Media: Reality slaps Chump upside the head

Democrats know all about herding cats but looks like Donald's finally learning about harnessing crazy. 

 

 

Convicted Felon Donald Chump lost the 2020 presidential election and that result led him further into the grip of insanity.  He attempted to violently overthrow the election and should have been either put in prison or faced the death penalty.  Instead, an unneeded sense of decorum and let's-just-put-it-behind-us allowed him to mingle in polite society where he nursed his wounds and enlarged his base among the criminally insane.   

 

 Thanks to grifters such as Glenneth Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, his first term was rewritten in real time.  Chump invented 'the deep state' -- a group that already existed according to the late Bill Moyers but was defined differently by Chump.  And Greenwala dn Taibbi and other grifters lied repeatedly to make him come off as a warrior against the deep state.

 

We have neither the time nor the interest to document in full what we've already spent years documenting.  So instead, we'll just pick one pet cause the three shared: Julian Assange. The grifters insisted Chump was going to pardon him and then Julian would finally be free of the UK legal system.  It was coming.  Chump was the real thing.

 

In the end, all that came was Greenwald, on the carpet as he licked the toes of a large man he paid to degrade him while both were high on meth.  

 

That drug usage -- something Taibbi knows all about -- also clouded their minds allowing them to make excuses for Chump leaving the White House without ever addressing Julian Assange.  The drugs also allowed them to refuse credit to President Joe Biden who, in the end, did not demand Assange be handed over to the US and face trial here for the 'crime' of journalism.

 

It was really something to watch the grifters celebrate Julian's release while failing to credit the Biden administration (or, specifically, Caroline Kennedy, the US Ambassador to Australia who put a lot of weight into getting Julian released).  

 

Chump was recruiting the crazy and grifters like Greenwald and Taibbi were helping him.  The crazier the theory Chump put out, the more insane the supporter he won.  The deep state was against him!  The deep state wanted to continue pedophilia!  The deep state ousted him because he was shutting down their pedophile rings!

 

If this nonsense is a shocker to you, you weren't paying attention.  

 

And you've got no real excuse.  Roseanne is a talented comedian and she's also bat s**t insane.  Her Tweets were not about racism.  They were about crazy.  You didn't grasp what was in front of you.  Because, depending upon the day of the week, she was a victim of child abuse, she's sensitive to others being abused.  And her Tweets were nothing but crazy about how Chump was saving the children!  Saving them!!!!

 

These lunatics believed this crap and even now most media won't tell you about that.  Even as Epstein has blown up, the media won't tell you that grifter outlets have spent years lying about Chump busting this pedophile ring and that pedophile ring and the government's after him for that reason and!!!!!

 

 Chump lumbered back into the White House in January.  Weeks later, Pam Bondi was telling the world that the Epstein client list was on her desk, waiting for her to peruse and release it.  She also invited grifters that she called social influencers.  

 

Our corporate media let it stop at that:  social influencers.  

 

No, these are the crazies who distributed the poisoned Kool-Aid regularly.  They are the ones who told gullible Americans over and over for years that the US government was part of a global pedophile ring and only Chump was objecting to it.  

 

The attack on trans women and others falls into that.  Every lie of "protect the girls" led to eye rolls among rational people who grasped trans girls are not a threat to non-trans girls but for his enraged and deluded base, it was coded -- he'll take on the trans just like he's taken on the pedophiles.  

 

Since everyone doesn't watch TRUE CRIME or DATELINE, let's go to WIKIPEDIA for this overview of Jeffrey Epstein:

 

In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein after a parent reported that he had sexually abused her 14-year-old daughter. Federal officials identified 36 girls, some as young as 14 years old, whom Epstein had allegedly sexually abused.^[9] Epstein pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 by a Florida state court of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.^[10] He was convicted of only these two crimes as part of a controversial plea deal, and served almost 13 months in custody but with extensive work release.^[11]

Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.^[12][13] He died in his jail cell on August 10, 2019.^[14] The medical examiner ruled that his death was a suicide by hanging.^[15] Epstein's lawyers have disputed the ruling, and there has been significant public skepticism about the true cause of his death, resulting in numerous conspiracy theories.^[16][17] The Federal Bureau of Investigation stated in 2025 that it would release video evidence supporting the conclusion that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell;^[18] however, when the DOJ released the footage in July 2025, one minute of footage was missing,^[19] and the video was found to have been modified despite the FBI’s claim that it was raw.^[20]

Since Epstein's death precluded the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against him, a judge dismissed all criminal charges on August 29, 2019. Epstein had a decades-long association with the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who recruited young girls for him,^[21] leading to her 2021 conviction on U.S. federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy for helping him procure girls, including a 14-year-old, for child sexual abuse and prostitution.^[22][23][24]

 

So Jeffrey Epstein trafficked girls and women (with Ghislaine's help).  And, while out of the White House, Chump insisted a cover up too place, that Epstein was murdered and did not commit suicide, that a global conspiracy was behind it -- he insisted so many things but it boils down to Mighty Chump was going to save us all 'whether they wanted to be saved or not' as he declared at his Marvin Gardens Nazi rally. 

 

Now no one wants to deal with crazy.  We don't want to deal with crazy.  There's enough in the real world without having to carry every other burden.  But the media didn't deal with it and if they had it might not have made a difference.

 

These were crazy people begging to be lied to.  They were easy marks because they wanted so desperately to be conned that they were easily tricked.

 

Had the media dealt with every day for a full month, it might have made some headway among the Make America Insane Again crowd.

 

The media could have easily pointed out the obvious.

 

Chump is lying, you know that because this happened under him in 2019.  If he was telling the truth, he could have addressed it while president (January 2017 through January 2020).  This happened on his watch. The media could have pointed out that Chump and Epstein were neighbors, that the two men were friends. 

 

They didn't.  And if you were counting on YOUTUBE to help, you were out of luck  What you got from the 'left' on YOUTUBE tended to be praise for grifter Glenneth Greenwald -- praise from Krystal Ball, praise from THE VANGUARD boyz.  He was putting out lies, but they didn't care.  They probably still won't call him out.

 

Last week was quite the week for Chump.

