Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“They all knew.”

He really is that stupid.

Bark louder, little dog.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / I just got to get a message to you

I just got to get a message to you

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Another nothingburger:

Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents, according to an email provided to congressional investigators.

I love this description:

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  2. 2.

    The Moar You Know

    Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents, according to an email provided to congressional investigators.

    From an IT standpoint this is interesting. The documents were encrypted by WikiLeaks. IOW, they were reserved for Trump, they weren’t going to give them to anyone else.

  4. 4.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @sylvania: or he’s accused of bad stuff that has nothing to do with purity? You act as if Dayton is going to appoint the offspring of Evan Bayh and Lieberman. How is replacing Franken with a garden variety liberal going to change jack shit in the senate?

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    I think this sums it up fairly well.

    1. We don't even know about a country called Russia.
    2. We knew there's a country called Russia, but we had nothing to them.
    3. We talked to Russia but never colluded.
    4. OK, we colluded, but never used their GRU/WIkileaks decryption keys.
    5. Oh. Wait.
    t.co/lUcVMaCNfp— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) December 8, 2017

  7. 7.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @The Moar You Know:
    Why do you say that?

    Back before google drive and drop box we would put documents up on password protected websites so various teams could collaborate in reviewing and commenting.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Just passing us by…

    But, MAGA…right?

    ………………………………………………….

    EU agrees biggest free trade deal with Japan.

    The European Union and Japan have agreed terms for a free trade deal set to create the world’s biggest open economic area.

    The deal – the largest struck by the EU – is expected to liberalise almost all trade between the bloc and the world’s third-largest economy.

    It is being seen as a challenge to the protectionism championed by US President Donald Trump.

    It must now be ratified by EU members and the European Parliament.

    A joint statement by European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the deal had “strategic importance” beyond its economic value.

    “It sends a clear signal to the world that the EU and Japan are committed to keeping the world economy working on the basis of free, open and fair markets with clear and transparent rules fully respecting and enhancing our values, fighting the temptation of protectionism,” they said.

    bbc.com/news/business-42282116

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    The Uneven Playing Field
    Sure, don’t stoop to their level. But let’s acknowledge that the game Republicans are forcing everyone to play insists morality is for losers.

    By Dahlia Lithwick

    “Al Franken, many argue, should now resign. He should resign immediately because there are credible accusers (another emerged Wednesday), and because the behavior alleged is sufficiently abhorrent that there is simply no basis to defend him. In this parade of unilateral disarmament, Trump stays, Conyers goes, Moore stays, Franken goes.

    Is this the principled solution? By every metric I can think of, it’s correct. But it’s also wrong. It’s wrong because we no longer inhabit a closed ethical system, in which morality and norm preservation are their own rewards. We live in a broken and corroded system in which unilateral disarmament is going to destroy the very things we want to preserve.

    When Al Franken, who has been a champion for women’s rights in his tenure in the Senate, leaves, what rushes in to fill the space may well be a true feminist. But it may also be another Roy Moore. And there is something deeply naïve, in a game of asymmetrical warfare, and in a moment of unparalleled public misogyny, in assuming that the feminist gets the seat before it happens.

    This isn’t a call to become tolerant of awful behavior. It is a call for understanding that Democrats honored the blue slip, and Republicans didn’t. Democrats had hearings over the Affordable Care Act; Republicans had none over the tax bill. Democrats decry predators in the media; Republicans give them their own networks. And what do Democrats have to show for it? There is something almost eerily self-regarding in the notion that the only thing that matters is what Democrats do, without considering what the systemic consequences are for everyone.

    Unilateral disarmament is tantamount to arming the other side. That may be a trade worth making in some cases. But it’s worth at least acknowledging that this is the current calculus. It’s no longer that when they go low, we get to go high. They are permanently living underground. How long can we afford to keep living in the clouds?”

  13. 13.

    geg6

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    So glad so many of you seem perfectly sanguine about the idea that there is some deep, dark secret that is being hidden about Franken and that any old Dem can replace him, that he was just a run-of-the-mill Dem. How about we honor due process and the will of the voters in MN and investigate? Maybe the deep, dark secret is that he’s getting fucked over by a bunch of cowards more interested in their own presidential aspirations than in actual truth and justice?

