Monday, October 31, 2016

Truest statement of the week

 I am seeing a disturbing trend in political art coming from purportedly progressive artists. There are beautiful visual hagiographies of Obama and Hillary being churned out by some of the best illustrators working today.

Some of these works are even more obsequious than the legendary "Hope" image. I know these artists mean well and see themselves as champions of just and righteous leaders. 


They are falling into propaganda. When we do so, we become complicit in the crimes of the establishment. 


-- Cindy Sheehan, "Truth Trumps Proganada by Cindy Sheehan" (CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX).









Truest statement of the week II

This product of the corrupt Chicago Democratic Party machine, whose first job was with Business International, a firm with CIA connections, was catapulted into the leadership of the Democratic Party and then into the White House to provide a “left” gloss to viciously anti-working class policies. On the basis of his anti-war posturing and his slogans of “hope” and “change,” and exploiting the belief among voters that he would be sympathetic to their needs because of his ethnicity, Obama came to power in 2009 and immediately set about implementing a right-wing program, both foreign and domestic, in continuity with that of his predecessor.
A major share of political responsibility for his ability to do so rests with the Democratic Party’s pseudo-left apologists such as the International Socialist Organization, which declared Obama a “progressive” and hailed his election as a “transformative event in US politics.”
Obama continued the war in Iraq, escalated the war in Afghanistan and extended it into Pakistan, launched new and devastating wars in Libya and Syria, backed a bloodbath led by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, and ordered the drone killings of thousands of people in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.


-- Andre Damon, "ObamaCare: The Reality Hits Home" (WSWS).






A note to our readers

Hey --



So it's actually early, early Monday morning.

For us, that's early.


Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:







The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.



And what did we come up with?




Cindy Sheehan gets another truest.
This is another truest for Andre Damon but it may be his first truest of 2016.
Hard to believe the death of a US service member means so little.

Ava and C.I. wrote this last Sunday.

Last Sunday?

There was no edition published last week.

The plan was to publish it.  What happened?
We did this roundtable late Sunday.  Monday, Tom Hayden had passed away.  Some fretted about what was said, would it be disrespectful?  I (Jim) could have cared less.  But some wanted to wait.  Typing this was a nightmare.  By Wednesday morning, we'd all agreed to publish it.  But Ty goes to publish and somehow we lose this and we lose Ava and C.I.'s piece.  With the roundtable, we had the tape and could queue it back up.

I called Ava and C.I. to tell them about losing their TV piece.  "Okay!"  "But . . ." I start.

Only to be greeted with a hang up.

They remembered six things.

They each wrote what they remembered on pieces of paper and tried to reconstruct the now lost piece.  The original piece was longer but what's published is better and sharper.
They wrote this for this edition.  It was actually supposed to be a Clinton edition last week but some of us -- including me -- didn't think that would work.

John Stauber gets it.
Those of us who didn't get it got it this week when Ava and C.I. wrote the piece on Hillary's mess and then dashed off two pig boy pieces.
Short feature.
Ava and C.I. In fact, I'll rework the headline so that's noted.
WikiLeak Tweets
Jill Stein Tweets.


Peace,






-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I




Editorial: Iraq

I went back in time to 2003 and told 20-year-old me that we're voting for someone who voted for the Iraq war and he said "But are we skinny"

Sadly, the film critic for VANITY FAIR appears to nail it.

In the United States today, we appear to care about everything but Iraq.



This month, the US Defense Dept. announced, "Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, California, died Oct. 20 in northern Iraq, of wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast."

His being from California, it made our state media.

We read about and watched a candle light vigil, for example.

But outside of California?

We're in the middle of a presidential election and the death of yet another US service member in the never ending Iraq War didn't even rate pressuring the presidential candidates or demanding that they offer something more than bromides about the Iraq War.

When this site started, if you'd have told us this day would ever come, we wouldn't have believed you.

Were we to go back in time, we hope to hell our 2003 selves would have greater concerns than "Are we skinny?"

We would hope.











TV: Real estate

FOR LEASE: Faltering property in need of major renovations adjacent to vast wilderness at the far end of the broadcast spectrum?

Is that what attracted Dan Rather to his current post on AXS TV?

 abtv


That's where the disgraced Dan has finally landed.

He does a faux newscast -- 10% Alaska Pollock, 90% b.s. -- for the channel and also does a weekly program entitled THE BIG INTERVIEW.

Is there anyone less qualified to conduct interviews than it's-all-about-me Dan Rather?

Watching him with Olivia Newton-John, this point was driven home.

The singer and actress has a well deserved reputation for being one of the kindest people around.