 

He claimed that Secretary of Defense Losse Lips Hegseth had -- for a third time -- cut off weapons to Ukraine without informing Chump.  The flood that hit Texas on a Friday resulted in Kristi Noem yammering in front of the cameras the following Saturday but waiting three days before releasing the needed funds to start rescue efforts.  Thursday, Gabe Cohen and Michael Williams (CNN) reported:

 

As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters.

But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN.

As CNN has previously reported, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off before any funds can be released.

For FEMA, where disaster response costs routinely soar into the billions as the agency contracts with on-the-ground crews, officials say that threshold is essentially “pennies,” requiring sign-off for relatively small expenditures.

In essence, they say the order has stripped the agency of much of its autonomy at the very moment its help is needed most.

“We were operating under a clear set of guidance: lean forward, be prepared, anticipate what the state needs, and be ready to deliver it,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN. “That is not as clear of an intent for us at the moment.”

For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.

In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.

But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.

 Today, William Vaillancourt (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency didn’t answer thousands of phone calls after the Texas floods last week because it had fired call center contractors.

Records obtained by The New York Times show that FEMA laid off contractors the night of July 5, when flood waters were receding but still high, and when damage assessment was taking place. It took Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem until Thursday—five days later—to renew the contractors’ contracts.  

After taking office, Noem created a policy where she must personally approve expenses totaling $100,000 or more. 

The contrast in two-way communication between July 5 and the following days is stark. Before the contracts at four call center companies expired that night, FEMA answered 3,018 of 3,027 calls. 

On July 6, however, it answered only 846 of 2,363 calls. Data from July 7 shows an even worse level of responsiveness: 2,613 of 16,419 calls.

 

 Ariana Baio (INDEPENDENT)  reported, "Noem eventually approved FEMA’s request on Monday, nearly three days after the initial flooding occurred, sources told CNN."  Ruth pointed out, "Monday.  She was grandstanding in front of cameras last Saturday talking about the flood.  She was posting INSTAGRAM photos Sunday, showing off that artificial rat's nest she calls hair.  As a general rule, Cabinet secretaries should never look as though they could walk onto the set of a REAL HOUSEWIVES taping and be mistaken for a performer on the show." 

 

They failed -- Chump and Noem failed.  As well as the acting chief of FEMA David Richardson that no one can apparently find since the flood.  129 confirmed deaths, a Chump failure. 

 

But while that failure resulted in deaths, what really rocked Chump world last week was the Epstein client list.   US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that there was no Epstein client list.  She then insisted people misunderstood her February public statements that the list was on her desk and waiting for her vetting before being released.  

 

She and the administration thought that was the end of it.

 

But all hell broke loose. 

 

Having harnessed the crazy to get back into the White House, Chump was shocked to learn that they wouldn't just let the Epstein matter go.  

 

In Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, the press asked about Epstein and Chump thundered -- "Are we still talking about that guy!" --  tried to distract -- "This guy has been talked about for years, we have Texas, we have this [referring to the Ukraine war], and people are still talking about this creep?”

 

Too bad for Chump, that wasn't the end of it.  The crazy outside the administration was enraged and, turns out, two crazies in the administration weren't taking the news any better.  Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel made a lot of money grifting online over the Epstein files and claiming a global pedophile ring existed that Chump would expose and dismantle if re-elected.  He got re-elected and the two men were not happy about sudden assertion that there was no "there" there  In a meeting with Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles  on Wednesday, tempers exploded.  Based on this came the statements and whispers that Bongino was considering quitting.  And CBS NEWS notes, "Bongino did not show up to work on Friday, according to the sources."

  

Chump tried playing Rodney King on social media with a version of can't-we-all-get-along and it didn't bury the anger from his one-time followers as MEIDASTOUCH NEWS noted today.

 

 

 

Democrats?  We are silly and foolish enough to think we can herd cats.  However, we're not insane and believe we can harness crazy.  That's Chump.  He thought he could harness crazy to get back in the White House and he thought he could stoke it and control it.  

 

While it's true that he uncorked the crazy, he's unable to shove it back into the bottle.  These things never end well.  

 

 

   

Media: Zohran Mamdani needs to stop playing catch up and go on the offense

The media image of Zohran Mamdani has never been about Zohran Mamdani.  Assorted YOUTUBERS took marching orders from Democratic Socialists of America.  There were other DSAers running to be the Democratic Party's candidate for NYC mayor -- the very qualified Brad Lander among them -- but the party leaders -- or big mouths -- wanted Zohran.

You'll need to ask them why?

 

 

It was cute, recently, watching an MSNBCer on air last week try to state that he didn't care one way or the other re: Zohran and was just reporting.  To his credit, he hadn't (mis)used MSNBC broadcast time to pimp Zohran but so many had, so many MSNBCers had used their posts to promote Zohran during the primary that they're all tarred and feathered as guilty in the minds of most paying actual attention.

Right after the primary, when he was the presumed winner, Jen Psaki, for example, had him on her bad program and she fluffed and made a complete idiot out of herself.  Was she trying to come off like she had a crush on him?  We thought she was happy with her husband Greg.

But what we identified even more was MSNBCers were doing what they'd done back in 2014, they were playing Norman Maine as they acted out A STAR IS BORN.  

In 2014, they did that with Wendy Davis.  For a few weeks, Wendy looked like she might be the next governor of Texas.  And then MSNBC and others got a hold of her -- or her image -- and turned into a star, a media star, someone who gets airtime and press and make overs and --  Well anything and everything that a politician doesn't need.

 

You don't vote for a star, you vote for someone who's going to work for you.  

Some people are that stupid -- that's how you get all the media work to turn Wendy Davis into a celebrity.  Some people are even more stupid.  George HW Bush, for example, would be an example of more stupid.  Dan Quayle, despite Poppy Bush's being bowled over by Quayle's alleged good looks, had no political future.  Being on the ticket with Poppy was supposed to be some form of debutante coming out ball for Quayle.  The ball ended way too soon for Dan because when Bush bowed out of elected office, that it was for Quayle as well.

So that would be the more stupid.

The 'just stupid'?  They try to create political stars without realizing what they're doing.

As a general rule, a political star is always going to fail on the Democratic Party side.  As a group, the left really doesn't get taken in for the most part.  

The exception would be 2008 with Barack Obama but, remember, a lot of that was wives-of.  A NEWSWEEK wife, for example, really put the magazine in place.  

It's really something to reflect on how bad the pre-primary coverage was; however, it is especially appalling to watch the post-primary coverage.

