Monday, August 28, 2017

Truest statement of the week

 Granted, mainstream media propaganda still makes the Democrats and Republicans seem to include all voters. In reality, Democrats and Republicans are down to less than a fourth of the U.S. voters each. They are already minority parties. By 2020, according to Gallup polls, over half the voters in the United States will be registered Independent, not a party but a nonpartisan stance. The corporate media scramble to explain this, telling us that it “means nothing” because given only two choices in elections Independents lean more toward whichever party they left than the other one. However, 58% of US voters say that they want a new party, a third alternative. Among Independents, half the nation, that desire for a new party jumps to 71%.

-- Gail McGowan Mellor, "Myth of the Duopoly. The “Impenetrable” Barrier of the Democrats and Republicans Can Be Broken. Billionaires rising. New Third Party on the Left." (HUFFINGTON POST).








Truest statement of the week II

The very discussion about "hate groups" is perverse. The entire political culture in the U.S. lives off of hate. The pro Hillary Clinton rhetoric is "Love Trumps Hate," but Clinton, like Trump, feeds off hate. There certainly are explicitly white supremacist groups. And there can be some distinction made between them and the merely implicitly structurally racist establishment. But the Democratic and Republican Parties would implode in a minute if it were not for the hatred of the other. 


-- Sam Husseini, "How 'Both Sides' Forge U.S. Supremacy: The Nationalistic Hypocrisies of 'Violence' and 'Free Speech'" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
















A note to our readers

Hey --

A Sunday.

Somehow we did it five weeks in a row.



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?

Gail McGowan Mellor gets a truest.
As does Sam Husseini.

Believe it or not, it's foundation whore Amy Goodman.  One of the worst hypocrites in the world.  
Ava and C.I. cover last week on TV and tip you off to an error coming this week.
Films TURNER CLASSIC MOVIE should be playing.
To answer the question.
A lot of nominees but this was the clear winner hands down.
What we listened to while writing.
A press release from Michigan Greens.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.



Peace,






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







Editorial: Who's hiding the deaths these days?

Sgt. Roshain E. Brooks, 30, and Sgt. Allen L. Stigler Jr., 22, were identified as soldiers killed in Iraq on Sunday







Brooklyn's NEWS 12 noted that last Friday saw hundreds turn out for the funeral of Sgt. Roshain Brooks "who migrated to the United States from Jamaica.  Family members say he was motivated to join the armed forces after the terrorist attacks on 9/11."

Matt Peterson (DALLAS MORNING NEWS) reports that the following day saw the funeral of Sgt. Allen Levi Stigler Jr.

This was Stigler's first combat deployment, and he was expected home in a month. He joined the Army in November 2013, soon after graduating from Timberview High School.
Minister R.L. Taylor, Stigler's uncle, released a statement thanking the community for its support in the family's time of need.
"He was one of the greatest nephews anyone could have had," Taylor said. "Caring, respectable and very responsible ... that was our A.J."



Two American service members killed this month in Iraq.

And know what?

Amy Goodman ignored the deaths.

Is it her racism?  Two Black service members die and she doesn't have time for it.

Is it her move to whoring for the establishment?  The same effort that saw her cheerlead for war on Libya?

Or is it just the fact that she's full of s**t?

Earlier this month, two Americans died serving in the ongoing Iraq War and yet the host of "the war and peace report" never found time to do a segment on them or even note them in a single headline.


Despite this, Goodman still travels the country pimping her clip jobs passed off as books while making statements like this, "I really do think that those who are deeply concerned about war and peace, those who are concerned about the growing inequality in this country, those who are concerned about climate change, the fate of the planet, those who are concerned about social, economic, racial injustice are not a fringe minority.  Not even a silent majority.  But a silenced majority silenced by the corporate media."

Goody's the one doing the silencing these days.

If you're not getting how bad it's gotten on Goodman's crap-ass show, let's note this from Sam Husseini (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):


Contrast Trump's realistic statement with what passes for dissent on "Democracy Now", which recently reverentially interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates of the once somewhat dignified journal The Atlantic. Coates stated: "The Civil War was the most lethal war in American history. The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars—all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc."  "People." 


Did you catch the problem with Ta-Ta's nonsense?

More people did not die in The Civil War than in WWII.

More Americans died.