So it wasn't surprising that she repeatedly picked up the conversation line and also remembered the basic niceties such as telling Dan it was a pleasure to speak with him -- after Dan just sort of sat there unsure of how to end an interview.

Whether it's with the Wilson sisters of Heart, Sammy Hagar, Meat Loaf or assorted other guests, viewers are left to wonder not only what Dan's supposed to know about his subjects but also when Mark Cuban plans on hiring an interview coach to teach Dan Rather the basics.

We understand Barbara Walters has more time on her hands these days, perhaps she could help?

No one but Mark Cuban would hire Dan today.

If you're confused by that, you've clearly never seen Cuban's hair which is also an embarrassment.

Dan began his national career in embarrassment so it's no surprise that he'd end it that way as well.

When President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Dan rode the tragedy to national well-known-dom.  He did that by using a period of mourning to demonize other.


Dan, the alleged grown up, reported on national television that school children had cheered the news of JFK's assassination.

Reality, they didn't know anything about that, they had cheered the news that they were being sent home from school early.

But if Dan couldn't distort, what would he have left?

(Another day of tragedy and mourning, 9-11, found Dan again serving up tales that didn't actually happen -- not limited to but including a car bomb outside the State Department.)

He doesn't have much left today.

Which is no real surprise.

When he took part in a now infamous 60 MINUTES II segment on Bully Boy Bush's days not with the National Guard, the story got clobbered by some.

Dan could have spoken out but chose not to.

As a long time suck up, he knew he would be protected.

And let's be clear, Dan is a suck up.

He's not a liberal.

He's a suck up.

He may (or may not) vote Democratic.

But he's a suck up and that's what he spent the bulk of his time on air.

You could argue he was sucking up to John Kerry in 2004 when he narrated the 60 MINUTES II report.

When that became a controversy, he stayed silent.

In 2006, we noted:

Mary Mapes, a former producer who worked with Rather, is a name that's popped up as well this week. Some have taken to recommending her book. It's a really bad book. We feel for Mapes but her ignorance shines through in the book. Why did Mapes feel the need to write a personality book (as opposed to leaving out the bits on grandma and making a case as a reporter)? Because she's a product of broadcast journalism and has internalized all the principles at play.

She seems to think she's the first victim of a cowardly corporation. With no historical evidence at her finger tips, she writes a really bad book that tells you she's a nice person (we're told she is) and that she got screwed over (we'd agree with that). She offers nothing on what was done to April Oliver -- either because Oliver is "too hot" to mention or because she's unaware of what happened less than a decade before CBS fired Mapes. Too bad, because what was done to Oliver was done to Mapes and until Mapes can discuss the issues from that perspective, she's wasting everyone's time except for a few partisans.

We support Mapes reporting on the National Guard. The corporation stabbed her in the back. The "investigation" wasn't a journalistic inquiry. Take out "National Guard" and you've got the April Oliver story all over again. When Mapes is ready to connect the dots, she may have something to say. Until then, she's just twisting in the wind.



He knew Mary Mapes, the producer, might get suspended or even fired but with his big contract and being a news anchor, he just knew they wouldn't touch him.

They let Mapes go.

And, surprise, they let him go as well.

He was forever a distant third in a three way race on the evening news.

Yes, he sucked up, but he also couldn't find an audience.

That should have been the end of it for Rather.

But here he is, back on TV (a channel no one watches, but still . . .).

And we're left scratching our heads as to how this deeply unqualified, 84-year-old is still on TV?

During the fracas at the 1976 BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS, when CBS captain Telly Savalas savaged NBC's Ben Murphy for violating the rules of the relay race, did ABC's Farrah Fawcett and Gabe Kaplan broker a peace accord which stipulated that, in exchange for NBC team captain Robert Conrad not pulling the entire NBC team from the competition, Dan Rather would not only replace Walter Cronkite as CBS news anchor but, from that day and forever more, Rather would be guaranteed a spot on television?


At the other end of the broadcast spectrum is Steve Goldbloom.

Pretty to look at, solid structure, he's everything that Dan Rather isn't in terms of curb appeal.

But what they have in common is a lack of interest in actual news.

Steve can argue that he anchors spots entitled EVERYTHING BUT THE NEWS but we would argue that they shouldn't be broadcast on THE NEWSHOUR.

These segments reveal PBS' deep desire to be COMEDY CENTRAL as they send Steve to frou-frou places -- like an adult sleep away camp -- where he makes funny.


We're confused as to why PBS bills Steve Goldbloom as a "cub reporter" when he's so clearly a bear but we're sure that there are better uses for the news budget that these segments or Steve's equally asinine BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR.