They do realize this is an important race, right?

Not for NYC.  NYC survived Rudy G, they can survive anything. Doubt us?  Their current mayor is a crook who cut a deal with The Convicted Felon in the Oval Office. And still NYC thrives.

But this is important because of DSA's hopes and dreams.  

They really believe that they have a shot, in 2028, at the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is who they're betting on.

It's a strange bet if you dig deep.  

AOC was first elected to Congress in 2018 when she won 78.1% of the vote.  She was re-elected (applause) in 2020 with 71.6% of the vote (huh?).  Then came 2022 and she won re-election with . . . 70.6% of the vote.  And last November, she again won re-election but her percentage of the vote fell to 68.9%.  In each election, she's won so far; however, her percentage of voters has shrunk with each election as well -- from the high of 78.1% down to 68.9%.  Does that really say: AOC On The Rise?

(For the record, if AOC is the party's presidential nominee, we'll be voting for her.  We'll be voting for whomever the nominee is.)

Far beyond AOC herself -- like some voters, the DSA has soured on her with the passing of time, especially the Kshama Sawant segment of DSA which can't stop ripping AOC apart online -- the DSA sees 2028 as their moment.  They've never had a moment before.  Never come close.  But hooking onto AOC's charisma (and AOC does have charisma, probably the most since Barack in 2008), they know, is going to deliver them a moment, deliver them power, finally allow them to take over the Democratic Party from within, and possibly even cleary up their combination skin.

Are those starry eyed dreams preventing them from grasping how important Zohran is?  

AOC's path to the nomination gets a whole lot harder if Zohran can't seal the deal.  If NYC can't elect a Socialist as mayor, many observers will see that as evidence that the country cannot either.  And as they jawbone about this over and over, it would become a self-fulfilling promise.

"We can fight that!" screams the DSA.  To which we reply: When have you ever gotten the media right?

Margaret Sullivan, for example, is now at THE GUARDIAN.  She's a columnist.  She was a public editor at THE NEW YORK TIMES.  It was not a good fit for her or the paper and they did away with the public editor a year after she left the paper.  We all need to keep that in mind when reading her latest column "Is the New York Times trying to wreck Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral bid?"

The editorial board of THE NEW YORK TIMES did not support Zohran in the primary.  That's needed information.  However, has Margaret forgotten the wall between editorial-opinion and actual reporting?  Is she saying that it's gone at THE TIMES?

That would require concrete and there's nothing concrete about her nonsense post ('column') for THE GUARDIAN that would be an embarrassment if it showed up in a high school newspaper. Sullivan typed:

 

A recent New York Times news story immediately drew fire from readers – and for very good reason.

Headlined “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application,” the article centered on Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for New York City mayor who drew national attention recently with his stunning win in the Democratic primary election.

Its gist was that as a high school senior in New York City, Mamdani – who was born in Uganda and is of Indian descent – checked a couple of different boxes about race when applying for admission to Columbia University.

So what, you might ask. Why is this even a story, you might also ask.

 

No, Margaret, we wouldn't ask that because we're not as stupid as you are.

He is not Black.  

Yes, that matters.

Senator Elizabeth Warren wrongly claimed to be of Native American heritage.  When corrected on that, she stated her family had believed that and that is what she was told as a child.  "Pocahontas" is the main name people use to mock her -- to this day, to mock her.  They mocked her with it in 2020 when she ran in the Democratic Party's presidential primary.  

Did you miss that, Margaret? 

Rachel Dolezal -- did you miss her too?  The woman who pretended to be Black?  When she was outed as White, she lost everything.

He's not Black.

It's cute the way Margaret lies and whores -- cute and embarrassing, that column was beneath her -- to try to act as though an 18 year old isn't an adult.  "High school senior"!  It's a pity she couldn't use "intern," right, to harken back to an earlier media effort to play someone as younger than they actually were.

He was 18 years old and he knew he wasn't Black.  He lied and he lied to take advantage of race in a college admission.  He wanted into Columbia -- infamous to this day for the "Scottish African-American" professor (if you don't know her, you don't know Columbia).  

More to the point, Margaret, it wasn't that long ago.  He's only 33 today.  That was 15 years ago.

Again, he was an adult.  Again, he lied.

Elizabeth Warren probably didn't lie but she's crucified to this day.  They say she lied, they say she lied in order to get advantages in eductation and employment.

But Margaret wants you to believe that it doesn't matter that Zohran lied?

Not only does it matter but it also goes to a non-inquisitive press that this issue only came out after the primary.

Back to Jen Psaki, she wasted MSNBC's time and Zohran's time with her giddy segment that should have instead drilled down on what Zorhan stood for.

That was the moment.  

She blew it.  She blew it as a journalist and she blew it as a supporter of Zohran.

People wanted to know who he was.  This was the real roll out.  And Jen didn't do journalism and she wasn't even effective as a campaign surrogate.

When Jen should have been serious and focused and talking policy, the media narrative was already being created:  Zohran eats strangely.  Zohran is not Christian.  Zohran . . .

Day after day that pops up in the media and is amplified non-stop.

And idiots in the media and the DSA don't know what the hell to do.

We're not trying to tank Zohran, we are trying to tell the people supporting him that you need to do better.

At this point, he is different.  At this point, you're wasting time arguing that he's not different.

And you're wasting time thinking you can sell him as conventional. 

Suppose all you ever had for breakfast was onion rolls. Then one day, in walks a bagel! You'd say, 'Ugh, what's that?' Until you tried it! That's my problem == I'm a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls.

Does no one recognize that?  FUNNY GIRL was not only a Broadway success in its original run, it was also a success in its recent revival.  It was a huge film, in fact, it was the number one box office hit of 1968.  The musical regularly airs on TCM.  (We're ignoring the four albums -- all of which charted -- because the bagel monologue is not on any of them.)  

 

Suppose all you ever had for breakfast was onion rolls. Then one day, in walks a bagel! You'd say, 'Ugh, what's that?' Until you tried it! That's my problem -- I'm a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls.

 

Zohran supporters, you've waited too late to control the image created.  He can't be normalized.  

But if you'd leave your limited perceptions, you'd grasp that different it is okay, that different can stand out and that sometimes people want different more than anything else.

That might be his path to victory. 

Media shocks (Ava and C.I.)

