Does it still have the same spooky music intro?

I havent seen much of any Dr. but Baker, and at that time I was the target audience.

Somehow this seems more appropriate than female Bond and Ghostbusters.

I reckon the show went downhill after Baker left.

There are far more 'common threads' between Daesh and the Bakers than there are with Daesh and the left.

Did that guy just say the Soviet Union funded nuclear protests world wide in the 80's? When they were dead broke, starving, and the union was dissolving? I'm pretty certain that would be news to my aunt and uncle who have run an anti-nuclear protest group since the early 70's.

John Guanadolo?!? Really? "Foremost terrorism expert"?!? Don't they mean "disgraced and fired ex FBI agent caught having numerous affairs, including with witnesses he was protecting, among numerous other complaints, most notably his rabid anti Muslim stances and actions but including coercion and extortion"?

Not really a surprise from people who believe in talking snakes, tout incestuous communities (Adam, Eve, and their progeny), and who worship a zombie, but still disappointing.

That was great! I wanted to see Brett Baker's response, and as it turns out Hot Ones hosted a video from him:

Congratulations! Your comment on Racist Baker Bakes 'Drunken Negro Faces' has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Strangely, the thing that seems to be most important in stopping nuclear war with Russia is Trump's outrageous friendly relationship with Tsar Putin, because he's already made it clear that he has no qualms about using nukes against those he thinks are enemies.

Do you have to demonize a man who assassinates his enemies and expands his country? There's no question that he's done those things, so I don't get his point at all. You don't have to demonize a demon.

How does he think he knows what classified proof there may be? His statement makes him seem silly, he's complaining he hasn't seen this proof, knowing he shouldn't be able to see it.

Russia incontrovertibly militarily and financially supports our enemies and attacks our allies. That alone makes them threat #1. Period. They are also expansionist on multiple fronts, which is hyper threatening.

It's only unwise to build up Polish border forces if you want Poland to be Russian.

Be clear, Putin didn't "put Trump into the whitehouse", but he certainly helped. The argument that he didn't just install him is a red herring, designed to distract from the legal and illegal things Russia did to effect the election, a plan that worked better than they ever hoped.

Fake news hysteria?!? Fake news is one of the most important issues today, because it denies progress on ANY other issue by confusing the facts, making negotiation impossible.

I hate hearing about Bakers "promise"....it wasn't in writing, it wasn't from America or NATO, it wasn't binding in any way even then, and thinking we should stand by it in the face of Russia breaking treaty after treaty is just insane and naïve. Remember, Russia promised to never invade Ukraine (including Crimea).

I don't really think Aleppo was liberated....there's nothing left to liberate there but rubble.
Really, he's claiming that when Mosul was "liberated", Iraq just let the enemy drive away? That's bullshit. We have bombed the fleeing militants, and the Iraqi have fought them with vigor this time.

For a professional on US, Russia relations, he's got some strange ways of seeing things.
I do agree with him that, to Russia, bolstering Assad IS fighting terrorism. I think we failed miserably when we didn't take Assad out after he gassed the populace AND support/safeguard the local populace (if not their militias)....no question in my mind, that's when we lost Syria. Once Daesh and others were allowed to take over the anti-Assad side, there was no "winning" that war.
I also agree, with our current leaders, the nuclear safeguard is no safeguard at all, it's a sword of Damocles, not a shield.

They WANT the apocalypse. If you hang around these evangelical far right people, they truly want it. They want Jesus to return.

Even when I was evangelical, I wouldn't want the end of times. Not because I cared for myself, but I thought the longer the better. I never got the thinking that so many seemed to have, which is why it scares me when they get close to being on the button.

And for Mr Baker here to actually mention the anti-Christ... if I were still Christian (back after I stopped being a Republican and was a Libertarian), I'd be likely thinking Trump is the anti-Christ as I was starting to think the Republicans as a whole were the anti-Christ system, as so many Christians seemed deceived into believing that it was THE Christian party, when the party was so opposed to the teachings of Jesus. I'm frankly surprised more crazy people aren't out there calling Trump out as the anti-Christ... he fits the bill... though going back to my original topic, perhaps that's why some of them voted for him, to help bring about the end.