If you disagree, ask yourself when was the last time PBS broke a news story?

As the entertainment sprawl continues, what's passed off as news has even less to do with the public good.  We'd argue it's time for the people to exercise their own version of eminent domain and reclaim these airwaves.






Roundtable

Note: This roundtable was done 10/24/16.  It was typed after and it's only going up now.


Jim: It's roundtable time. We'll talk about the election and other topics.  Our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.  Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;  Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.




Roundtable




Jim (Con't): The election is finally approaching.  Can we trust the polls? Are the polls for real?

Mike: That's a good question, especially when you're seeing reporting -- like at ZERO HEDGE -- about the oversampling.  I wish C.I. and Ava were involved with this because I have a law degree, but I'm not poli sci intelligent.  I haven't studied research methodology, for example.  But we were talking about ZERO HEDGE's work over the phone and it's not possible that those polling couldn't see what ZERO HEDGE is pointing out -- and couldn't see it prior to the polling taking place.  In other words, this isn't an accident in the polling, it's a design flaw, one created intentionally.

Jim: Kat and Wally, you're on the road speaking with Ava and C.I.  What are you two seeing?

Kat: I see support for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.

Wally: More for Jill.

Kat: Yeah.  Now whether that is because we're speaking right now to very political audiences and very young ones, I don't know.

Wally: Right.  What we're seeing wouldn't have to hold across all demographics but I'd say first time voters are very interested in Jill Stein.  I'd say they're also interested in Gary Johnson but more for Jill.


Trina: Jill's noted that first time voters aren't being included in polling.  INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY has a new poll out today:

With 16 days to go until November 8, Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points — 43% to 41% — in a four-way race, according to the latest IBD/TIPP presidential tracking poll.
Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson saw his support held steady at 7%, while the Green Party's Jill Stein dipped to 3%.
Unrounded, Trump leads 42.6% to 40.8% — a 1.8-point edge — with Johnson at 7.2% and Stein at 3.3%.

Trump also holds a nearly one-point lead in a two-way matchup — 43.2% to 42.3%.


Jim: That is so different from the poll by ABC.

Kat: But how can we trust a poll by an ABC or NBC when they've attempted to hijack the election from the very beginning.  They've refused to treat issues seriously, treated the e-mail scandal as an irritation when it's a serious issue.

Ann: They don't like Donald Trump.  I'm a Green voting for Jill Stein.  I've never seen the media behave like this.  They are threatened by Donald Trump.

Ty: I would agree with that.  He's not someone they can control the way they can Hillary.  With Hillary, it's like there's an agreement, 'Please the elites and will let you be as corrupt and crooked as you want.'  Donald Trump can't be controlled like that.  He brings an independence with him that scares elites.  He might burn their house down.  That's why they're lining up behind Hillary.


Ruth: That is a very astute call.  Donald Trump represent a populism they cannot control, that they do not like and that they do not respect. If they cannot control him with regards to war, what if, heaven forbid, he came into office and turned out to be a 'class traitor' and started working for class equality? Think of all the efforts the establishment made to tear down FDR's reforms -- just reforms, mind you -- and how it took decades for them to tear down so much.  Think of how the last president who appeared concerned about poverty was LBJ and how the establishment has worked so hard at undoing his Great Society.  In the sixties, those speaking of class inequality used to note the top 5% controlled the bulk of the money and now it is up to the top 1%.

Cedric: Those are some solid points.  Now with Hillary Clinton?  The ruling class knows she will be doing just what her husband did -- using racist dog whistles to scare up tensions and justify the continued disproportionate imprisonment rates.  She is not about changing anything.  A few crumbs will be tossed to some in the form of minor increases in disposable income.  But the bulk of Americans will suffer.

Ann: And blame themselves, wonder what it is about them that doesn't allow them to be included in the Clinton 'boom' -- never realizing that the system is rigged against them and their so-called public servant isn't serving the public at all.  Hillary is so hideous and I really have so little tolerance for the idiots backing her.


Isaiah: You mean White entitlement gurus like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda?  Yeah, they are a big fat joke.  The world will be a lot better when both of those geriatric fake asses either get put in assisted living or die off.  And am I the only one laughing at Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus and their dumb asses on campuses going "Vote for Hillary"?

Betty: I love the whole White power brigade for Hillary -- as a Black woman, I find it very telling how we keep seeing all these White power activists -- Tom Hayden, Katy Perry.  Hell, Jane Fonda.  She's so racist.  Look at the films she produced and find the Black people?  The biggest Black star she ever hired for a film?  Willie Tyler -- and Lester!  For a bit part in COMING HOME.  Does it get more racist than that?  COMING HOME, THE CHINA SYNDROME, ROLLOVER, 9 TO 5, ON GOLDEN POND -- this is a radical making films?  Hell, it's not even a liberal.