  16. 16.

    Yarrow

    Tick tock, Junior. Tick tock, Ivanka and Eric. Tick tock, Donald. Tick tock, all you lying, treasonous Republicans and even some Democrats. Tick tock, motherfuckers. Mueller isn’t playing around.

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    Josh Marshall:

    In other words, it’s sort of an influence operation rom com.

    It’s a con com!

    Or an op com?

  23. 23.

    Yarrow

    Al Franken didn’t say exactly when he’s resigning. As more ratfucking gets exposed, perhaps it will get delayed.

  24. 24.

    low-tech cyclist

    I just got to get a message to you

    What is this, Doug? Trying to outdo last night’s hideous earworm?

    Well, you succeeded! That has to be the Bee Gees’ most awful song, which is a difficult bar to limbo under (seriously, if I had to choose between listening to it or Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey,” I’d rather suffer through “Honey”), and I’d managed to go for years without its entering my head.

    May you be forced to listen to “My Heart Will Go On” on a continuous loop for an entire day! ;-)

  26. 26.

    MJS

    @sylvania: Jesus, is every bit of news going to be greeted with, “Democrats are idiots for what the did to Franken!”

    “Trump resigns, admits guilt.”
    “Yeah, but how does this improve things when all Democrats are idiots?”

  28. 28.

    hueyplong

    @low-tech cyclist: Off to the concussion protocol with you. Bad as that Bee Gees song is, Honey is worse. You cannot tell me you are willing to sit through Honey from start to finish, unless it’s some kind of Vitteresqe thing about which you need not and must not explain.

  31. 31.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Everyone needs to read the Mahabharata. Where Pandavas make one compromise after another to avoid going to war with their cousins, who they have grown up with. Even after repeated compromises they cannot avert the inevitable war. Krishna who is a cousin to both Pandavas and the Kauravas becomes Arjun’s charioteer and gives advice on the battlefield which eventually leads to Pandavas being victorious after a lot of carnage. His advice and tactics are the opposite of when they go low we go high, its do what it takes to win because you can’t compromise with those who want you dead.

  35. 35.

    Steve in the ATL

    @sylvania: pro-tip: drop the wrong way cole thing if you want anywhere here to listen to you. You’ve made that point. Now it just gets you pied.

  36. 36.

    germy

    Satire from The Borowitz Report

    Trump’s Slurred Speech Tied to Low Battery in Putin’s Remote

    “President Trump makes public appearances several times a day,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “In the course of those appearances, President Putin’s remote can drain its battery very quickly.”

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    I guess die Kinder Trumps are learning what it’s like to be inside the trash compacter, as the walls slowly begin to close in..

  38. 38.

    Gator90

    @charluckles: This. It drives me batcrap when folks on TV say we still don’t know if there was collusion. Of course there was collusion; the question now is the extent of it. But the R’s and the media keep moving the goalposts so that collusion is basically defined as “whatever hasn’t been proven yet.”

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    ‪And there ya go… my 3 part prediction will likely come to pass, Conyers/Franken out…Pedo Roy Moore IN…and McConnell and GOP will be perfectly happy to seat him!! Thanks again to all those white voters…this all started cause of the majority of them voted for Chump…‬

    Beverly Young Nelson admits to adding date and place to alleged Roy Moore inscription in her yearbook. Gloria Allred initially attributed that writing to Moore. Nelson stands by rest of her story.
    twitter.com/michaelscherer/status/939157323460808706

  40. 40.

    MJS

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll now return to the work for which I’m paid (nah, just kidding. I’ll just find some other way to waste my time).

  42. 42.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    We can fence ourselves in, but we can’t fence the world out.

    Countries will carry on without us.

    Unfortunately right-wingers, reinforced by right-wing media, do not understand this.

    Edit: Also, a lot of people on the Left do not understand this, thus Democrats had to walk back their support of TPP, in 2016.

