On the campaign trail in January of 2016, Hillary Clinton told Iowa
voters that Bernie Sanders’ single payer health care proposal was an
idea whose time would never come. "People who have health emergencies
can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea
that will never, ever come to pass ," said the presumed shoo-in for president. Two years later, one-third of Democrats in the Senate have endorsed Sanders’ Medicare for All Act and half the Democrats in the U.S. House have signed on to Rep. John Conyers’ Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, HR 676 . Polls show 75 percent of Democrats
favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every
American,” and 31 percent of the public at-large wants health care to be
the first problem the Democrats tackled if they win the White House in 2020.
Predictably, however, Hillary Clinton’s favorite think tank is still
trying to make sure single payer health care never happens. The lavishly
funded Center for American Progress (CAP) last week unveiled their
counterfeit, sound-alike health care plan, dubbed Medicare Extra
for All, whose sole purpose is to distract and confuse a public that is
demonstrably “ready” for single payer. The CAP scheme, like Obamacare,
keeps the private insurance corporations at the center of the
money-stream, doesn’t cover everyone, charges fees, co-pays and
premiums, doesn’t save much money, and would fail to provide millions
with adequate coverage.
-- Glen Ford, "The Healthcare Bait-and-Switch: From the Clintons to Obama and Back Again" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
Monday, March 12, 2018
Truest statement of the week II
It is critical for workers to understand and consciously assimilate
the lessons of the strike, including the role of the trade unions and
the Democratic Party in containing opposition and preventing it from
developing into a broader political mobilization of the entire working
class.
A key auxiliary role was played by a raft of organizations that function as factions of the Democratic Party. Groups such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Alternative and others present themselves as socialists, but in fact represent privileged upper-middle-class layers in and around the Democratic Party and the union apparatus.
Both the ISO and Jacobin (edited by DSA national committee member Bhaskar Sunkara) joined the political establishment in praising the deal announced this week as a victory. On its Facebook page, Jacobin posted a cover of the chief publication of the West Virginia bourgeoisie, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, which announced, “Teachers win.” Jacobin ran an article praising the deal titled “What the teachers won.”
The International Socialist Organization posted on Facebook that “the West Virginia teachers won their strike.” On Wednesday, they published an article titled “The teachers united couldn’t be defeated.” Their efforts to present the unions’ sellout as a victory are aimed at quelling discontent and saving face for the unions and the Democrats who, working with Republicans, orchestrated the deal. This is consistent with their role from the beginning of the strike.
-- Eric London, "Jacobin, International Socialist Organization claim “victory” in West Virginia teachers sellout" (WSWS).
A key auxiliary role was played by a raft of organizations that function as factions of the Democratic Party. Groups such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Alternative and others present themselves as socialists, but in fact represent privileged upper-middle-class layers in and around the Democratic Party and the union apparatus.
Both the ISO and Jacobin (edited by DSA national committee member Bhaskar Sunkara) joined the political establishment in praising the deal announced this week as a victory. On its Facebook page, Jacobin posted a cover of the chief publication of the West Virginia bourgeoisie, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, which announced, “Teachers win.” Jacobin ran an article praising the deal titled “What the teachers won.”
The International Socialist Organization posted on Facebook that “the West Virginia teachers won their strike.” On Wednesday, they published an article titled “The teachers united couldn’t be defeated.” Their efforts to present the unions’ sellout as a victory are aimed at quelling discontent and saving face for the unions and the Democrats who, working with Republicans, orchestrated the deal. This is consistent with their role from the beginning of the strike.
-- Eric London, "Jacobin, International Socialist Organization claim “victory” in West Virginia teachers sellout" (WSWS).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Monday night. Monday, Monday . . .
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
And what did we come up with?
See you next week.
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Monday night. Monday, Monday . . .
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.
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?
Glen Ford gets a truest.
As does Eric London.
No, they don't. They never take responsibility and they have no clue what actually happened regarding Hillary and Iraq.
