smokers to bust, and very little of what they really did/still do involved catching spies or solving murders.
danielx
Clearly still an astute political observer after all these years, Buchanan is…not.
@Mike in NC: No, no, this is Wisconsin! The pickup truck, okay, but Walker needs a faux dairy farm, a feed store cap and some cow shit on his boots – and not cowboy boots either.
Tree With Water
“Also, there seems about Walker — and I do not say this pejoratively — a simplicity, an absence of calculation and deviousness, that is attractive to voters looking for someone fresh and honest to believe in.”…
White male. Buchanan forgot to mention Walker is also a white male.
Sherparick
@Baud: You mean the guy who made a deal with Iran to trade arms for hostages, gave Sadaam Hussein military assistance as he used chemical weapons against Iran and Kurds, and who raised taxes 3 times? You mean that Reagan?
Sherparick
@Tree With Water: Actually, as someone who lived a long time along the Illinois and Wisconsin border and still follows Wisconsin politics, Scottie has vaulted to the top through his deviousness and cunning. He has successfully played on white working and middle class resentments toward the “Blahs,” a resentment fanned by 30 years of toxic local right-wing talk radio that makes Rush Limbaugh look moderate. Remember, “Freedom” and “Second Amendment Rights” are code words for “white privilege,” which in essence can mean “your life may suck as you get laid from one sucky job and then land another that pays less, but remember you are still white, and those “people” are not.” Around the ring counties of Milwaukee, he gets a 70% vote because all these people think the good jobs went away because of the “blahs,” who also get all their tax dollars and who need “maximum force” to be kept in their place. (The black sheriff of Milwaukee County, has also figured out how grifting these marks by feeding their resentment and authoritarianism is the path to fame, fortune, and regular appearances on Fox News.) Walker should not be underestimated. Liberals and MSM media made jokes about Reagan and the next thing you knew he was taking the oath of office as President. With current demographics, Republicans faced a choice after 2008 and 2012 of changing policies to reach out to minorities, particularly Hispanics and Asians, or to try to get even more of the white vote and get pass the 60% ceiling (a ceiling that really goes back to 1968 election when you add Nixon’s and Wallace’s vote together) in order to win a Presidential election. Part of the strategy of going all Likudnik on Israel is a hope to attracting more Jewish voters to the Republican brand (of course letting your latent antisemitism flag fly like they have in Missouri or that Steve King displays may have the opposite effect) is an effort to bump the Republican share of the white vote to 70%. It also explains the mainstream Republican commitment to the demonization of President Obama, as led by the odious Dick Cheney.
A Ghost To Most
@jl:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/allen-west-walter-scott-slager-milk-it
that didn’t take long.