  45. 45.

    low-tech cyclist

    Lithwick:

    This isn’t a call to become tolerant of awful behavior. It is a call for understanding that Democrats honored the blue slip, and Republicans didn’t. Democrats had hearings over the Affordable Care Act; Republicans had none over the tax bill. Democrats decry predators in the media; Republicans give them their own networks. And what do Democrats have to show for it?

    I think it’s worth distinguishing between honoring stupid and meaningless rules that have been around forever that the Republicans cheerfully ditch the moment it becomes convenient, and doing the right thing because that’s who we are – and if we don’t do the right thing, we become something less.

    So yeah: if we retake the Senate next year, we should just wholesale block Trump’s judicial nominees throughout 2019 and 2020 unless a deal is struck where the Dem caucus gets to pick enough of Trump’s nominees to make up for all the nominees Obama should have gotten in 2015-2016, but was denied by the Senate GOP. Fuck blue slips forever, except as a way of getting buy-in from our own party’s Senators. Gut the filibuster so that we can pass pretty much anything with 51 votes.

    But keep forcing sexual predators to resign, whether or not they’re anywhere near as bad as Roy Moore. And fercryinoutloud, let Sen. Menendez know he needs to retire at the end of his term, if not before. What he did was just barely within the law, apparently, but it was still corrupt as hell.

  47. 47.

    MJS

    @Amir Khalid: Hmm, just a couple of days ago there was a story about Trump finding Pence’s pets objectionable. And now one is dead. Is it irresponsible to speculate? (You know the rest).

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @low-tech cyclist: And fercryinoutloud, let Sen. Menendez know he needs to retire at the end of his term, if not before. What he did was just barely within the law, apparently, but it was still corrupt as hell.

    I’ll subscribe to your newsletter, Menendez has been a trolly neocon for years, apparently he’s got the money lined up to stave off a primary challenger in a heavily populated heavily Dem state

  50. 50.

    schrodingers_cat

    @gene108: So true, no one is inevitable, no country or person is inevitable. Empires perish, people die and the world carries on.
    To paraphrase a famous Marathi poem,
    When I die people will mourn me for a minute
    What if anything will stop because I am gone
    After all, even when Rama* and Krishna* (one can add Jesus here) died the world carried on..

    *Mortal avatars of Vishnu.

  51. 51.

    Spanky

    @Amir Khalid: Dammit! Don’t make me feel sorry for Mike Pence!

    Pickle is the third Pence family pet to die in the past 14 months, USA Today reported. In June, the family’s 13-year-old cat, Oreo, died. The feline was named after the cookie because of his black and white fur, per The Washington Post. Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the Pence family dog, Maverick, died.

    This weekend marks the anniversary of Tux (aka “Poopyman”) leaving us at age 15. The first of what has ultimately been 3 in the last 12 months. Made a sucky year oh so much more sucky.

  52. 52.

    low-tech cyclist

    @trollhattan:

    @low-tech cyclist:
    Doug! started a joke….

    …and started the whole world crying.

    Of the Bee Gees songs I’ve had to endure, that’s actually one of the better ones.

    That doesn’t mean it’s good, of course, given that the Bee Gees are the Worst Band Of All Time.* Just that it’s not as painful as most of their other affronts to pop music.

    *By the metric: (how bad each of their songs were)*(how many listens it got) summed up over all of their songs. I think they’ve even got Manilow convincingly beat, and they’re way ahead of flashes in the pan like Bobby Goldsboro.

  53. 53.

    Yarrow

    @Spanky: Now that’s just creepy. Donald Trump doesn’t like animals and didn’t think Pence should have any.

    Sorry for your loss of so many furry friends in the last year. That’s tough. At least you know Trump didn’t have Putin poison your beloved pets. Small consolation, I know.

  54. 54.

    bemused

    Since this an assholes thread, Hillary Clinton impeachment proceedings going on today’s House Judiciary hearings.
    I have no doubt they will be trying to impeach Hillary posthumously.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    @Leto:

    EU agrees biggest free trade deal with Japan.

    The European Union and Japan have agreed terms for a free trade deal set to create the world’s biggest open economic area.