Last week was a series of shock -- far too many to cover in full.

 

But let's start off with a good shock: IRONHEART.   Chinaka Hodge deserves a standing ovation for creating a MARVEL TV show that has a female hero and is not a joke. 

 Jac Schaeffer, Jessica Gao and Bisha K. Ali should not only hang their heads in shame, they should be issuing public apologies for the garbage that they foisted off on audiences.  We're talking WANDAVISION, SHE-HULK ATTORNEY AT LAW and MS. MARVEL.  These were not superhero shows that sported strong female characters.  Instead it was giggle and laugh at the women and, in MS. MARVEL's case, at the girl.  These garbage shows had characters praised by The Water Cooler Set.  But audiences avoided them.  Liars try to pretend otherwise and note the interest in the shows and some big streaming debut.  They move on quickly so that they don't have to talk about the drop off after seeing the first episodes.  Yes, the programs were anticipated and then people saw them.

 

That garbage created a backlash  

 

IRONHEART is a first rate superhero series.  That shouldn't be such a shock.  It's been done many times before.  Even with a female superhero.  Melissa Rosenberg, for example, created compelling television as the show runner of JESSICA JONES.  Prior to that, Maurissa Tancharoen, Joss Whedon and Jed Whedon created complex roles for men and women on MARVEL AGENTS OF S*H*I*E*L*D.  MARVEL really only faltered in this century once they became part of DISNEY+.   With Chinaka Hodge creating such a strong show and Dominique Thorne being so perfect in the lead role, maybe this is a sign that (once again) MARVEL can showcase strong women instead of making fun of them?  

That would be a good shock.  However, last week was mainly bad shocks. 

For example, the Chump administration rounded the corner last week, swaying and rolling due to the bad shock absorbers, as Convicted Felon Donald Chump made threats.  What had the senile so upset?  Possibly the fact that his lies about what a great job he'd done on Iran were being questioned.  CNN had reported the truth of the US intel assessment which made clear that, at best, Iran's efforts were set back a few months. That assessment came from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and that really sent Chump on a rageathon.  It's a lie, it's wrong, it's criminal, CNN should fire correspondent Natasha Bertrand, it doesn't matter -- he was frothing at the mouth -- and it will be proven to be wrong when, he insisted, Israel releases its assessment.

You read that right.  

Here are his exact words, "Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand, and I was told that they said it was total obliteration. I believe it was total obliteration, and I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast."  Those were his exact words, the nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah  was apparently left implied.

The President of the United States actually insisted -- publicly -- that the US intel was no good but that the Israeli intel would back him up. 

Yeah, that's considered normal.

But that wasn't Chump's only strange remark on Wednesday.  

The dementia appeared to be 100% in charge when Chump declared -- of Iran's strike in response on a US base in Qatar,  "You saw that, where 14 missiles were shot at us the other day. And they were very nice. They gave us warning. They said, 'We’re going to shoot them.'  'Is one o’clock okay?' They said, 'It’s fine.'  And everybody was emptied off the base, so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners. They call them the gunners. And out of 14 high-end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar, all 14, as you know, were shot down by our equipment. Amazing stuff, amazing what they can do."

Those remarks should have resulted in a lot of coverage.  Go to any search engine and you'll find out that MSNBC covered the remarks as did MILITARY.COM.  Did any other news outlet write up the remarks?  Or was everyone doing their best not to upset nutso?

Konstantin Toropin (MILITARY.COM) noted, the remarks were not only strange, they didn't fit with the official story the White House has promoted:

 

On Wednesday, as he was about to depart from a NATO summit, President Donald Trump seemed to make a stunning admission: He gave Iran the green light to attack a U.S. military base in retaliation for his own strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.

The Iranians "were very nice. They gave us warning," Trump told reporters. "They said, 'We're going to shoot 'em. Is one o'clock OK?' I said, 'It's fine,'" he added.

The casual, nonchalant tone of Trump's acceptance that Iran would attack U.S. forces at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar -- an assault that involved more than a dozen Iranian missiles -- was a sharp contrast to the message of steely-eyed professionalism and heroism that his top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, offered to reporters the next day for what he said was likely the largest single use of the Patriot air defense system in U.S. history.

The press may have been too scared to print what Crazy said but Chump knew he'd gone too far.  So the next day, at the Pentagon, it was time for an 8:00 am press briefing with Mama's Boy Pete Hegseth.  Hegseth was so rushed, they didn't get to smooth out his foundation the way they've been doing at his personal hair and make up salon he had installed at the Pentagon leading to his psoriasis splotches being visible yet again.  

The little mama's boy got loud but with that nasal and childish voice, it only made him come off spoiled, entitled and, frankly, unhinged.

He was screaming at the press -- the same press that he was a part of mere months ago before Chump stupidly decided to nominate a drunk who once had rape charges filed against him for Secretary of Defense and idiots like Senator Joni Ernst voted to confirm Hegseth (what does it matter -- right, Joni -- we're all going to die). 

He wanted to give the press a word -- Well, he gave them 1589 words before he took a breath.  

Then he let Gen Dan Caine speak.  We covered that two-some as they made the Congressional rounds this month.  Caine plays sane while Hegseth plays like he just pooped his own diaper -- is he playing, right?  And the press briefing was one lie after another from Hegseth and a ton of projection.

He screamed at the press -- or maybe shrieked, he does have a rather high and girlish voice,  "And again, before I pass it to the chairman, because you, and I mean specifically you, the press, specifically you the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes."

Mama's Boy said that.  After we sat through one hearing after another where he repeatedly lied about former President Joe Biden, attacked former President Joe Biden and stole credit for what Joe Biden had done (including turning around recruitment numbers which Hegseth lies happened under Chump -- and he told that lie again at the start of the Thursday press briefing.)

We loved it when Caine slipped an answer to the idiot Hegseth (Caine, "Sir, I think you could -- I'd say go out -- the IC should be able to help you answer that question." followed by Hegseth, "And so, again, I go back to the IC, whether it's Director Ratcliffe or ODNI Gabbard.") because it reminded us of the Congressional hearing this month where racist Hegseth couldn't call out the Nazis and Caine had to step in to reassure members of Congress that, yes, even this administration -- or at least some members of it -- grasped that Nazis were bad.