Rebecca: Don't forget she gave a bit part to an African-American actress in 9 TO 5 -- the cleaning lady who's only line is: "Vera, there's another stiff in the john."

Marcia: I saw White power Hillary on TV this afternoon, she was at a church -- an African-American church.  She sure likes to use us as props.


Kat: All I see on TV from her campaign is White people.  Does she have any people of color?

Elaine: No, but her cult sure rushed to refer to Jill Stein as too White, didn't they?

Marcia: Yeah, despite the fact that her running mate is Ajamu Baraka -- the only person of color on any presidential ticket.

Elaine: White 'leaders' have been especially disappointing in the last years as they've failed to stand up for any issues that matter but instead act as megaphones for the administration.  That's not challenging anything.  That's not demonstrating bravery.

Betty: For me, it starts in 2008 when Grace Lee Boggs bought into and spread Barack Obama's false hope and change.

Cedric: Amen.  On my old site on Blogdrive, every week I would highlight her or her writing and activist partner.  I would highlight one of their weekly columns and I had such admiration for Grace Lee Boggs.  But then she went on DEMOCRACY NOW and acted the fool.

Betty: And Lord knows that's the place to act it.  Talk about disappointing.

Ruth: When Amy Goodman supported the Libyan War and slanted her coverage to lie about it, that was your first clue that our so-called leaders had come unhinged.  Grace Lee Boggs was a disappointment but I cannot get over Ms. Goodman and how quickly she publicly sold out.

Rebecca: I thank God that Arhundati Roy basically washed her hands of the US and focused on something else.  I would hate to think she could have gotten taken in but when I look at the list of the fools and the sell outs -- it's like who knows, you know?  Seriously.  She's an outspoken defender of Ed Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower, so I would think even if she'd focused on the US in, say, 2010, she would have been her true self but, honestly, I just don't know.

Isaiah: They were always puppets.  Norman Solomon damn well knows better than to go on the radio praising Barack Obama, in 2008, without informing listeners that he's a delegate for Barack.  The whoring really starts there, if you think about it.

Ann: And don't forget CJR.  Martha had to shame them.  You find out that a Bully Boy Bush official, while he was in Iraq, was sleeping with a reporter?  Okay, maybe it's not big deal.  But then you find out that she was showing him her coverage before she submitted it to her editor.  It is a big deal.  And the so-called ethicists of FAIR and CJR didn't want to touch it.  It took Martha, community member Martha, pointing out the rank hypocrisy of CJR as they went overboard on some local story about some journalist sleeping with who she was covering, it took that to get CJR to cover the official sleeping with the reporter covering him.

Cedric: And just to add, the official was protected by the press not because he was Bully Boy Bush's boy in Iraq but because he was now Barack's.  We're talking about Gina Chon and Brett McGurk and, excuse the hell out of me, but I'm damn tired of POLITICO and others giving credit for 'breaking' the story to websites that published it a day or two days after C.I. had already written about it -- check the June 5, 2012 snapshot.  C.I. was the first to write about the e-mails.

Rebecca: Well they're threatened by C.I.  She won't play nice -- that's what the e-mails I get say -- from reporters.  Why won't she play nice?  Because she's opposed to the Iraq War and she's opposed to 'coverage' that lies.  You do your job and she'll be thrilled, she'll praise you if you warrant it.  But, no, she's not Bob Somerby, she's not going to lie for you because your her friend.  She's not going to look the other way because you made nice.

Jim: Well, I mean, here she and Ava cover TV and they don't mince words, they say what needs to be said and, yes, sometimes it hurts people's feelings.  And if they know the person, they call and they say, "Look, it's our opinion, it may be meaningless, don't lose sleep over it, but we can't lie when we're writing."

Dona: But don't insult Nick Lachey -- you could probably get away with it today.  Back when he had his moment and they wrote "Nick and Jessica Reporting For Two Hours of Self Love," for example, e-mails from Nick fans were filled with death threats.

Ty: And the sell out that we're talking about, it's all documented in real time in their reporting.  John Nichols wants Bully Boy Bush impeached!  He writes a book calling for the impeachment!  The book comes out and he's promoting it!  Two or so weeks later, Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is off the table and John's no longer promoting the book or pursuing impeachment.  I'm sorry, I thought John Nichols worked for THE NATION magazine -- didn't realize that meant being a toady to Nancy Pelosi.