    The deal – the largest struck by the EU – is expected to liberalise almost all trade between the bloc and the world’s third-largest economy.

    This is a Big Fvckin’ Deal. Particularly since the EU and the UK recently announced that they had agreed to (but not announced) the terms of their “divorce.”

    From BBC News

    PM Theresa May has struck a last-minute deal with the EU in a bid to move Brexit talks on to the next phase.

    There will be no “hard border” with Ireland; and the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU will be protected.

    The so-called “divorce bill” will amount to between £35bn and £39bn, Downing Street says.

    The European Commission president said it was a “breakthrough” and he was confident EU leaders will approve it.

    So, the UK will pay billions to leave the EU and will be shut out of the benefits of the Japan agreement.

    I expect that Trump will make similar blunders in his “me first” approach to trade agreements.

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    @MJS:
    Well, per that Huffpo story, Pickle is the third furry Pence family member to pass on in the past year or so: the other cat in June, the dog just two weeks before the election. Should the VP sign up any surviving pets for Secret Service protection?

  58. 58.

    gene108

    @rikyrah: @geg6:

    If Democrats and their supporters, who have money – like Speilberg, Bloomberg (he spoke at the DNC convention last year), etc. – funneled their money into creating Democratic friendly media outlets to compete with the Republican ones – Rush Limbaugh, all other right-wing talk radio, Fox News, The Washington Times, The American Spectator, Wall Street Journal op-ed page, etc. – Democrats could better weather these sorts of allegations.

    Right-wing media influenced the MSM to turn a bad 1970’s Arkansas news deal into the most important story of 1993 and 1994.

    Right-wing media reaction to President Obama saying the cops were stupid for detaining Skip Gates for entering his own home into requiring a “beer summit” to make amends.

    I’m sorry but right-wing influence on our media makes life hard on Democrats. The playing field is not level. It’s tilted, by billions invested by rich conservatives with a political agenda, into favoring Republicans.

    The Democrats were in a lose-lose position. Stand by Franken and get a whole lot of “what about Franken” rebuttals to “Roy Moore and Donald Trump assaulted women” or cut Franken loose and let Republicans get a scalp.

    The non-news junkie does not do subtle, and they outnumber us. They skim the headlines: “Franken groped six women”. President Trump groped women. They aren’t going to read the details.

    It sucks either way, but this is where we are as a country.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wow. Stephanie Ruhle, hardly a liberal, brings up Roger Stone in relation to the Franken case.

  61. 61.

    germy

    The preacher talked to me and he smiled
    Said, “Come and walk with me, come and walk one more mile
    Now for once in your life you’re alone
    But you ain’t got a dime, there’s no time for the phone”…

  62. 62.

    NobodySpecial

    New fun game: Replace “Franken” with “Wilmer” in all posts crying about his resignation from the usual suspects.

  63. 63.

    MJS

    @Amir Khalid: Somewhere there are emails implicating Don Jr. and Eric in the deaths. Probably pictures, too, just like, those disgusting “safari” pictures.

  66. 66.

    bemused

    @Amir Khalid:

    Everyone not a trump moonie or an abettor wants faster action bringing them down. The up side of the slower pace is their dread of what happens is extended.

  67. 67.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @rikyrah: I just read somewhere that the reason Franken got tossed under the bus was because the CBC had written a letter asking why Franken got to stay when Conyers had to resign. And if that’s true, then the whole thing makes a lot more sense.

  70. 70.

    danielx

    In other words, it’s sort of an influence operation rom com. But the really frustrating kind where it’s completely implausible that the two love birds never hook up. t.co/HgZKJoodw2

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 8, 2017

    Featuring Roger Stone playing…himself.

  71. 71.

    low-tech cyclist

    @germy: Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    @trollhattan: Man, that’s another one I’d been able to block out for most of my life. Seriously, did anyone ever try to play “Ballad of the Green Berets” at a dance? They’d have been lucky to make it out alive.