Mama's Boy Hegseth embarrassed himself non-stop and that included his nonsense about how three bomb drops constituted "the most complex and secretive military operations in history."

The country could not stop laughing.   Ahmad Austin Jr. (MEDIAITE) compiled some of the responses such as "Normandy? Hiroshima? Bin Laden Raid?" and "Move over D-Day!" and "So the turning point of the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, with 175K soldiers fighting and 50K lives lost over 3 days, doesn't hold a candle to dropping a few dozen bombs from the air? Am I understanding this statement from the SoD?" among them. 

 

When you hear Hegseth lie and Chump lie, you wonder why?  They just keep repeating lies.  Why?

 

PBS viewers might have gotten an answer last week with the latest installment of AMERICAN MASTERS which featured a documentary entitled  HANNAH ARENDT: FACING TYRANNY.  It examined Arendt's work documenting that crimes of the Nazis and how they got support for their crimes.  Arendt noted that they lied and lied some more and knew they were lying but they were creating this lie that motivated and excused.  Did anyone really believe the lie or was just the excuse they needed, the 'noble lie' told to garner support for a genocide.

 

One part that especially stood out?  

 

This passage from Arendt:

 

Banality was a phenomenon that really couldn't be overlooked.  The more one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with his inability to think    Namely  to think from the standpoint of someone else.  There's nothing deep about it, nothing demonic.  That's simply the reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing.  That is the banality of evil. 

 

 She's referring to the fact that the Nazis conducted a genocide and got away with it because of people who lacked empathy.  

 

And that's why the right-wing's been attacking empathy (see our "MEDIA: YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS and your non-friends too!" from April) because MAGA can't get it's way if people have empathy.  So they portray it as a bad thing.  They pretend to be Christians while attacking the very idea of empathy that Jesus Christ taught.  At THE ATLANTIC, Elizabeth Bruenig explained today:

 

Five years ago, Elon Musk told Joe Rogan during a podcast taping that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.” By that time, the idea that people in the West are too concerned with the pain of others to adequately advocate for their own best interests was already a well-established conservative idea. Instead of thinking and acting rationally, the theory goes, they’re moved to make emotional decisions that compromise their well-being and that of their home country. In this line of thought, empathetic approaches to politics favor liberal beliefs. An apparent opposition between thought and feeling has long vexed conservatives, leading the right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro to famously declare that “facts don’t care about your feelings.”

But the current ascendancy of this anti-empathy worldview, now a regular topic in right-wing social-media posts, articles, and books, might be less a reasonable point of argumentation and more a sort of coping mechanism for conservatives confronted with the outcomes of certain Trump-administration policies—such as the nightmarish tale of a 4-year-old American child battling cancer being deported to Honduras without any medication, or a woman in ICE custody losing her mid-term pregnancy after being denied medical treatment for days. That a conservative presented with these cases might feel betrayed by their own treacherous empathy makes sense; this degree of human suffering certainly ought to prompt an empathetic response, welcome or not. Even so, it also stands to reason that rather than shifting their opinions when confronted with the realities of their party’s positions, some conservatives might instead decide that distressing emotions provoked by such cases must be a kind of mirage or trick. This is both absurd—things that make us feel bad typically do so because they are bad—and spiritually hazardous.

This is certainly true for Christians, whose faith generally counsels taking others’ suffering seriously. That’s why the New York Times best seller published late last year by the conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, is so troubling. In her treatise packaging right-wing anti-empathy ideas for Christians, Stuckey, a Fox News veteran who recently spoke at a conference hosted by the right-wing nonprofit Turning Point USA, contends that left wingers often manipulate well-meaning believers into adopting sinful argumentative and political positions by exploiting their natural religious tendency to care for others. Charlie Kirk, the Republican activist who runs Turning Point USA, said that Stuckey has demolished “the No. 1 psychological trick of the left” with her observation that liberals wield empathy against conservatives “by employing our language, our Bible verses, our concepts” and then perverting them “to morally extort us into adopting their position.” Taken at face value, the idea that Christians are sometimes persuaded into un-Christian behavior by strong emotions is fair, and nothing new: Suspicion of human passions is ancient, and a great deal of Christian preaching deals with the subject of subduing them. But Toxic Empathy is not a sermon. It is a political pamphlet advising Christians on how to argue better in political debates—a primer on being better conservatives, not better Christians. 

It's very distressing but people are standing up and speaking out.  

 

And with that in mind, last week actually contained one more shock.  Chump was threatening to sue various outlets -- one of which was THE NEW YORK TIMES.  In response to his ranting and raving, the paper's deputy general counsel David McGraw stated, "No retraction is needed.  No apology will be forthcoming.  We told the truth to the best of our ability.  We will continue to do so."

Contrast that response with the caving on the part of ABC NEWS and the expected caving on the part of Sheri Redstone on behalf of CBS NEWS and McGraw's stance is a very happy shock.

 

 

Books (Kat, Ruth, Marcia)

 

As we did in 2021 and 2023 and 2024, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. This go round, we're talking with Kat, Ruth and Marcia.  Kat reviewed "Jeanine Basinger's THE MOVIE MUSICAL " while Ruth covered  "Alec Baldwin's NEVERTHELESS: A MEMOIR" and Marcia covered  "Here We Go Again My Life In Television -- Betty White." Marcia, let's start with you.  Tell us Betty and the book.

 

Marcia: Betty White was an actress who did TV in the fifties and probably became more famous in the early 70s from game shows.  Then she did THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and really became a TV actress and star.  She started playing Eunice's sister Ellen on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW and when MAMA'S FAMILY spun off from that show, she continued to play Ellen on that and then, of course, came THE GOLDEN GIRLS.  Betty White was sunshine and fun.  I wanted to love this book.  I didn't. In 1995, Mary Tyler Moore wrote AFTER ALL and I felt like I learned more about Betty in that book then in this one supposedly written by Betty.  Betty and Mary were great friends and they couples dated.  They knew each other very well.  I didn't get that from the book.

 

"Supposedly written by Betty."

