Fall TV is like a Jill Stein campaign, it always promises so much but in the end delivers so little.
This fall broadcast networks will start rolling out their new episodes in the third week of October. Once upon a time, this happened in September. And they wonder where the audience goes?
Since 2010, broadcast networks have bled viewers and done nothing except flap their gums. For example, what broadcast TV scripted show did you watch new episodes of over the summer? Remember the announcements that streaming meant the networks would now be offering year-round programming to address the loss of viewers? And what summer programming, scripted, did you watch on the network TV this year?
None.
Because they offered none.
You may remember when they briefly rallied and offered new shows during the summer like Halle Berry's EXTANT. They were going to combat losses to streaming, they insisted, by programming year round. That now translates as "We'll take a low rated game show we do in the daytime, toss some celebrities on it and air it in prime time." And as late as 2011, they still programmed occasionally for Saturday night. 2011 being an important year -- that's the last year before NETFLIX offered its first streaming show (LILYHAMMER). They've long since given up on new scripted programming and, worse, they've dropped Friday as well -- unless you're CBS or one hour of programming on NBC (LOPEZ V LOPEZ and Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman's HAPPY PLACE).
There are also less broadcast choices then there were in 2011. For example, THE CW is not a network. You're not a network when this fall you will only offer one scripted show: SUPERMAN & LOIS. That's it. Everything else in prime time? Repeats of ABC's THE CONNERS, repeats from Canadian and British television, repeats of their own PENN & TELLER FOOL US, repeats of shows you can stream on YOUTUBE . . . On Fridays, they're offering WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? That's the show that they never wanted and every few years threaten to cancel but delivers ratings and is cheap to make since it's an improv show.
Let's make sure everyone grasps that: The network that was the home to SUPERNATURAL, THE ORIGINALS, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, ARROW, SUPERGIRL, THE FLASH, BATWOMAN, GOSSIP GIRL, ONE TREE HILL, NIKITA, BEAUTY & THE BEAST, HART OF DIXIE, JANE THE VIRGIN, THE 100, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW and many more is this fall offering one scripted program with new episodes: SUPERMAN & LOIS.
Last June, NBC announced that LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS was losing its house band in a cost cutting measure and then this month, another cost-cutting measure, NBC was reducing THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON to just four nights a week.
They claim that they are losing viewers to streaming and the reality is that they are pushing viewers away. They claim that people only want to watch a la carte -- streaming a show when you want to which they insist is costing them viewers. That really doesn't explain the TIVO and other Cloud programs that let you record a TV program and watch it when you want (and, if you do so within seven days after it aired, you're added to the show's ratings). Nor does it explain the growth in live TV streamers who make PLUTO and FREEVEE TV and others outlets streaming TV programs such a big hit.
And you can't talk things that don't make sense without talking Stein.
The perennial presidential candidate is at it again.
She gets more and more disappointing with each run but one difference this go round? She's having to face a little bit of accountability. The week before last, Angela Rye asked her real questions and held her accountable in an interview. Then last week Mehdi Hasan performed the same feat.
What is a War Criminal? Stein says Benjamin Netanyahu is which Medhi agreed with. But did Stein believe that Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a War Criminal? Does she think Russia's Vladimir Putin is a War Criminal?
Jill Stein hemmed and hawwed while Mehdi asked her to answer the yes-or-no question. And she flubbed it over and over. At one point she tried to turn it on him and he pointed out that he could answer and did answer but that he wasn't the one running for president.
She offered that she had said Putin was a War Criminal "in so many words."
In so many words?
What does that mean?
It means she couldn't let go of her hypocrisy.
Instead, she tried another tactic and began insisting that if she became President of the United States in this election, she would have difficulty conducting talks with Putin if she'd called him a War Criminal. Mehdi immediately asked her how she planned then to have talks with Netanyahu if she were president since she repeatedly calls him a War Criminal. Then she tried to say that there was no arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for Putin. But, as Mehdi pointed out, yes, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin.
And it didn't just happen. The ICC issued that arrest warrant in March of 2023.
She's running to be the President of the United States -- for the third time! -- and she doesn't know this? It's not like Mehdi brought up the issue of arrest warrants. She's the one who brought that topic up in an attempt to defend herself and she didn't even know what she was talking about.
Mehdi's interview and Angela's the week before really just underscored what a lazy and incompetent media we have in the US. Third time. This is Jill Stein's third time running for president and it's the first time she's ever been challenged in an interview. For her two previous campaigns, the media has treated her like a child with a terminal disease in a Make A Wish program whose dream was to run for president. She has gotten one pass after another.
Her cult couldn't handle her being challenged. They trashed Angela and Mehdi for not just sitting across from Stein and fawning over her.
The howls and hisses coming from her cult was something to witness. Or seemed that way until things got even worse. As she slowly grasped just how idiotic she had come out, she took to TWITTER with a Tweet insisting she hadn't been allowed to respond in a "nuanced and serious" manner but now, on TWITTER where nuance and seriousness are all the rage, she wanted to say that, yes, Putin was a War Criminal and here's a list of others.
And then the breast beating, garment rending and howling truly began.
The crazies really came out as Kyle noted in a SECULAR TALK segment.
He missed noting some important crazies. Maybe he was trying to be kind? Maybe the amount of crazies was just so high that many had to be excluded.
You can't exclude one person.
It is unfortunate that elements in the Stein campaign have confused Jill's consistent anti-imperialism by attempting to play to the middle with the condemnation of the empire's favorite enemies. International criminality is coming from one source - the "collective West."
And that Tweet was coming from one source -- the 'collective Idiot.'
Ajamu Baraka Tweeted that. He took time out of his never-ending research on what 'really' brought down The Twin Towers to Tweet:
It is unfortunate that elements in the Stein campaign have confused
Jill's consistent anti-imperialism by attempting to play to the middle
with the condemnation of the empire's favorite enemies. International
criminality is coming from one source - the "collective West."
Ajamu Baraka, for any who don't know, was Jill's running mate the last time she ran for president.
Apparently what we and so many others saw as a Tweet put out by Jill Stein was actually a 'controlled demolition' carried out by others meant to bring down the campaign of Jill Stein.
We don't need a government created commission to look into the matter of whether or not Ajamu is certifiable. No, we think the evidence on that is scattered all around and not across some open field but right there on his TWITTER feed for all to see. And to see his fellow Truthers like PACIFICA's Ann Garrion wanting to know "who wrote statement?"
Apparently, neither Ann nor Ajamu feel that Jill could have written the statement -- either because they think she's too stupid to write or because they believe she's such a push over that you can't get her to put her name to anything.
It's bad when people see you that way -- but it's really, really bad when one of the people seeing you like that is your former running mate.
Like we said at the top, a Jill Stein campaign always starts promising so much and always ends delivering very little. While you grasp that, also grasp that for two previous runs our so-called media refused to challenge her and offered fluff that they pretended was journalism.