Mike: The number of people who did not sell out in the last years is very limited.  You can put John Stauber on the list as a truth teller who kept his ethics.

Trina: Agreed with that call.

[We're inserting a Margaret Kimberley Tweet that went up after this roundtable because it came in second for Tweet of the Week.]



Dear everyone, There is a de facto no fly zone over Syria now. Russia declared it 2 weeks ago. Hillary is talking shit and will kill us all.



Trina (Con't): Glen Ford, Margaret Kimberley and Bruce Dixon have done a great job at BLACK AGENDA REPORT and telling the truth is not easy right now people have wanted their bedtime stories and not the truth.

Elaine: Jane Mayer -- press whore.  Instead of doing her GITMO reporting or reporting on torture, she goes to what she probably considers the backwoods to mock religious people.  She's just a whore. She dealt with serious issues when Bully Boy Bush was in office and she whores with crap when Barack's president.

Kat: Include the whole damn NEW YORKER in that.  They won't even publish Seymour Hersh.  That's how cowardly and craven they are.

Wally: Can you believe that s**t?  Seriously, can you believe it?  They won't publish Hersh's exposes.  That's how disgusting they are.  If it was about Bush, they would.  But since it's about Barack, he has to publish in THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS.


Marcia: They just don't have any ethics.  They just don't.  That's why they publish a Jane Mayer and refuse to publish Sy Hersh.  They're not reporting, they're not informing, they're just trying to protect their bubble.

Stan: It's really depressing and it kills any and all activism.  You have to spend all your time explaining to people why they should be outraged or why we need to change something and by the time you convince them, you're too exhausted to move to the step of action.  And we have to do that because these liars in the press will not do their job.  I bet you anything, for example, we will find out that the IRS scandal was far worse than we knew, e-mails will turn up that were Lois Lerner's private account and the whole thing was even worse than we thought and I think it was pretty bad.  Sorry, I'm an African-American, I'm not going to applaud the IRS targeting people for politics because, Lord knows, in the past, it would have been African-Americans being targeted.

Ruth: I agree with you on everything you just said and I cannot believe Ms. Lerner did not face consequences for her actions.

Rebecca: Who the hell did?  That was loud, sorry, Ruth.  But who the hell did?  He was going to have a transparent government, the most open in the world, and what happened to that?  He declared war on the press and war on whistle-blowers.  And none of his people had to apologize for anything.  He let that stupid [Eric] Shinseki stay on as Secretary of Veterans Affairs long after the man proved he was inept and not up to the job.  There has been no accountability in Barack's administration -- not in the first term, not in the second.

Jim: Ruth, will let you reply.

Ruth: I'm laughing.  I'm laughing because Rebecca really did get heated on that and it is something to be heated about.  She is right, there has been no accountability.  They have behaved in the worst possible ways.  That includes that awful budget man and his sleeping around repeatedly even after he gets one woman pregnant.  It was frat boy circus time.

Dona: And maybe that's why these sell outs think they can -- they think there will be no accountability.

Jess: But they're wrong.  There already is accountability.  Amy Goodman has lost so much prestige, for example.  And there are so many others.  People are sick of these sell outs.  So we do have accountability.

Jim: There's a positive note.  So we'll end on that.  This has been a rush transcript.





Hillary's mess of her own making (Ava and C.I.)

hillaryandthefbi


Hillary Clinton, friend to women and girls, breaking the glass ceiling and all that other b.s., right?

We were reminded of how fake and fraudulent Hillary has become Sunday morning.


And how a President Hillary Clinton wouldn't mean a lot for women.

Friday, Hillary's e-mail scandal was back in the news.

Sunday, she dispatched her henchmen to take on the press and the FBI -- emphasis on "men" or -- better yet -- pig boys.


CBS FACE THE NATION spoke with two Hillary surrogates -- Joel Benenson and
 Vice President Joe Biden, NBC's MEET THE PRESS spoke with two Hillary surrogates -- Robby Mook and her running mate Tim Kaine, ABC's THIS WEEK served up two Hillary surrogates -- US House Rep. Adam Schiff and Tim Kaine,  FOX NEWS SUNDAY WITH CHRIS WALLACE featured Robby Mook, and CNN's STATE OF THE UNION featured John Podesta.

Where are the women?

Where are the women?

Hillary didn't want another woman on the ticket, which is how (overpraised) Elizabeth Warren got rejected.

But why does she turn her campaigns over to men.

Remember Mark Penn last go round in 2008?

Why is it that this supposed feminist running feminist campaigns is always using male surrogates?

It does not bode well for what a Hillary Clinton administration would offer.

But it has helped us all reevaluate Hillary (and Bill).