 

Marcia: I don't think Betty wrote it or dictated it.  There are too many problems with the book.  For example?  Desi Arnaz invented the multi-cam sitcom.  Betty's telling this story of I LOVE LUCY and her regional sitcom being done for a year side-by-side.  But she talks about how they were live.  I LOVE LUCY was not live.  It was filmed.  This is a part of TV history.  Lucy didn't want to go to NYC.  That meant a whole new way of putting a show together.  Desi came up with it.  The sitcom would be filmed, it would be multi-cam, etc.  If Betty wrote the book, I would assume, if her show's set was right next to I LOVE LUCY, she'd know that I LOVE LUCY was not a live show.  That happens over and over.  She or someone also writes about how Ken Barry began playing Mama's son on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW.  No.  Not true.  Alan Alda -- among others -- played one of Mama's son on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW.  Ken Barry never did a skit with Mama -- they were called The Family -- until the spin-off MAMA'S FAMILY.  There are way too many errors like that which make me think that Betty didn't really write the book or dictate it.

 

Ruth, you covered Alec Baldwin's memoir.

 

Ruth: I did.  I was a fan of the actor early on.  I can remember him on THE DOCTORS -- a daytime TV program.  And, in his book, he writes about that show and I was glad but I would have honestly enjoyed more about the people on the show.  I enjoyed the book but had wanted to bring this into the discussion.  He does Broadway, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE as Stanley, and has to -- or feels he has to -- pump up and look good and this caused health problems.  I am very sad about that.  But am I remembering wrong or was his body not used throughout his career.

 

You mean on display?

 

Ruth: Yes.

 

In MARRIED TO THE MOB, as Michelle Pfeiffer's husband, we see him in his underwear and his body is featured in WORKING GIRL.  Prior to that, you've got photo shoots with magazines like US where his bare chested and posing with Lisa Hartman Black -- his KNOTS LANDING co-star.  Alec's a good looking man to this day but, yes, his body was on display in the early years.  

 

Ruth: I thought so.  Or hoped so, I was afraid I was remembering wrongly.  

 

Kat?

 

Kat: I read the worst book in the world.  Some musicals, per the author, aren't really musicals.  Depends on the mood she's in basically.  She doesn't see GREASE as a real musical.  Sometimes dancing is enough to be a musical -- SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER -- sometimes it's not -- FOOTLOOSE. Sometimes box office is so important, other times it's not.  She excuses racism throughout the book which was very offensive.  It fails to cover movie musicals in a linear fashion and instead jumps around all over.  

 

You'd asked us to bring up Barbra Streisand.

 

Kat: I had!  Thank you.  She doesn't seem to care for Barbra.  She lavishes Julie Andrews for two movie musicals and calls her a star of the genre.  Now I love THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE -- and despite the author's lie, the film was a hit.  The author hates it.  So why are we pretending Julie's a musical star only based on two films?  Barbra's attacked for everything and the author seems to confuse FUNNY GIRL with FUNNY LADY as she blathers on about how Barbra's personality is used in one.  Yes, it was.  In FUNNY GIRL.  That's why Barbra said when it was on Broadway that it was her life -- Barbra's -- it just happened to happen to Fanny Brice first.  And, sorry, Barbra was a bigger musical star than Julie Andrews.  YENTL, FUNNY GIRL, HELLO DOLLY, FUNNY LADY and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER all made money.  Lots and lots of money.  She doesn't care for Streisand and that may have to do with the support Barbra's historically had from gay men because the writer of the book is a homophobe. 

 

So you don't recommend the book you read.

 

Kat: Not at all.

 

And Marcia?

 

Marcia: No.  It's a poorly written book and I don't believe Betty wrote it or dictated it.

 

Ruth?

 

Ruth: Mr. Baldwin's book was a pleasure to read.  His childhood, his college days, his move to NYC and then to California. I found it all fascinating and very well written. 

 

------------------------------

Previous book discussions:

 

"Books (Marcia, Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)" 

"Books (Trina, Stan, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)"

 

"Books (Jess, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Rebecca, Marcia, Ava and C.I.)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might be a Home Schooled idiot . . .

 . . . if you called your third grade teacher "Mommy."    

Best action films of the 2020s

 

25) SAYEN 

 

24) RED NOTICE 

 

23) CLASSIFIED

 

22) THE TAKEOVER

 

21) KIMI  

 

20)  THE PROSECUTOR 

 

19) CANARY BLACK 

 

18)  SHADOW FORCE  

 

17) LOU

 

16) ATLAS  

 

15) DIABLO

 

14) FREAKY TALES 

 

13) THE AMATEUR  

 

12) WOLFS  

 

11) FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

 

10)  THE ACCOUNTANT 2

 

 

9)  THE MOTHER 

 

 

8)  THE UNION 

 

7)  CLEANER

 

6) HEART OF STONE

 

5) THE BEEKEEPER 

 

 

4) THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD 

 

3) SINNERS  

 

2)  THE GRAY MAN 

 

1) THE OLD GUARD

 

Book List

 

Book coverage continues in this community.  For earlier lists of books covered see 2021's  "Books," 2023's "Books" and 2024 "Book List"

Books reviewed in the community this year.

1) "bob hope should be a lesson" -- Rebecca reviews Richard Zoglin.  

2) "Shattered Love: A Memoir" -- Marcia reviews Richard Chamberlain's insipid autobiography. 

3) "Help! My Apartment Has A Dining Room Cookbook: How to Have People Over Without Stressing Out" -- Trina reviews a cookbook.

4)  "Media: OWNED finds Eoin Higgins owned by bad journalism" -- Ava and C.I. take on Eoin Higgins bad book.

5) "Sly's awful books proves Questlove a liar" -- Stan reviews Sly Stone's memoir. 

6) "THE LIFE AND HARD TIMES OF HEIDI ABROMOWITZ (Jess)" -- Jess reviews a humor book by Joan Rivers.

7) "STAN LEE LIED: YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO EVERY LIE IN THE ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS" -- Isaiah reviews a book documenting truths. 

 

8) "Rachel Ray's Garbage in the Kitchen" -- Trina reviews Rachel Ray's RACHEL RAY'S 365: NO REPEATS.

 

9) "BLACK BAG (great film) and Spielberg book" -- Stan reviews Richard Schickel's  STEVEN SPIELBERG: A RETROSPECTIVE

 

10)   "Matteo Lane's Your Pasta Sucks: A 'Cookbook'" -- Trina reviews Matteo Lane's new book.

 

11) "Books, Shatner and more" -- Marcia reviews William Shatner's BOLDLY GO.

 

12) "BATMAN'S VILLAINS" -- Isaiah reviews a comic book collection.