    “I’ve been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered…” – Paul Simon, “A Simple Desultory Philippic”

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @<a href="#comment-6669292″>gene108: If Democrats and their supporters, who have money – like Speilberg, Bloomberg (he spoke at the DNC convention last year), etc. – funneled their money into creating Democratic friendly media outlets to compete with the Republican ones –

    that’s been tried to some extent, with AirAmerica and for a couple of years on MSNBC– I loved me some Martin Bashir but even I rolled my eyes sometimes– but for whatever reason, the ratings just weren’t there. I think the age-related demographics do have something to do with it, and viewership of political TV apparently has a countercyclical relationship to parties in the White House. God knows what would be on MSNBC if Clinton were in the White House and Andrew Lack had continued his purge.

    Some people say the future is podcasts. As a podcast listening old, I’m kind of skeptical. It’s big news apparently that the Obamabros have a million downloads. I don’t know what that means in a country of 300+ million. And whatever curiosity I’ve had about Chapo Traphouse (I’m not even sure if I have that right) has been killed by what I’ve read about their BernieBro triumphalism

  74. 74.

    The Moar You Know

    Dammit! Don’t make me feel sorry for Mike Pence!

    Pickle is the third Pence family pet to die in the past 14 months, USA Today reported. In June, the family’s 13-year-old cat, Oreo, died. The feline was named after the cookie because of his black and white fur, per The Washington Post. Two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the Pence family dog, Maverick, died.

    This weekend marks the anniversary of Tux (aka “Poopyman”) leaving us at age 15. The first of what has ultimately been 3 in the last 12 months. Made a sucky year oh so much more sucky.

    @Spanky: Both you and the Pence family have my unreserved sympathy for your respective losses. Losing a pet hurts no matter who you are, and I’m able to put aside anything to give someone that sympathy. It fucking sucks.

  76. 76.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @low-tech cyclist:

    *By the metric: (how bad each of their songs were)*(how many listens it got) summed up over all of their songs. I think they’ve even got Manilow convincingly beat, and they’re way ahead of flashes in the pan like Bobby Goldsboro.

    The Worst Band of All Time is actually the Eagles.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t know from Huntsville or what effect this might have, but I’m glad Isbell’s on our side

    Alex Seitz-Wald‏Verified account @ aseitzwald
    Jason Isbell (!) performing GOTV concert for Doug Jones tomorrow in Huntsville.

    St. Paul & the Broken Bones doing one in Birmingham.

    ETA: edited to include what ASW wrote and to include the band I never heard of. I’ll let you young people and hep cats decide if that’s a big deal

  78. 78.

    The Moar You Know

    AirAmerica and for a couple of years on MSNBC– I loved me some Martin Bashir but even I rolled my eyes sometimes– but for whatever reason, the ratings just weren’t there.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Air America was an embarrassing atrocity at best. Our local affiliate ran an hour or so of some local guy who was left-libertarian as the morning show, and he was by far the best guy I heard on the network. And I fucking hate libertarians of any stripe.

  79. 79.

    germy

    @Brachiator: I loved many of the songs of the Bee Gees. Often what I had trouble with was the style of their vocals. The falsetto stuff, or the extra-tremolo singing. Many times it takes a cover version to make me fully appreciate the beauty of the songwriting.

    This cover, for example, is achingly beautiful.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Ifo2Ku11mNA

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    @AliceBlue:
    I don’t mind the electric studio version of Hotel California so much. It’s the live acoustic version that drives me up the wall.

  84. 84.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Everyone needs to read the Mahabharata

    I remember seeing a televised version of the Mahabharata on PBS. Ah, yes. Peter Brook’s 1989 version, basically a film of a long play. I am not going to argue at all for it’s authenticity. ButI got a sense of sadness, that a great conflict could not be avoided despite all the good (and sometimes bad) intentions in the world.

    In seeking out translations (still have not yet read the entire work), I am always struck by the episode in which Arjuna masters archery.

    For any curious, I ran across this loose interpretation on the Internets

    One bright, sunny morning, a large group of young boys gathered by the woodland with their bows and arrows. But these were not just ordinary boys. These were the five Pandavas and hundred Kauravas! The five Pandava brothers and hundred Kaurava brothers were cousins, and a fierce rivalry between them began when they were only children. These young princes would eventually grow into men of incredible power. The five Pandavas were even sons of gods!