"What difference, at this point, does it make!"

Remember that outburst.

It was a game changer for many.

From the January 24, 2013 snapshot:


Hillary's performance in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday should have resulted in her being condemned -- both for how she presented herself and for what she said.  We called her out in yesterday's snapshot.   In addition,  Wally covered it in "Facts matter, Hillary (Wally),"   Ava covered it in "20 are still at risk says Hillary in an aside (Ava)," Ruth covered it in "Like watching Richard Nixon come back to life" and Kat covered it in "Can she not answer even one damn question?"  Kat admits that she was so surprised and disgusted by Hillary's performance that she didn't attend the afternoon hearing with us because she couldn't take seeing Hillary like that again.  Ava points out that Hillary acted out in every negative stereotypical was possible.  Ruth compares her to Nixon when it comes to answering questions.  They went into the hearing expecting Hillary to sail through it in a professional and adult manner.  I did have doubts and by the time Hillary was screaming and waving her hands -- above the shoulders -- like a lunatic, I'm sorry.  I supported her in 2008.  I don't see supporting a presidential run again.  
I have never seen lunatic behavior like that in a hearing and I was present a few years back when a Ranking Member stormed out in the middle of a witness' remarks, loudly and intentionally slamming a door behind him.  Everyone stopped -- the witness stopped testifying -- and we all appeared to wonder, "What the hell is wrong with Steve Buyer?"  I disagreed with Buyer on many things (he was very right, however, on the burial grounds for military members who were buried in this country and overseas -- he was a champion on that issue and deserves praise for it) but I had never seen anything so rude.


It was the end of the road for a number of us.

We'd given her the benefit of the doubt in 2008 -- that her vote for the Iraq War was a mistake.  After all, in that year's Democratic primary, she was running against the man who dropped his objection to the Iraq War once it started.

And there he was, actively lying about that and so much more.

But this "mistake"?

We waited and waited for Hillary to make amends for it.

Her voting for -- and support of -- the illegal war resulted in the deaths of millions.

It resulted in the destruction of women's rights in Iraq.

2009 found her serving as Secretary of State.

Many rightly focused on how she was even more of a crazed War Hawk after 2008.

She had a blood lust for Libya -- which resulted in destruction and death -- and a blood lust for Syria -- where Barack rejected her itchy trigger fingers.

But there's more to her disaster as Secretary of State.

As noted in the July 9, 2016  "Iraq snapshot," WikiLeaks e-mail releases included one where Hillary's longtime friend Melanne Verveer e-mailed Hillary on December 11, 2011:

We attempted to raise the issue of women's participation in the Iraq government, in their economy and more broadly when Biden was just in Baghdad.  Jeff Feltman was trying to get it into the conversations there.
You will recall the comments of the Iraqi who participated in the NGO meeting with you in Doha about how the door has been closed to women in the government.  We have had many discussions with impressive Iraqi women over the last couple years, and to a person they describe their fate as worse now than years ago.  Yet without them it will be even harder for Iraq to move forward.  To that end, we have been working with post on a action plan along the lines of the National Action Plan on women, peace and security, you will launch next week.
I hope you will find a way to raise the "women's issue" in your discussion tom'w.


So-called feminist Hillary responded, "I raised women's issue w Maliki and Zebari.  Can't say either of them seemed interested.  But, we'll keep trying -- as always!"

Keep trying?

When?

Not in the National Action Plan on women that Hillary would "launch next week."


That was Hillary's December 19, 2011 speech entitled "Remarks on Women, Peace, and Security."


Check for Iraq in that speech.

You won't find it.

That approximately 4,500 word speech never notes the women of Iraq.


She can, and does, name check Ireland, Liberia, Egypt, Senegal, Darfur, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Chile, Kosovo, Yemen and Nepal.

But she never mentions Iraq.


Her "mistake" destroyed the lives of Iraqi women.

But it wasn't enough of a "mistake" for her to feel the need, years later as Secretary of State, to do anything to improve the lives of Iraqi women.


As we've long noted, it's a funny kind of feminism Hillary and her supporters express -- where voting for a woman equals feminism.

That's not feminism.

It's not even activism.

Friday, Hillary Clinton yet again demonstrated that she wasn't up for the job.

That's when the FBI reopened the criminal investigation into her e-mails and private server.

Her surrogates like Podesta rushed to insist that the investigation wasn't reopened.

Remember earlier this year, when her surrogates (and she) continued to insist that it was "a review" and not "a criminal investigation"?

It was a criminal investigation.

But her whores love to lie and the press loves to help them -- that would be the press that has been in the tank for her from day one.