620,000 Americans died -- approximately -- in The Civil War.

How many Americans are estimated to have died in WWII?

405,399.

But how many people?


Between fifty-to-eighty-million.

Only the disgraceful Amy Goodman could let Ta-Ta get away with defining only Americans as "people."








TV: Lies and more lies from The Water Cooler Set

Last week, The Water Cooler Set piled the scorn on but not where it was needed.

a new illst

Friday, NETFLIX debuted DISJOINTED -- it's latest sitcom.

The first episode was disappointing, we don't dispute that.

But that's why you film before a studio audience.

By episode two, the sitcom was on solid ground, timing was stronger, characterization was stronger and episodes two through ten were the stuff on classic sitcom.

Kathy Bates stars as Ruth who partners with her son Travis (Aaron Moten) to operate a pot dispensary.  In the first episode, you can see Kathy feeling around in the role of Ruth, she's discovering and there's a joy in her acting.  When an actress is really enjoying her craft, it doesn't just show, it lifts the project.  Meanwhile Moten's been knocking around for awhile but hopefully will receive the acclaim he deserves.

Ruth and Travis have a complex relationship, there's a lot of bitter poured on the sweet.  It also provided Olivia (Elizabeth Alderfer) with a reason to be on the show.  Again, when you're in front of a live audience, you can adapt.  At the start, there was little reason for her to be on.  Having her move over to a character who admires and likes Ruth gave the actress stronger footing and recognizing the chemistry between Olivia and Travis really put the story across.

Elizabeth Ho's Jenny an Chris Redd and Betsy Sodaro's Dank and Dabby have also progressed nicely. Dank and Dabby might even become NETFLIX's first sitcom spin-off.  We're not saying it should happen -- for every successful sitcom spin-off (LAVERNE & SHIRLEY) there are hundreds of flops (BLANKSY'S BEAUTIES).  Possibly, like Larry, Darryl and Darryl on NEWHART, it would be smarted to keep them on DISJOINTED.

It was especially smart to cast Tone Bell as security guard Carter.  He was good in the second season of WHITNEY bu he was amazing in TRUTH BE TOLD.  Here he has even more to do.  Carter's an Iraq War vet with post-traumatic stress.  DISJOINTED has managed to cover this without ever being preachy or 'very special episode.'  That's a credit to the writing of course, but it's also a credit to Tone who is a natural sitcom star.

In smaller roles, praise also goes to MAD TV alumni Nicole Sullivan (also Holly on THE KING OF QUEENS) and Michael Trucco who's playing Tae Kwon Doug.

And on Tae Kwon Doug, special praise to directors James Burrows and Jon Cryer and writers David Javerbaum, Will Hayes, Brenda Hsueh, Matt Kirsch, Bill Daly, Mike Dieffenback and Angeli Millan for their work on episodes six and seven that really allowed Dougie Baldwin to shine as Pete while deepening the characters of both Pete and Tae Kwon Doug as well as giving Kathy Bates even more to play off of.

Again, we're not claiming the first episode deserved an Emmy nomination.  We agree, the first episode was less than sure footed.

But did the lazy ass and overly paid 'critics' of The Water Cooler Set not catch the next nine episodes?

Because they were pretty amazing and Kathy Bates and the rest of the cast were incredible.  They deserve Emmy nominations as do the writers and the directors.

It's a very funny show.

But just as The Water Cooler Set missed that, they also missed the real lunacy on TV last week.

That took place on CNN.

Specifically, on Don Lemon's show where the guest was James Clapper.

The guest shouldn't have been Clapper.

Clapper should never have been put on the payroll by CNN.

It's a testament to the lack of journalistic (and ethical) standards that CNN hired a man known for lying to Congress.  He knowingly lied to Congress.

As Steve Nelson (US NEWS & WORLD REPORTS) noted last November:


Some lawmakers reacted to the long-expected resignation announcement from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Thursday by wishing him an eventful retirement, featuring prosecution and possible prison time.
The passage of more than three years hasn’t cooled the insistence in certain quarters that Clapper face charges for an admittedly false statement to Congress in March 2013, when he responded, “No, sir" and "not wittingly” to a question about whether the National Security Agency was collecting “any type of data at all” on millions of Americans.
About three months after making that claim, documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the answer was untruthful and that the NSA was in fact collecting in bulk domestic call records, along with various internet communications.
[. . .]
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who asked the question, rehashed the controversy in a statement Thursday, saying Clapper had presided over a “deception spree regarding mass surveillance” and that Clapper's office had been given the question in advance and then was asked, without success, to correct the record after the hearing.
“Regardless of what was going through the director’s head when he testified, failing to correct the record was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing,” Wyden said.