    On this day Drona, their mentor and military expert, organized a competition to test their concentration. Across a stream, Drona set up a small wooden bird in a tree. Upon returning to the boys he told them, “Hello children. Today I want to see who among you can strike the eye of that wooden bird across the river.”

    The bird appeared tiny from where they were standing, but the boys were confident that they could pass their teacher’s test. Had they not already felled great beasts on their hunts before? How could this small bird pose such a challenge? Anxiously, each one of the young princes waited for Drona to call their names.

    Yudhisthira, the oldest among the Pandavas, was called upon first. Taking position by his teacher, he crouched slightly and drew his bowstring taut.

    “Can you see the bird properly? Tell me everything you can see, Yudhisthira,” said Drona.

    Wanting to be thorough, Yudhisthira began to list off everything that met his eyes. “I see the wooden bird, the branch, and the tree. I can see the leaves moving and even more birds sitting on the same tree. I can see the stream, the grass, other trees, the sky…”

    Like this, Yudhisthira named off everything he could think of. When he finished, he waited for his master’s final command to shoot. Drona spoke again, “Put down your bow and take a seat Yudhisthira, you will not hit the eye of the bird.”

    Confused, Yudhisthira silently walked back to his brothers without question. The next boy was called forward and asked the same question by Drona. He gave a similar answer, naming everything he could see. Once again, the the boy was told to put away his bow. This same pattern continued with every boy that followed, until finally Drona reached Arjuna. Drona suppressed a knowing smile as the young prince took his place, notched his bow, and drew his string. Arjuna was one of Drona’s favorites.

    “Tell me what you can see, Arjuna,” repeated Drona.

    “I can see only the eye of the bird,” replied Arjuna without breaking eye contact with his target.

    “Can you not see the trees and the sky? Or perhaps the branch the bird is sitting on?” his mentor asked.

    “No sir, all I can see is the eye and nothing else,” he said, holding his bow steady and maintaining his unwavering gaze.

    Drona was pleased with this response. He cast a glance at the crowd of boys, who were held in silence but slowly began nodding as the lesson began to become clear to them. Drona was happy that one of his favorite pupils was able to pass his test. Now he only had to give the order.

    “Shoot!”

    With a loud twang, the arrow sprang from the bow straight into the bird’s eye. A perfect shot. The bird fell with a small thud as all the boys looked on in amazement at Arjuna.

    After a long pause, Drona patted Arjuna on the back and said, “Now you see, young princes, the power of concentration…”

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If Democrats and their supporters, who have money – like Speilberg, Bloomberg (he spoke at the DNC convention last year), etc. – funneled their money into creating Democratic friendly media outlets to compete with the Republican ones –

    I don’t see much point in this. Currently (this has not always been true), most liberals have little patience with steady streams of outright propaganda. Conservatives eat up Fox News and similar sites because they crave stuff that confirms their biases, even if it is not true. Hell, especially if it is not true. And some of them want reinforcement and ideological cheer leading.

    Lefties used to have Pacifica stations for this kind of BS. But unless you were a super true believer, this shit got old real fast.

  89. 89.

    sharl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I never knew much about Air America. I do recall reading about some muttering that some would-be advertisers were threatened with losing other outlets if they advertised on AA, but I never saw any piece where anyone went on the record with that charge. This 2010 NYDN post mortem is largely consistent with my hazy and spotty memories of the life and death of AA.

    I mostly agree with you on the limitations of podcasts. To me their big limitation – at least for the non-entertainment shows – is that they take up so much time relative to visual media: you can save time by scanning/skipping written text, and fast forward through video, but unless the podcast producers index their episodes (like Harry Shearer does with Le Show), you have no choice but to listen from beginning-to-end if you don’t want to miss anything.
    …….As far as Chapo Trap House goes, those boys – and the one woman in the collective (Amber) – are as close to “Bernie Bros” as one can get, but they ain’t exactly triumphant about how things have turned out; they haven’t been since the election. [I’ll note that they joined other lefties/soc1alist-types in advising folks in close states to vote for HRC over Twitler (though they all did so with considerable unhappiness).] But CTH spends so much time in many episodes ragging on “traditional Democrats” (with a big focus on Hillary in the first months following the election), that I would never recommend them to anyone at this here blog, unless you have a layman’s interest in the social/behavioral aspects of young leftie political thinking.