Ava and C.I. do and look what they unravel.
And people should be paying attention.
As promised, another installment.
Dona goes off on a relative (and she's glad she did).
Sarah Abdallah gets it!
March 23rd, the second season streams on NETFLIX. [Date corrected when NETFLIX moved it up a week.]
Stop pretending you're a feminist or pro-woman if all your reference points and shout outs are male.
Repost from C.I. Know your history.
Alyssa Milano is the self-told joke.
What we listened to while writing.See you next week.
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: Do the Hillary Whores ever take responsibility?
They live in their own little bubble, Hillary and Her Vaginal Secretions. It's a fact free world, divorced from reality and actual events.
Take this delusional nut case.
We agree that the Electoral College should be abolished. We even agree that Al Gore won in 2000. Where we don't agree is that Hillary's not responsible for the Iraq War. She voted for it, you nut job Max Silva.
She voted for it and supported it.
Her only 'mistake' was to trust that Bully Boy Bush would send more troops to Iraq -- that's what she's identified as her mistake.
Or take this little bitch.
It wasn't just her vote for the Iraq War, it was also her refusal to help atone for the vote once she became Secretary of State -- her refusal -- even when asked -- to help Iraqi women when she was Secretary of State.
Brad, you little bitch who'll rot in hell, the Iraq War has destroyed the lives of Iraqis.
How dare you, you piece of bitch trash, pretend that Hillary's actions don't matter.
Or take this bottom feeder.
Susan Sarandon did not 'prefer' Trump to Hillary, she wasn't impressed by either. But reading is hard when you're so busy sucking ass, right Elizabeth Logan?
Also John Edwards? He apologized for his vote -- something Hillary refused to do. She wouldn't even call it a mistake until Barack Obama used it to destroy her in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries.
November 13, 2005, Edwards wrote in a WASHINGTON POST column:
How dumb are you, Elizabeth Logan? You are real idiot who doesn't know a damn thing about anything.
Hillary refused to apologize for her vote.
Susan Sarandon supported Edwards in 2008 because he appeared to have learned from the Iraq War and because he talked about economic issues. You're a stupid idiot Elizabeth who shouldn't be allowed on social media.
Edwards again apologized for his vote in 2007.
What was Hillary doing in 2007?
Let's go to Patrick Healy (NEW YORK TIMES) for that answer:
Little bitches who don't know their history should voluntarily leave social media. They have nothing to offer and they embarrass not only themselves but the national discourse.
Here's REUTERS in March of 2008:
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday said his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had shown a lack of judgment when she voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war.
In a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Obama said Clinton talks tough on national security but the vote contributed to the error President George W. Bush made in launching a war that has made America less safe.
“Here is the stark reality: there is a security gap in this country — a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions,” Obama said in a speech in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Obama is vying with Clinton to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the November election. Obama underscored a vow to end the war and said his early opposition to the war showed he was best placed to make a“clean break” from the Republican approach on Iraq.
Also in March of 2008, Bill Adair (POLITIFACT):
Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday criticized a recent vote by Democratic presidential rival Sen. Hillary Clinton as helping to give President Bush a "blank check" to take military action against Iran.
Taking Clinton at her word that she really did believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that Saddam was still harboring WMDs in 2002, it became evident pretty soon after the invasion that there was no smoking gun. So why didn’t she apologize in 2004? In 2006? How about when she ran for president in 2008? Why wait 12 years to offer an apology based on facts that hadn’t changed over the previous decade? In fact, the only major shifts between Clinton’s vote and her newfound contrition were the failure of America’s nation-building project in Iraq and the overwhelming sway of public opinion against the war. It’s a set of circumstances that leave only a few disheartening interpretations of Clinton’s behavior. In one, she shifted her own rhetoric out of expediency. In another, she agreed with the basic tenets of Bush’s nation-building program, but believed he botched the follow-through. But she doesn’t refer to either in her vague expression of regret in Hard Choices.