Wow...did Jim Baker just say the church had turned the nation around into a downward demon led spiral into WW3?!? Doesn't that also mean he thinks Trump must be Satan incarnate?!?
Never thought I'd see the day...where was he in October?

Which shows that Baker and Genscher had no idea of the margin of their victory in the cold war. The word of two men on NATO not wanting to expand is one thing, whole countries actively seeking partnership in NATO to protect them from future russian threat is another.

Is there a signed treaty? No. But the US SoS (James A. Baker III) and the German Foreign Minister (Hans-Dietrich Genscher) are on the record in 1990

Genscher is on video tape stating very clearly: "Wir waren uns einig, dass nicht die Absicht besteht das NATO-Verteidigungsgebiet auszudehnen nach Osten. Das gilt übrigens nicht nur im Bezug auf die DDR, die wir da nicht einverlaiben wollen, sondern das gilt ganz generell."

In English: we are in agreement that there is no intention of expanding the NATO security zone eastwards. This applies not only to the GDR, which we do not intend to incorporate, but in general."

Or how about Baker's words, Feb. 9, 1990, St. Catherine's Hall at the Kremlin:
"If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the East."

And the minutes show Gorbachev as having said:
"Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable."

To which Baker replied:
"I agree."

Again, no treaties, nothing. But some people, myself included, make the argument that unequivocal statements of a nation's highest-ranking diplomat are to be taken seriously, unless overruled by explicit, written agreements.

And from what we've heard from Gorbachev over the years, he took them for their words.

Admittedly, having been replaced by Yelzin who received massive "help" from the US might have made Gorbachev a little grumpy.

What remains at the end is this: NATO was created as a defensive alliance against the Soviets and wasn't dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed. The highest-ranking diplomats of the primary players at that time (US, FRG) are on the record with promises that NATO wouldn't expand eastwards after the German reunification. Now NATO is closer to Russia's border than ever and the Ukraine had a democratically elected government (they were thugs, but elected) overthrown by forces that had massive support from the US. As a result, fascist militias wearing SS insignia are roaming free in Novorossiya, with government support.

If I were Russia, I'd be pissed.

But I'm in Germany, so now I have a strongman in charge of Russia, a thug who has journalists and opposition in general killed, on the one side, and the Americans who installed a Nazi-sympathising regime in Ukraine on the other.

What's not to like about it.

So when the US establishment then goes on a full-blown bender to position Russia as a scapegoat for now having to live with President Trump, they are playing with fire just to distract from their fucked-up domestic policies.

And we're not even touching on the hypocrisy of the US being outraged when some foreign nation meddles in their internal affairs. Of course Russia tries to influence US politics in their favor. Guess what, so does the UK, France, Germany, NZ, China, Japan, even bloody Luxembourg for all I know. Just like the US exerts influence on German politics (ie German Marshall Fund, Atlantikbrücke, etc), and on politics of every other nation of significance.

What kind of balance are you speaking of? For the sake of argument, I'll assume that you mean spending somewhat equal time and effort on different sides of an argument.

That kind of balance can be expected from a news outlet. Many of them, especially American ones, overcook is massively by refusing to make judgements on the validity of opposing arguments. If argument A is backed by empirical evidence and argument B is smoke and mirrors, argument B should receive ridicule, not the same kind of respect that A receives.

Now, applying this kind of balance to individuals strikes me as wierd. They are not obliged to give a balanced view: they are obliged, as journalists, to present facts, and offer interpretations. The issues we're talking about here are not disputes between neighbours. We are talking about the war on terror, macroeconomics, propaganda, things of the utmost importance. And the media is doing a woeful job at presenting any dissenting view.

Thing is, you can get the major consensus narrative from countless news outlets out there. Want to here about the supposed benefits of multinational trade agreements? The NYT and the WaPo have dozens upon dozens of articles with praise of TTIP and TPP. If, however, you would like to hear about the consequences of previous trade agreements, or just some hard math on the numbers they like to throw in there, you won't find any. You'll have to go to Dean Baker at the CEPR, to Yves Smith at NakedCapitalism, you'll read Rick Wolff's take on it.