    As of the past week or so, the really big news in podcast world is Patreon’s announcement that they are changing their formula for how they apportion subscriber fees among what goes to the talent and what Patreon keeps for admin/profit. The new formula really screws over the small donor podcasts ($1 or $2 per month). Patreon is clearly going full greed-mode, and there is a lot of screaming about it. A number of the larger Patreons (such as the aforementioned CTH) are calling on Patreon management to reconsider, and efforts have started to look for (or create) alternatives. That’s a very new, developing thing.

  90. 90.

    LurkerNoLonger

    In the beginning it was “There was no communication with Russian officials!” A week from now it will be, “Sure Trump sucked Putin’s d*ck, but he didn’t swallow!”

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    I never liked the B-Gs; I don’t care for the high tenor close harmony singing the way they did it. They did have good beats for dancing, and the couple of times I was invited to a “disco” by a friend, I enjoyed watching the women who really enjoyed dancing to the beat.

    But I can go the rest of my life without hearing another BGs hit. Or a miss, for that matter.

    ETA: Now, Dr Ralph Stanley’s high tenor singing, and that variety of music, that’s a different story. I don’t want it all day every day, but it’s great folk music. BGs not so much!

  92. 92.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: I know that story. To succeed you need concentration like the tip of the needle.
    Yes the Mahabharata’s end is sad. Its not just a good vs. evil story, its about the human experience in all its complexity. There are no heroes, righteous don’t always win, the good guys have feet of clay and the baddies are not all bad all the time. Of the two great Sanskrit classics Mahabharata is my favorite.
    ETA: I have not watched the Brooks version in full, have caught snippets.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @sharl: but unless the podcast producers index their episodes (like Harry Shearer does with Le Show), you have no choice but to listen from beginning-to-end if you don’t want to miss anything.

    Oy, from your keyboard to the eyes and in-boxes of just about every podcast producer. I think 30 minutes is a good limit to a podcast, and if it’s any longer it should be indexed. For a while I was getting Fresh air, through iTunes, in bits– I could listen to a good interview or five minute book review but skip Terri’s interview with Tim Allen or review of Mel Torme’s lost throat-singing basement tapes.

  94. 94.

    TenguPhule

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    How is replacing Franken with a garden variety liberal going to change jack shit in the senate?

    How is replacing the Admiral at the battle of Midway with an ensign right out of the academy going to change anything? I mean, we got this in the bag, AmIrite?

    //

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    How is replacing Franken with a garden variety liberal going to change jack shit in the senate?

    Because Franken had seniority and committee assignments that the new person won’t necessarily get. He was the ranking member on the Internet security committee — you know, the one that’s about to vote on net neutrality.

    I really wish people would stop pretending that senior senators are totally fungible. This loss is going to hurt us institutionally, which is why the right wing targeted him.

  99. 99.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Yarrow: You forgot

    6. We were to stupid on how to figure out how to comit treason. My Russian handler called me “Worst turncoat EVER” and would hang up on me.

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    How is replacing Franken with a garden variety liberal going to change jack shit in the senate?

    Why do you expect any serious state level politician to want to replace Franken,?

  101. 101.

    J R in WV

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Why do you expect any serious state level politician to want to replace Franken,? (sic)

    Because Senators make ten times as much money as state house politicians do? And have 100 times the POWER as state house pols do? I can barely recognize my own statehouse reps by name – in my defense I have problems remembering the names of my favorite musicians, authors, friends I haven’t seen in a while – so I have to look up their names and phone numbers to give them a piece of my mind.

    Not that big a deal, I would have to look up the phone numbers anyway, so it’s all the same google.

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