Like many of the issues of the Iraq War itself, what Clinton might have specifically gotten wrong hangs in the air, unexamined and unexplored. Her mea culpas never address her failures on a granular level. Her apologies never hint at a transformative lesson that fundamentally altered her ideas of organized state violence.
Though dumb bitches like Brad Belmont and Elizabeth Logan don't know their facts and try to rewrite history, the reality is that Hillary is a War Hawk and that her Iraq War vote did and does matter.
If they're angry about The Precious being called out in public, they should farm some of that anger out onto Barack Obama because he rode the issue into the White House in 2008 and people weren't going to forget that in 2016.
Take responsibility and stop lying.
Millions are dead in Iraq and, yes, Hillary Clinton is one of the people responsible for those deaths.
Take this delusional nut case.
We need to get rid of the Electoral college system , We have lost not just one Great President Hillary Clinton but two , because of this Electoral college system and ended up with Donald Trump and George Bush , that sent us to a Iraq war and worse recession ! Vote Democrat !
We agree that the Electoral College should be abolished. We even agree that Al Gore won in 2000. Where we don't agree is that Hillary's not responsible for the Iraq War. She voted for it, you nut job Max Silva.
She voted for it and supported it.
Her only 'mistake' was to trust that Bully Boy Bush would send more troops to Iraq -- that's what she's identified as her mistake.
Or take this little bitch.
If all you care about is Hillary Clinton's vote for the Iraq War you are a part of the reason that Donald Trump is president.
It wasn't just her vote for the Iraq War, it was also her refusal to help atone for the vote once she became Secretary of State -- her refusal -- even when asked -- to help Iraqi women when she was Secretary of State.
Brad, you little bitch who'll rot in hell, the Iraq War has destroyed the lives of Iraqis.
How dare you, you piece of bitch trash, pretend that Hillary's actions don't matter.
Or take this bottom feeder.
Absolutely. Sarandon had no problem whatsoever that John Edwards voted for the Iraq war, was too busy promoting him, and kissing up to him. She preferred Trump to Hillary, even though PENCE voted for the Iraq war.
Susan Sarandon did not 'prefer' Trump to Hillary, she wasn't impressed by either. But reading is hard when you're so busy sucking ass, right Elizabeth Logan?
Also John Edwards? He apologized for his vote -- something Hillary refused to do. She wouldn't even call it a mistake until Barack Obama used it to destroy her in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries.
November 13, 2005, Edwards wrote in a WASHINGTON POST column:
I was wrong.
Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.
It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.
The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.
The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.
How dumb are you, Elizabeth Logan? You are real idiot who doesn't know a damn thing about anything.
Hillary refused to apologize for her vote.
Susan Sarandon supported Edwards in 2008 because he appeared to have learned from the Iraq War and because he talked about economic issues. You're a stupid idiot Elizabeth who shouldn't be allowed on social media.
Edwards again apologized for his vote in 2007.
What was Hillary doing in 2007?
Let's go to Patrick Healy (NEW YORK TIMES) for that answer:
One of the most important decisions that Senator Hillary Rodham Clintonmade about her bid for the presidency came late last year when she ended a debate in her camp over whether she should repudiate her 2002 vote authorizing military action in Iraq.
Several advisers, friends and donors said in interviews that they had urged her to call her vote a mistake in order to appease antiwar Democrats, who play a critical role in the nominating process. Yet Mrs. Clinton herself, backed by another faction, never wanted to apologize — even if she viewed the war as a mistake — arguing that an apology would be a gimmick.
[. . .]
Yet antiwar anger has festered, and yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.
“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Little bitches who don't know their history should voluntarily leave social media. They have nothing to offer and they embarrass not only themselves but the national discourse.
Here's REUTERS in March of 2008:
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday said his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had shown a lack of judgment when she voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war.
In a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Obama said Clinton talks tough on national security but the vote contributed to the error President George W. Bush made in launching a war that has made America less safe.