We were reminded of that Saturday when we caught ALJAZEERA's INSIDE STORY which devoted the show to  the reopening of the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton.

They had three guests.

Lucky for Hillary, all three supported her.

Scott Lucas was positively giddy -- clearly as surprised as we were that someone as visually unappealing as he was had made it onto television.

Worse was Lincoln Mitchell who bragged -- on this show devoted to the latest scandal -- that he'd ignored it to watch the World Series and all he really knew was what other Hillary voters told him about the scandal as they watched the baseball games.

No wonder the idiot Mitchell presented as fact that Hillary did a great job as Secretary of State.

He offered no proof of this claim but hacks rarely do.

State Department employee and professor Clyde Wilcox rounded out the unholy trinity of Clintonistas.

And we wondered how does a program ended up with three guests discussing a breaking story -- and all three were Hillary supporters?

We wondered that for about five seconds.


Then we remembered that Dana Goldstein (AMERICAN PROSPECT) noted in 2009:

An email just went out to the press corps announcing that, as promised, Bill Clinton has released his foundation's donor list ahead of his wife's confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of state. But no sooner had I clicked over to the foundation's website and read that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar had donated multiple millions of dollars each to Clinton's charitable works, than the site crashed.



And we remembered how, this month, POLITIFACT had noted:

The New York Times article, published Oct. 15, details an email to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, obtained by Wikileaks. (The Clinton camp has yet to confirm or deny the leak’s authenticity.)
Amitabh Desai, the Clinton Foundation’s foreign policy director, emailed three Clinton Foundation employees and Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s personal aide on April 16, 2012, about his meetings with ambassadors from Qatar and a few other foreign countries. Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
"Qatar — Would like to see WJC (William Jefferson Clinton) for ‘five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promises from WJC’s birthday in 2011," Desai wrote. "Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti — particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are happy to consider projects we suggest. I'm collecting input from CF Haiti team."
[. . .]
The Qatari government has given cumulatively between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation from 2002 to 2016. The country is controversial for its treatment of women and the LGBT community, and has been accused of being a sponsor of terrorism.


And, most importantly, ALJAZEERA is owned by the House of Thani (ruling family of Qatar).

cashclinton

Hillary Clinton -- supported by so many.

Not the voters, you understand.


If the voters supported her, then she'd have put Donald Trump away months ago.

Bernie Sanders could have -- poll after poll made that point earlier this year.

The same polls noted how it would be more of a struggle for Hillary to do the same.

And today?

The latest WASHINGTON POST - ABC NEWS poll finds that a third of likely voters say that the FBI reopening makes them less likely to vote for Hillary (margin of error +/- 3).

The spin from camp Hillary includes that this is interference in an election and completely unprecedented.

Really?

Because when we pull up "Lawrence Welsh" on WIKIPEDIA, we find:


On the eve of the 1992 presidential election, on October 30, Mr. Walsh obtained a grand jury re-indictment of Weinberger on one count of false statements. One phrase in that superseding indictment referred to President George H.W. Bush. Some believe that Bush had been closing the gap with Bill Clinton, and that this event stopped his momentum.[3][4][5] Clinton administration attorney Lanny Davis called the decision to indict a week before the election rather than after the election "bizarre."[3] Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed the October indictment two months later for being outside the statute of limitations.[5] Weinberger's subsequent pardon by President George Bush in December 1992 preempted any trial. Walsh steadfastly denied that the investigation was politically motivated, while Bush and others criticized it as "the criminalization of policy differences."[1]


And, let's be clear.

Hillary didn't object to Walsh.

Even the laughable Lanny Davis didn't object in real time.

He'd only object in a 2007 book.

Hillary completely created her own problems.

She refused to be above board with the voters.

She retained Cheryl Mills as her attorney during FBI questioning -- even though Mills signed an agreement giving herself immunity and was herself questioned by the FBI.

She allowed e-mails to be deleted after they were subpoenaed.

This is on her.

As her groupie and advisor Neera Tanden asked in an e-mail to Podesta, "Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and quartered?"



Or what about the DNC e-mails?  Remember what Tanden e-mailed Podesta after that:


> > I know this email thing isn't on the level. I'm fully aware of that. But 
> her inability to just do a national interview and communicate genuine 
> feelings of remorse and regret is now, I fear, becoming a character problem 
> (more so than honesty). 
> think it's the truth. I see no downside in her actually just saying, look, 
> I'm sorry. I think it will take so much air out of this. 
> > She always sees herself bending to "their" will when she hands over 
> information, etc. But the way she has to bend here is in the remorse. Not
> the "if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do it." A real feeling 
> of - this decision I made created a mess and I'm sorry I did that. 
> > No one thinks she doesn't have the judgment to be president - she's not 
> reaffirming a negative characteristic in saying sorry. She needs to do 
> that - I see no way of moving on until October otherwise. 
> > Anyway, that's my advice. 
> > > > >




Let's emphasize "her inability to just do a national interview and communicate genuine  feelings of remorse and regret is now, I fear, becoming a character problem (more so than honesty)."



