Cartnoon

As you know, The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma have many offices and divisions. While you may be familiar with North Lake where we do Primary coverage and By the Sea which was set up during the Bush years (H.W., please), you may be less well acquainted with our D.C. bureau and our overseas outpost in France.

Then there’s Stars Hollow where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average but that’s just a production facility, our World Headquarters is in New York City (New York City?!) and I swear you can see the Empire State Building.

Of course you’ll need someone to hang onto your belt because it’s quite a stretch. Those views don’t come for nothing you know.

The Breakfast Club (Lies Become Truth)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Joan of Arc is born; Samuel Morse demonstrates the telegraph to the public; Commercial airplane completes first round-the-world flight; Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked; Dizzy Gillespie and Rudolf Nureyev die

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

Khalil Gibran

The news suck and the blogs aren’t much better.

Throwball Playoffs Wild Card Day 2 Early Afternoon: Seahawks at Iggles

Yeah, the one with the wack seeding.

Look there is simply no way the 9 – 7 Iggles are anywhere near as good as the 11 – 5 Seahawks, they play in the worst Division in the League (yes the AFC East has the Dolphins and the Jets, they also have the Patsies).

Plus the Iggles are rivals of my second favorite team, the Giants.

The Seahawks are unobjectionable unless they’re facing my favorite team, the Packers. The Vegas line is the Iggles by a point and a half. No Way, and unless they play ball control they’re going to get blown out because they’re awful. I mean really, they shouldn’t be in the Playoffs.

Throwball Playoffs Wild Card Day 2 Early Afternoon: Psychs @ Aints

This one is not difficult at all. The Psychs and Errs are perennial rivals of my Packers so I already hate them. The Aints have been deemed mildly acceptable by TMC who is sentimental about Katrina.

I’m impressed by Drew Brees’ arm and he’s one of the big deal QBs, just like Loser Brady, so on paper the Aints ought to walk away with this snoozer and their 7.5 spread advantage will seem a pipe dream fantasy to the Psychs who will fall much harder than that.

Of course they have that series on History that all the GoT fans are flocking to, but that’s in it’s final season. You’d think I’d have more sympathy but I’m a Class Traitor so what do you expect?

Cartnoon

Mmm Yeeeesss?

The Breakfast Club (On Fire)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

AP’s Today in History for January 5th

Elian Gonzales decision; First female U.S. governor inaugurated; Sonny Bono dies; Pete Rose admits to betting on baseball; Bruce Springsteen’s first album debuts.

Breakfast Tune I’m on Fire – Bruce Springsteen – Banjo Cover

Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below

 

OPCW leaks expose ‘criminal’ Syria cover-up — and US media is silent
PUSHBACK WITH AARON MATÉ
The US media continues to ignore one of 2019’s top scandals: a cover-up inside the OPCW, the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog, that was used to justify US-led military strikes on Syria. Award-winning MIT professor Theodore Postol joins Pushback.

The leaked documents and testimony from inside the OPCW show there were major doubts about the allegations the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Inspectors who were on the ground in Douma complained that their findings were distorted and excluded. According to one OPCW whistleblower, this censorship was conducted under direct US pressure.

“I hold the press accountable for not doing what they should to help protect these [whistleblowers],” says Theodore Postol, award-winning professor of Science, Technology and National Security policy at MIT. “I think it’s criminal, as far as I’m concerned.”

One of the biggest stories of 2019 was undoubtedly the OPCW’s Syria scandal – a cover-up inside the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog that was used to justify US-led military strikes on Syria.

Leaked documents and testimony show there were major doubts inside the OPCW about the allegations the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Inspectors who were on the ground in Douma complained that their findings were distorted and excluded. According to one OPCW whistleblower, who spoke to the British journalist Jonathan Steele, this censorship was conducted under direct US pressure.

According to a new batch of documents, released by Wikileaks, a top OPCW official ordered the removal of a critical document from the organization’s secure registry. The document was a detailed engineering study that cast major doubt on the allegation that the Syrian government dropped gas cylinders on Douma.

Another leaked document shows the OPCW consulted with toxicologists to determine whether symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine. According to minutes of that meeting, “the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure.” But these key findings, and many others, were kept from the public when the OPCW released its final report. Ignoring its own data and experts, the OPCW concluded that there were “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place…This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine.”

 

 

Something to think about over coffee prozac

 
“Shit-Life Syndrome,” Trump Voters, and Clueless Dems
BRUCE E. LEVINE, COUNTERPUNCH
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Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

On Sunday mornings we present a preview of the guests on the morning talk shows so you can choose which ones to watch or some do something more worth your time on a Sunday morning.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The roundtable guests are: ABC News Political Analyst Matthew Dowd; former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D?); and Democracy for America CEO Yvette Simpson.

Face the Nation: Host Margaret Brennan’s guests are: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); and former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) David Patraues Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); and DNC Chair Tom Perez

Her panel guests are: Michael Crowley, New York Times correspondent; Robin Wright, New Yorker contributor; and David Martin, CBS News correspondent

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on this week’s “MTP” are: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA); and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper’s guests are: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend IN Mayor Pete Bettigieg; and House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

His panel guests are: Otherwise unemployable former Sen. Rick Santorum; Jen Psaki, Democratic strategist; Amanda Carpenter, conservative commentator; and Majahat Ali, New York Times contributor.