 

13) "Jeanine Basinger's THE MOVIE MUSICAL " -- Kat reviews a book on movie musicals.

 

14)  "Alec Baldwin's NEVERTHELESS: A MEMOIR" -- Ruth covers Alec Baldwin's memoir. 

 

15)  "Here We Go Again My Life In Television -- Betty White" -- Marcia covers a memoir.

 

 

 

 

Media: Truth Molested Versus Truth Told

It was Sunday morning in Iran but Saturday night in the US when the Convicted Felon  Donald Chump's order to bomb Iran took place.  This was an act of war and he executed it without the Constitutionally required Congressional authorization and he also failed to inform them ahead of the bombing.  Three sites bombed in Iran with twelve 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs.

 

He says that the B-2 bomber planes were targeting nuclear sites.  He says that.  Others say Iran moved things from those sites long ago.  His intel is faulty, some say.  

 

It's Chump so we're talking about someone who's been booked repeatedly and charged with battering and abusing the truth.

 

Does truth matter?

 

Two documentaries gave answers last week.

 

AMERICAN MASTERS is a PBS program that we really wish they'd discontinue or at least rethink.

 

We've taken issue with the series many, many times before.  A friend -- who's read all of our criticism of the series -- argues that when people get thins wrong and we say they're lying, they're just mis-remembering. 

 

Janis Ian was the focus last week -- JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCES.  Singer-songwriter.  Responsible for classics like "At Seventeen" and "Stars."  We've covered Janis before which is why  we felt it was the best test for what our friend was saying.

 
Janis' memory is shot.  We covered that.  We covered how her autobiography didn't match reality.  We're not going to link to it, you know how to find the past pieces.  There's one where we especially documented where her timeline was off by over three years. 

 

Janis' big problem in the documentary was that she confessed to not being an artist.

We honestly like Janis.  We think she's written many classic songs and that includes "All Those Promises."  We think she's talented and smart.  We agree with her eearly lesson that you don't whore because if you whore, that's all you are.  

 

One thing, before this documentary, we did believe in was Janis was an artist

 

That's not the case.  Art is at least secondary to Janis.

 

She speaks of how, early on, she just wanted to be famous.  But despite her self-presentation and her insisting that stopped being the case early on, her comments make clear that she's confused stardom with art.

 

There are two struggles in her career per the documentary -- post-"Society's Child" and post-BETWEEN THE LINES. There's the third one that finds her in Nashville but that's not really addressed or presented as such.  The two presented really aren't about art  They're about commerce.

 

She seems to think that she would and could have been a star with "Society's Child" if it had been followed up correctly.  She was, according to her, the next Bob Dylan.  

 

And that's where we go sideways.  "Society's Child" is not a great song.  It's a White song, we'll give it that.  And we get that the NYC White crowd thought it was everything back in the sixties.  

 

We also get that all the little White girl in the song does is whine to her mother and tell the young Black male that she can't see him anymore.

 

It's as though people heard the song -- White people -- in 1965 and applauded her for it and have continued to just keep applauding without ever re-examining the song's lyrics:

 

One of these days I'm gonna stop my listening, gonna raise my head up high
One of these days I'm gonna raise my glistening wings and fly
But that day will have to wait for a while 

 

Sad. 

 

Her heroes were Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez and Odetta but she never wrote like Dylan or Ochs.  She was the personal, not the political. "Society's Child" couldn't be followed up despite what she thinks.  Her writing was copycat.  She gets that on her vocals, noting she had to stop trying to sing like Joan or Odetta but she doesn't grasp that when it comes to her song writing.  Or if she does, she won't cop to it.

 

Her first crisis?  She had exhausted her creative juices.  The well had to be refilled and she had to stretch and grow. She did five albums that were basically a child make believing.  That's what they sounded like because that's what they were.  That's why VERVE dropped her after album four.  And VERVE rarely dropped anyone.  CAPITOL signed her for one album, her fifth album, and then dumped her.  She took a hiatus and came back three years later with STARS.  It was art and it was seen as such.  Then came AT SEVENTEEN her monster album.  Huge seller but, again, we'd grade it as actual art.

 

Would she?  Listen to her talk about AFTERTONES.  Her, not the producer Brooks Arthur, listen to her.  She should have worked on it more and not let it be released so soon.  Over and over, we hear that.  And why is that?

 

According to Janis, if she had worked on it more that would have made it sell more.

This is Janis' second best selling album. 

Art or commerce?

 

She's talking about commerce.

She's also deeply stupid.

A best selling album is about luck.  

 

It's about timing.

 

That's something Janis doesn't understand still.  It's something Michael Jackson never understood.  Joni Mitchell gets it.  Your kids are going to get beat up in the playground and that's beyond your control.  Immediate reaction to THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS -- both sales figures and contemporary reviews -- are not the final word on the artistic merits of an album.

 

It was shocking to us to find that Janis didn't grasp this. Again, we applaud Janis' art -- "In The Winter" -- we're just surprised she's more about the commerce.

 

But then came the lie as Janis was discussing taping an episode of THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR (CBS) in November of 1967. 

Fortunately, not from Janis' mouth but, sadly, from Lily Tomlin's mouth, "Bill Cosby spoke out against her.  He said that she was probably a lesbian.  He said that to the press." 

 

We love Lily.

 

We don't like racism.

 

And that's what Lily's lie is: Racism.  

 

For the record, Lily wasn't at the taping of THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR.  She wasn't even in the state of California at the time (she was in NYC).  

 

She didn't even know Janis at the time.

 

Now Bill Cosby's never been our favorite person.  We've been here 20 years covering the media and long before the scandals and charges of rape broke, we were very clear that we were not fans of Bill Cosby.  

 

The scandals have broken.

 

Apparently that means anyone can lie about Cosby now.  That he deserves no better because of the assaults against women.  

 

But the truth is the truth.  And it does matter.

 

And when two White women get together to lie about a Black man, then there's a problem.  And they should know that not only are their remarks racist but so is the context in which they make the remarks.

 

Again, Lily didn't witness a damn thing so for her to lie -- are we really going to say, "Oh, well her memory!!"?

 

We're not.  You can be pathetic and make excuses for racism, but we're not going to do that.

 

Bill Cosby is a pioneer and a criminal.  It's complex.  And lying about him doesn't make it any better.