In 2008, Hillary ran a strong campaign.

In 2016, she has come off as entitled.

As if America owes her something.

She's run a lousy campaign and her problems are of her own making.



----------

Illustrations: cartoon is Isaiah's "Hillary and the FBI" while screen snap is from Hillary's campaign website.





Tweet of the Week




How & family got filthy rich whoring, pimping & via .










Pig Boy Bob Somerby (Ava and C.I.)

Bob Somerby,  the internet's Queen Mother, likes to tell the world that Kathleen Willey is a liar.

willey

Bob's a sexist -- on Saturday, he decided the best way to trash cable TV chatter was by referring to "Cable Barbie" -- and he always has been one.

Kathleen Willey accused then-President Bill Clinton of groping her in the Oval Office.

Bob Somerby's made it his mission to attack women.

Here he is in 2003:


Indeed, Independent Counsel Robert Ray would eventually give up on Willey. In his formal report on the Clinton investigations, Ray said that Willey had lied to the FBI; he even suggested that he had considered prosecuting her for her conduct. But when these embarrassing facts became known, your “press corps” did the thing it does best. It kept the evidence from public view, conducting its latest scam on the public. Few recent events do a better job of showing the depth of this press corps’ dysfunction. The Willey affair shows how reflexively dishonest your contemporary “press” really is.


Robert Ray didn't give up on Willey's claims regarding Bill Clinton.

Robert Ray found that Willey had lied in statements about a boyfriend.

That has nothing to do with her claim about Bill Clinton harassing her.

So she lied.

So did Bill Clinton.

He lied to the American people and he lied in a deposition.

But Bill's never held accountable for those lies, is he?

Not by the pig boys like Bob Somerby whose made it a cottage industry to trash women.

It's funny though, he has gone after Keith Olbermann for trashing women -- but never Bill Maher.  What's the difference?

Oh, that's right, Bob used to go cock-knocking with pig boy Bill.


We're not saying Kathleen Willey told the truth, we're not saying she didn't.

We're saying it's her word against Bill Clinton's word.

It's cute the way the pig boys have attacked women and gotten away with it.





Reality behind the photo


baracklincoln


Only after forty minutes of conversing with Richard Klein, and only after Valerie Jarrett entered the Oval Office and whispered in Barack Obama's ear, "Sir, he's an actor," did the president realize he wasn't actually speaking to Abe Lincoln.
















Pig Boy Joe Conason (Ava and C.I.)

If, during the last hour she spent with Clinton, Lewinsky had alerted him to the obvious danger posed by Tripp, everything might have turned out differently.  But she couldn't bring herself to do that.  It would have meant admitting that she had betrayed their secret and thereby jeopardized him. -- Joe Conason



Joe Conason's a Pig Boy.

  1. with @mrsmoneypennyft on the way rosebay! 🇦🇺🐨❤️


That's Monica Lewinsky today.

When she was 22 years old, she began a sexual affair with then-President Bill Clinton that lasted from 1995 to 1997.


It was the affair Bill Clinton denied.

It was the affair Hillary Clinton infamously denied in her TODAY interview with Matt Lauer.  It was a lie, Hillary insisted, all part of a vast right wing conspiracy.

Only it wasn't.

Monica told the truth.

Joe Conason is not an author, he's a fluffer on the porn set that is Bill and Hillary's life -- like a good fluffer, he takes the penis in his mouth to keep it hard.

And that's why he writes 'objective' tomes like THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT.

Bill is always the victim, no one else.

Notice that in the quote that kicked off the article?

Monica could have saved Clinton if she "had alerted him" so he could have NOT lied.

Monica was the one who "betrayed their secret" -- she betrayed.

Strange, we never heard of Monica standing before God and a congregation, vowing to forever keep silent about the affair she and Bill Clinton had.

We have, however, heard of Bill Clinton taking a vow to Hillary Clinton.

But Monica "betrayed"?

Monica told a woman she thought was her friend that she was having an affair with the sitting president.

That's not shocking.

Nor is it a betrayal.


Unless you're a pig boy who feels that Bill Clinton's allowed to do whatever he wants and that women who won't be silent are witches who need to be burned at the stake.


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