Throwball Playoffs Wild Card Day 1 Evening: Titans @ Patsies

Easy pick. I hate the Patsies more than any other team in Throwball. I hope Brady has an off night, this is his last game in Foxborough ever, he has a miserable, long, and lackluster career with the Giants or the Jets or the Dolphins or the Browns until he’s too crippled to move the cheatin’ scumbag, and that goes double for his boss Belichick and triple for Kraft.

And, the Patsies are limping in. They lost to the Dolphins! and it wasn’t even as close as the score would indicate in a meaningful game.

The Titans (nee Oilers) contrastingly are on a roll and very hot since they switched to QB Ryan Tannehill in Week 6. Yes it’s a 9 – 7 against a 12 – 4 at home, but if the weather is as bad as predicted the Titans have a decided Running advantage against a Patsies D which if weak anywhere is weak there and who also will have to “carry the ball”, metaphorically speaking, for an aging and ill co-ordinated Offense.

Spread is Patsies +5. Titans don’t cover, they smother.

Throwball Playoffs Wild Card Day 1 Afternoon: Bills @ Texans

Yes, it’s that time of year when we get to talk about which teams we hate more

With even records of 10 – 6 the Bills are favored by 3 points which the Times think the Texans will cover and I do not.

The Bills problem is they have a stodgy ‘ball control’ offense that doesn’t put a lot of points on the board, though they rarely come away empty. The Texans are pretty spectacular when things work and 3 and out when they don’t.

The Bills D is better than it’s rated, the Texans is not. Bills advance.

Oh, who do I hate more? The Bills’ Owners (the Pegulas) are real assholes and their biggest fan was Tim Russert (also an asshole). On the other hand Rust Belt New York Working Class team. On the other, other hand Texas.

You know, geographic disadvantage aside the Texans are an expansion team who have hardly given me any other reason to hate them.

Yet.

Go Texans!

Just Another Distraction

Why would the lunatic in the Oval Office order the assassination of one of Iran’s top generals? You have to remember how this narcissistic psychopath thinks; it’s all about him. That brings us to the obvious explanation, he needed a distraction from his pending trial in the Senate which has been headlines for weeks. Two weeks ago, new details emerged from unredacted emails about the pressure immediately following Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. The report has kept Impeachment the lead story in the news and social media driving Trump up the wall during the Christmas holiday. The demonstration and attack on the US embassy in Baghdad offered the perfect basis for a headline grabbing distraction.

On MSNBC’s “Meet the Press Daily,” the obvious got stated that this was a “wag the dog” operation:

n Nov. 2011, then-businessman Donald Trump attacked then-President Barack Obama for starting a war with Iran to get reelected. It was one of many reasons that MSNBC host Katy Tur explained no one should trust the president when it comes to the death of Iranian Gen. Qasem Suleimani. [..]

Of course, Obama never started a war with Iran, in fact, he and his team negotiated a peace treaty with them. Trump, by contrast, has launched this attack and sent an additional 8,000 troops to the Middle East less than a month before the Iowa Caucus.

“Donald Trump has always been very good at projecting. Could we call this future projection?” Tur asked the “Meet the Press” panel on Friday. “I’m taking this seriously because Donald Trump has always been very literal. When he says something, he’s literal. He means what he says. And I don’t think — he doesn’t speak with a lot of nuance. He’s not playing three-dimensional chess. I think it’s a fair question with everything we’ve seen whether the president thought this was a good idea for his election year.”

NBC News senior politics editor Beth Fouhy recalled in the 1990s when former President Bill Clinton was running for reelection, that there was a military action that prompted the criticism that he was going to “wag the dog.” At the same time, the film was released by the same name, depicting a president who manufactures a war to increase his poll numbers for reelection.

Fouhy said that Democrats haven’t said that after this action.

“We haven’t heard that this time. There are a lot of questions about why Donald Trump did what he did,” she continued. “You haven’t heard anybody yet say he’s doing this to distract from impeachment. At this point people are accepting on its face he felt the need to do this however strategically he does it.”

What better way to change the story than to bomb something and/or kill someone important, damn the consequences and it’s Trump’s tweets that betray his motive:

@realDonaldTrump

Christopher Bedford, The Federalist Senior Editor. “There is NOTHING NEW in these Emails at all that’s been discovered. It’s exactly what we knew before, which is that the White House & political figures wanted to cut off aid, Trump wanted to question aid to a number of….

12:27 PM – Jan 3, 2020

@realDonaldTrump

….different places that he thought were wasteful, and the career staff, as they always do, pushed back, and made a million excuses as to why they could not possibly stop spending U.S. taxpayer money. There was a back & forth over the legal arguments, & the W.H. decision was….

12:27 PM – Jan 3, 2020

@realDonaldTrump

….followed, and then it was withdrawn. The Democrats argument for impeachment has not gotten stronger over the last few weeks. As Senator Josh Hawley just said, he’s going to enter a Motion to Dismiss the Impeachment Trial because it’s never actually been brought to trial.”

12:27 PM – Jan 3, 2020

This assassination was the act of a cornered, desperate man that has put American lives at risk to save his political career. While an act of war may save this dimwit from being removed from office by the Republican controlled Senate, it may well keep him from getting reelected. 481 days to go.

Cartnoon

Zontar

The Breakfast Club (Citadels)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffers a stroke and lapses into a coma; Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, is born; Jesse Ventura sworn in as Minnesota’s governor, poet T.S. Eliot dies.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there.

Everett Dirksen

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