 

How is it a lie?

 

When Janis included the story in her autobiography (page 68), she didn't name Bill Cosby.  

 

And she didn't get around to naming him until his name was complete dirt because of all the women coming forward saying he'd assaulted them.

 

So first off, there's that.

 

Second, read the book (not CRAPAPEDIA which gets it wrong and thinks this happened at a Smothers Brothers club performance):

 

Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way.  My business advisors landed on me with both feet after I taped THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR.  According to them, a very well-known television star had spied me asleep in Merka's lap during a break, and had proceeded to tell several industry people that I was obviously a lesbian and shouldn't be allowed on national television.

 

After women came forward to accuse Bill of assault in 2014 -- six years after her autobiography was published, Janis came forward with the name in the blind item -- the person she'd hinted about ("well-known television star had spied me" -- Bill was starring in the TV series I SPY at the time she taped her variety show appearance).  

 

Grasp that Janis didn't hear Bill's comments.  Her management -- which was bothered by rumors developing about Janis -- is who told her the story and who attached Bill's name to it.

 

So even Janis doesn't know that Bill's guilty of what she alleges happened.

 

But Lily, in her zeal to take down a Black man, does Janis one better.  He's no loner talking to "several industry people."  According to Lily, who wasn't there, wasn't even in the state when it happened, Bill went around, she now lies, "He said that to the press!"

 

Show us the report, Lily, show us any reporting in 1967 or 1968 where Bill Cosby was quoted about Janis possibly being a lesbian.  

 

There is none. 

 

If there had been, Janis wouldn't have run the tale as a blind item in her 2008 autobiography.  She would have instead named Bill Cosby and cited the outlet (or outlets) that published the stories.

 

Janis has always told this story, since 2008, as to mean that whomever the man was, he was trying to end her TV career and was telling TV execs.  

 

We love Lily, we do.  But when two White women tear into a Black man with lies, we're not going to be silent.

 

Bill may very well have done what Janis thinks he did -- thinks he did.  But not even Janis knows for sure.  And Lily outright lies to back up her friend Janis Ian.

 

What they're doing -- what PBS and AMERICAN MASTERS are letting them do -- is not that far from lynching a Black male because someone said he whistled at a White woman.

 

It's enough to make you lose all hope in documentaries.  

Fortunately, HBO started airing a strong, new documentary last week SURVIVING OHIO STATE. The documentary about the assault and abuse of male athletes at Ohio State for several decades is produced by  Eva Orner (who also directed), David Glasser, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Joshua Rofe and Steven J. Berger.

 

Survivors talk on camera about how they were abused and assaulted by Dr Richard Strauss.  They talk about it and they talk about how wrestling coach Russ Hellickson and assistant coach Jim Jordan knew about the abuse and laughed at it and looked the other way.  Multiple players discuss how they went to Hellickson and asked him to stand with them as they went public and he said he would.  But Jim wouldn't.  Jim was now US House Rep Jim Jordan.  Suddenly, Russ wanted nothing to do with the men that he had hailed as his sons and Jim was too busy doing things like calling one of the accusers brothers up on the phone and begging him -- in tears -- to come forward and accuse his brother of lying in order to save Jim's reputation.  

 

Watching, we were reminded of a man who was the envy of a huge number of straight men at one point because of whom he was married to. The man who is still alive was a college athlete in another state in an earlier time and he was pimped out to men.  He even managed to turn it into a career starter.  And he was happy to do it because he says he's bi (he's gay).  He'll be dead soon and he'll die a disgrace (he's already disgraced himself once this year).  

 

He was able to get away with his act because of attitudes about gay people.  He didn't seem gay, right?  And athletes are big and strong.

 

Male.

 

Male athletes are meat.  That's the attitude.  They can endure anything. They can take being ripped off by universities that basically own their bodies for four years.  They can take this and that.  And nobody better ever complain because you're not supposed to think, you're supposed to be an animal -- on the field and off. 

"Our coaches knew," one survivor explains in the new documentary.   Another explains, "We had guys complaining about Dr. Strauss to Jim Jordan."

A female coach did take it seriously and did lodge complaints and concerns about what Strauss was doing with the young men.

 

What was he doing?

 

"One of the wrestlers said, 'Dude, why does this guy have to constantly check our nuts, check our dicks."

 Another explains how Jim Jordan at one point says, "If he ever did that to me, I'd snap his neck like a stick of dry balsa wood." 

  

At other times, the future member of Congress downplayed it.  He told one wrestler, "It's Strauss.  You know what he does."

And this came in reply to the wrestler complaining that the team doctor was now in the locker room with the team, taking showers with the team, masturbating in the showers.  

He was allowed a locker in every male team's locker room.  He took several showers a day.  When he would shower, he wouldn't turn to the wall where the nozzle was, he'd put his back to the wall so he could study the young males.  As one survivor explains, "He's showering three times a day.  He's sporting erections.  He's masturbating."

And Jim Jordan and Russ Hellickson looked the other way.  They were supposed to protect the students.  They were legally obligated to protect them -- in loco parentis.  They failed.  And, years later, they won't grow the hell up and admit that they failed these men.

 

They always knew and they looked the other way.

 

A survivor explains he goes to Strauss and tells the doctor, "'My foot is sore.  My foot is sore.'  And the first thing he says to me is 'Drop your trousers'."  Another explains, "I got in there and showed him my bleeding ear and the first thing Dr Strauss said was, 'Drop your shorts'."

 

Documentaries, when they're truthful, can make a difference.  The Ohio State athletes never really had their day in the court of public opinion because this was the first case that really addressed how colleges and universities prey on young men.  They make millions off them but will dump them in a minute due to a sports' injury.  The survivors of Strauss talk about being on scholarships and how Strauss and his 'physicals' decided whether or not they played.  We're not used to seeing the college 'beasts' as potential victims.  They had that wall to break through with this scandal.  

 

Their stories are consistent and address what they witnessed and what they experienced.  

 

That's the great thing about truth -- it usually comes out.  Sometimes it comes out too late.  Sometimes, it's dismissed initially.  But it does usually come out and it slowly leaks into our national consciousness and national conversation.   

 

And some day -- maybe this week, maybe months or even years from now, we firmly believe that Saturday's unprovoked assault will be seen as the crime it truly was.