These people do everything in their power to restore the balance that the media drowned in buckets of party-line puff pieces. People recognise RT for propaganda, but somehow think propaganda stops when ownership is private.

Try to find proper articles about the global assassination program (drone warfare) and its effect on sovereign people abroad -- won't find anything in the media, you'll have to go to Jeremy Scahill.

Try to find proper articles about the desolation brought to communities in the developed world by (the current form of) capitalism, the epidemic of loniliness, the breaking apart of the social fabric, the monetarisation of every aspect of life -- silence. What about the slavery-like conditions it creates through indebtedness? The absurd inequality? Nothing.

What about the massive atrocities in Jemen? There was plenty about the atrocities committed by Russia in Syria, but when Saudis use US weapons to destroy an entire country, mum's word.

There is no balance in the media. They are the gatekeepers of knowledge, and anything outside the establishment's agreed upon consensus is ignored, marginalised, ridiculed, or straight up demonized.

CJ Hopkins had a great piece at Counterpunch the other day, titled Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works. He puts it more succinctly than I ever could. Reality doesn't matter, not for the mainstream media. The narrative matters.

And that's why I listen to dissenting voices like Chris Hedges, Abby Martin or Thom Hartmann, even when they are employed by a state propaganda outlet.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can...

That if is a mighty big if.

And the lessons you think they "need to learn" from this election are probably different from the lessons that the professional class (credit to Thomas Frank) thinks the Democrats need to learn. To them, it's not about getting a candidate that has a higher favorability rating than a meteor strike, but to find a candidate that maintains their status in society. They are the winners of "free trade" (see Rigged by Dean Baker) and globalisation, while a vast number of people have been thrown into debt peonage, wage slavery or worse.

Unless the Democratic Party emancipates itself from the donors and the professional class, I don't see them becoming a home to champions of the people. Look at how the DNC conspired with the Clinton campaign to crush the Sanders candidacy -- lots of juicy bits about that in the Podesta emails. Look at Corbyn, who is basically caught up in a civil war within Labour, despite overwhelming support by the party base.

The Third Way (Social-)Democrats have bought into neoliberalism at such a fundamental level that I just cannot see anyone turning them into a vessel for social equality without getting utterly corrupted or even crushed along the way.

The lesson they learn might be to not nominate a member of a dynasty with so much baggage attached to them. Yet even that depends on them actually recognising the baggage in the first place, which they seemed unwilling to during this election cycle. Everything was brushed off.

And then you're still stuck with a representative of a system that doesn't work for a lot of people. The situation of the rust belt is not a result of anything particular to the current or previous candidates, but of the Washington Consensus and the widespread acceptance of neoliberalism as gospel.

Without major outside pressure, I don't see the party changing its ways sufficiently enough to become a representative of the people again. Maybe a Trump presidency is enough to create such movements, maybe not. Occupy was promising, yet crushed by the establishment in bipartisan consensus.

*ban
Avon Bakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ-NjshtxXA

You'll notice I didn't say germans, I said nazis. If you want to exempt someone on the basis that they weren't really signed up to the movement, that's fine, but they're then no longer properly a part of the analogy.

In any case, probably the most generous thing that can be said of the 'naive nazis' is that if they didn't know the people they called jews - judaism is no more a race than islam - were being murdered, they merely thought they were being robbed of everything they owned, used as slave labour, and forcibly resettled. That's alright then.

You see, Penn is flat wrong when he says most people are good. Most people are stupid, and stupid people follow social norms, and social norms are, surprise, for the most part pro-social. It's a comforting illusion.

The friendly nazi baker who loves his family, always has a treat for the neighbourhood children, and never invaded anyone gets no pass from me. He's a fucking nazi. Most muslims don't blow people up or throw homosexuals off buildings, doesn't matter, they're still muslims.

Terrorism is a moronic bogeyman and I spread hate every day. Any idea can be used to corrupt people, that's not important. What is important is whether the idea in question is corrupt in itself; Penn says this one is, I agree with him, and that being so I say the people who hold to it deserve to be hated.