“Here is the stark reality: there is a security gap in this country — a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions,” Obama said in a speech in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Obama is vying with Clinton to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the November election. Obama underscored a vow to end the war and said his early opposition to the war showed he was best placed to make a“clean break” from the Republican approach on Iraq.
Also in March of 2008, Bill Adair (POLITIFACT):
Asked about a new report that found no connection between al-Qaida and the old Iraqi government before the U.S. invasion, Sen. Barack Obama said it shows that Sen. Hillary Clinton had poor judgment in 2002 when she repeated claims from the Bush administration to support its plan to go to war.
"President Bush and Dick Cheney insisted there was a connection. Senator Clinton on the floor of the Senate suggested that there was such a connection," Obama said in an interview on MSNBC's Hardball on March 11, 2008. "I think it was part of a series of misjudgments that have not only cost us dearly in terms of lives lost and people who are injured, has distracted us from Afghanistan and our ability to pin down bin Laden and al-Qaida, but has also cost us hundreds of billions of dollars."
Wait, we're not done. From CNN, October 11, 2007:Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday criticized a recent vote by Democratic presidential rival Sen. Hillary Clinton as helping to give President Bush a "blank check" to take military action against Iran.
"We know in the past that the president has used some of the flimsiest excuses to try to move his agenda regardless of what Congress says," Obama said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Last month, Clinton voted to support a resolution declaring Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite part of the Iranian military, a foreign terrorist group. (The nonbinding amendment to the Defense Authorization Act passed by a 76-22 vote.)
[. . .]
Obama said Clinton also had shown "flawed" judgment during the vote to authorize the Iraq war five years ago.
"We know that there was embodied in this legislation, or this resolution sent to the Senate, language that would say our Iraqi troop structures should in part be determined by our desire to deal with Iran," Obama said. "Now if you know that in the past the president has taken a blank check and cashed it, we don't want to repeat that mistake."
September 8, 2016, Scott Beauchamp (THE ATLANTIC) called her out for her meager words being passed off as an apology:Like many of the issues of the Iraq War itself, what Clinton might have specifically gotten wrong hangs in the air, unexamined and unexplored. Her mea culpas never address her failures on a granular level. Her apologies never hint at a transformative lesson that fundamentally altered her ideas of organized state violence.
Though dumb bitches like Brad Belmont and Elizabeth Logan don't know their facts and try to rewrite history, the reality is that Hillary is a War Hawk and that her Iraq War vote did and does matter.
If they're angry about The Precious being called out in public, they should farm some of that anger out onto Barack Obama because he rode the issue into the White House in 2008 and people weren't going to forget that in 2016.
Take responsibility and stop lying.
Millions are dead in Iraq and, yes, Hillary Clinton is one of the people responsible for those deaths.
TV: Don't pull at the string
TV, it's not just networks and cable these days. It's CRACKLE, it's HULU, it's NETFLIX, it's AMAZON, it's . . .
Of all of the streamers, NETFLIX offers the most choices and the most solid of choices. AMAZON and HULU? Even CRACKLE's limited offerings beat them.
There's not really any excuse for the crap they repeatedly greenlight.
Take THE LOOMING TOWER. There's not enough time in the world for us to trudge through that crap. Jeff Daniels is not a male lead. The man's only known 'gift' is The Sahara Effect -- the sight of his face alone can dry out any woman's vagina. He was perfectly cast as the trash Shirley MacLaine knew didn't deserve her daughter Debra Winger in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Queen Fussbudget, as he's been known on too many sets, has gone on to muck up many films such as THE BUTCHER'S WIFE, MAMA'S BOY, RADIO DAYS, THE HOURS, etc.
Notoriously disgusting sexist Aaron Sorkin cast him as the lead in his flop THE NEWSROOM. He was a natural for that show. This is the same Sorkin, remember, who finally found a way to write a script with a female lead (MOLLY'S GAME) -- but, of course, he could only do so by surrounding her with men. The token.
THE LOOMING TOWER is another sausage fest.