Yet CNN elected to hire him as an 'analyst.'

Why?

Because the national security state apparatus controls CNN?

Possibly.

What we do know is that you don't earn trust by putting a known liar on the payroll.

cnn



Maybe CNN was the most trusted in 2002.

By 2014, it had fallen to number nine -- one slot ahead of the Ronald McDonald of news: USA TODAY.

Hiring known liars will only allow it to fall further.

So there was Congressional liar James Clapper speaking to Don Lemon, offering his 'expertise.'

On?

Donald Trump's mental fitness.

Wait, we're sorry, is it Dr. James Clapper and has he treated Donald Trump?

No and no.

But there he was doing what he does best: Lying.

It was a huge lapse for CNN.

Yes, tired and mangy Jane Mayer's been pimping the story in THE NEW YORKER.

The old dog can barely manage to walk down the street these days.

She hasn't done a report of any importance since Bully Boy Bush was in the White House.

She's just a tired old hag labeling her political enemies "the other" and ridiculing Christians.

It's annoying when believers of whatever higher power ridicule non-believers.  It's also disgusting when it goes the other way.

But she found a way to be useless and that's why THE NEW YORKER publishes her nonsense.

They won't publish Seymour Hersh.

He wouldn't toe David Remnick's company line that Barack Obama walked on water.

Jane Mayer's published for now.  But David Reminck has a job for now.  With that prissy, ugly face, he's managed to carve out a spot on radio but he can't dominate visual media -- not with that Toni home perm hair.

The uglies like Jane and David will fade away.

Probably CNN as well.  It's not doing well at all.  And the potential new buyer AT&T want to sell it off -- maybe CBS will buy it?  Or maybe like the CIA friend-NEWSWEEK, it will sell for a dollar?  (Somewhere, Jean Seberg is rightly laughing.)


This is the TV moment The Water Cooler Set should have obsessed over but ignored.

So much gets ignored.  So much gets passed off as fact when it's not.

Next weekend, for example, Alec Baldwin sits down with director William Friedkin on TCM's THE ESSENTIALS.

Will we be left alone (again) to note the truth (again)?

Friedkin cites CITIZEN KANE as the film that changed his life.

Fair enough.

But makes the ridiculous claim to Alec that he saw the film eight times in one day.

CITIZEN KANE was released in 1941 (when Friedkin was five-years-old, he'd turn six in August of that year).  The film is 119 minutes.  Basically two hours.

In those days, they didn't just show a film.  They showed coming attractions.  They showed a newsreel, etc.  So at a minimum, each airing of CITIZEN KANE took two and a half hours.  Minimum.

That would be 20 hours.

Do you really think the five-year-old spent 20 hours at a movie house?

Why is TMC doing segments that viewers will realize present 'facts' that are not true?


Let's assume Friedkin did see the film as a five-year-old when the film opened in May?

He didn't see it eight times in a row.

As a child in Chicago, in May he could have seen it at the Palace or the Woods.  But, without getting lost in the weeds, he couldn't have seen it eight times at either theater.  Not even in November when it went to Chicago's less prestigious theaters.


Why do people lie like that?

And why do people let them get away with it?

If an 'expert' tells a lie and a host doesn't challenge the 'expert,' we all suffer.

CNN's 'expert' Clapper is a liar.  Instead of objecting to that, The Water Cooler Set spent last week attacking DISJOINTED which is actually a hilarious new sitcom worthy of tremendous praise.





TCM Film playlist

In "Again on TCM" and "TCM," Stan noted that TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES seemed to be showing a lot of the same films over and over.  Here are three films he and his readers came up with that TCM should be showing as well as seven more that we've thought of.



1) SWEET CHARITY.

2) PARTY GIRL.

3) CELEBRITY.

4) WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE?

5) THE BLACK BIRD.

6) SUNBURN.

7) WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD?

8) THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE

9) MODESTY BLAISE (1966).

10) THE WICKED LADY.














We know where we were







  • A vital question: Why weren't liberals and leftists clamoring to tear down statues when Obama was in the White House? 🤔



    We can't answer for everyone about their pasts.

    We can answer for this site.

    We were calling out racists monuments even before Barack Obama became president.

    For example, from Ava and C.I.'s "TV: The Surreal Life stages comeback!," published January 13, 2008:


    Obama denies a lot. For instance, that debate, YouTube/CNN, took place at South Carolina's Citadel and we wonder how many are aware that the institution's history, it's very creation, resulted from the desire to enforce slavery? In a society really concerned with racism, Democrats holding a 'debate' there would have been called out in real time (and we did call it out in real time). But the media creation of Bambi doesn't exist to explore race let alone the racial tensions in so much of today's United States.


    Did anyone else object?

    No, they didn't say a word.

    Certainly Chelsea, Hillary and Bill Clinton were all silent.

    Equally true, so were a ton of news outlets who are supposed to report basic facts.















    Tweet of the week




    The USA's most extreme assertion of white supremacy is perpetual war in the Global South.












    This edition's playlist


    janet



    1) Janet Jackson's UNBREAKABLE.

    2) Carly Simon's SPY.


    3)  Ben and Ellen Harper's CHILDHOOD HOME.


    4) Aretha Franklin's ARETHA SINGS THE GREAT DIVA CLASSICS.



    5) Steve Grand's ALL AMERICAN BOY.


    6) Sade's LOVERS ROCK.


    7) Sam Smith's IN THE LONELY HOUR DROWNING SHADOW EDITION.




    8)    Tori AmosUNREPENTANT GERALDINES.


    9) Tori Amos' SCARLET'S WALK.


    10) Tori Amos' STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS.




    Michigan Greens Start Campaign to Oppose Unconstitutional Bills

    This is from the Green Party of Michigan:





    =======================
    grassroots democracy  •  social justice
    ecological wisdom  •  non-violence
    For Immediate Release:  August 25, 2017
    Contact:  John Anthony La Pietra, Media Committee/GPMI
                jalp5dai@att.net
            (269) 781-9478
    Michigan Greens Start Campaign to Oppose Unconstitutional Bills
    ===============================================================
    S.720, H.R.1697 Would Criminalize Support for Boycott of Israel
        The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) has started a campaign to convince 
    the state's US Senators to oppose a bill that would unconstitutionally 
    impose civil and potentially criminal penalties for supporting a boycott 
    of Israel.
        S.720, the "Israel Anti-Boycott Act", would punish supporters of the 
    Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for acting on their 
    political views the way opponents of apartheid boycotted South Africa.
        
        Gary Peters has signed on to co-sponsor S.720, though he reportedly 
    seemed bewildered when told that the ACLU had sent him and his 
    colleagues a letter explaining how the bill would criminalize free speech.
        Debbie Stabenow has not yet taken a public position on the bill. 
    Michigan Greens are urging their fellow citizens to tell the offices of 
    both Senators about opposing S.720 -- and to contact their US House 
    members about opposing the House version, H.R.1697.
        Sander Levin is the only Michigan Democratic co-sponsor of H.R.1697, 
    joining all of the Michigan Republicans except Justin Amash.
        GPMI was a co-sponsor of last weekend's 50/50 Rally to commemorate the 
    50th anniversary of both the Detroit Rebellion and the occupation of 
    Palestine.  But as GPMI Platform Committee member John Anthony La Pietra 
    points out, "Whether you support a boycott of Israel or not, if you 
    support free speech you should oppose S.720 -- and its House twin, 
    H.R.1697."
        The Oppose S.720 campaign's Facebook page is:
        The ACLU letter -- which identifies the minimum civil penalty of 
    $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in 
    prison -- can be seen at:
        The article that mentions Peters's reaction to the ACLU letter is here:
        For more information on the Green Party of Michigan, its values, and 
    its platform -- and how you can get involved -- please visit the party's 
    Website at www.MIGreenParty.org, or the migreens Facebook page.
    #  #  #
    Official Press Release of the Green Party of Michigan
        www.MIGreenParty.org
        www.facebook.com/migreens
        PO Box 504; Warren, MI  48090-0504








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