Only it's worse than anything Sorkin could spit out because this wants to be a true story about a major event.
What major event?
9-11.
Now there are people we might trust to handle such a story. Alex Gibney isn't one of them.
CIA asset Alex is the son of CIA asset Frank Gibney.
When you realize that Alex Gibney is the spawn of trash, you start to grasp what he's doing with those so-called 'documentaries.'
He's making them up the same way his father did, they are propaganda just like the 'books' his father wrote (with so much help from the CIA).
Is it any coincidence that the propagandist did a hatchet job 'documentary' on WIKILEAKS?
Or even worse, Alex's Iraq 'documentary' offers the propaganda that the problem with the illegal war was that it wasn't planned better.
That's the problem?
Not the illegal nature of the war itself?
We'd tell Alex Gibney to go to hell but it's crystal clear he's already packed his bags.
The same can be said of Lawrence Wright, a propagandist who gets praise for THE LOOMING TOWER from . . . the CIA.
Like a good propagandist, Wright gives interviews pretending the CIA is against the book but, point of fact, they praise the book. From the CIA's own website:
The Looming Tower offers by far the best explanation of the barely comprehensible radical Islamic reasoning behind 9/11. It is wonderfully written and thoroughly documented. Wright conducted more than 600 interviews in his research. The book ends with John O’Neill’s death in the World Trade Center and the disappearance of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri into the mountains.
Grasp that reality the next time liar Wright starts claiming the CIA's opposed to the series or his book.
Add Jeff Bezos to the mix and the only issue becomes how they could hooked up with a Jewish fundie for the project? (The answer: The fundie Jew's been all over CIA-linked media projects for some time -- FOXTROT and A MIGHTY HEART being only two examples.) Well that and the fact that Jewish fundie's daddy was all up in the CIA as well -- a detail that Dan Futterman leaves out of his otherwise too wordy resume (which includes his four episodes of WILL & GRACE).
It's pure garbage and, no, we won't sit through it.
Jeff Daniels ensures that. We made it through the first episode barely. It was quite enough. We don't need to stay through the end -- which includes a final episode -- oh, how delightful -- entitled "Boys At War." How clever, no? A main cast of ten and only 3 are women -- one of which is a 'love interest' (and special ed teacher! they used to make the window dressing be museum curators back in the day).
The one episode reminded us of when we had to sit through the garbage that was HAND OF GOD.
Remember that?
When others finally started noting how awful the show was, Elaine remembered:
September 2, 2015, Deadline thinks Amazon's Hand To God is the worst show Amazon's ever done.
Hmm?
Who could have seen that coming?
Ava and C.I.
From August 31, 2014: [. . .]
AMAZON puts so much garbage on.
Last year it was YOU ARE WANTED.
Watching, we kept reminding one another that ABC (wow, CIA connections everywhere, Wiliam Casey must be so pleased) aired ITV's THE AVENGERS on Monday nights (right after PEYTON PLACE) and then on Friday nights (right after THE PHYLISS DILLER SHOW).
Maybe this was that sort of thing? The way NETFLIX sometimes buys up the rights to existing shows?
Nope.
AMAZON PRIME actually made YOU ARE WANTED.
It's a spy show.
It's supposed to be inspired by Ed Snowden's whistle-blowing but it's difficult to tell that by watching the series.
In fact, it's difficult to tell much of anything from watching the six-episode series -- including how did it get a greenlight?
Unlike AMAZON's pretense in the US that people have voted for the shows they develop, with YOU ARE WANTED, they set out to make a series with (and in) Germany.
For some reason, they went with comedic actor Matthias Schweighöfer -- who appears to alternate between beliefs that he's Germany's answer to Kenneth Branagh and that he's Germany's answer to Suzanne Somers. But at least Suzanne wasn't responsible for those cheesecake shots throughout THREE'S COMPANY. As director, writer and producer of YOU ARE WANTED, Matthias is responsible for the carefully lit and carefully shot shirtless scene his character Lukas participates in.
His chest will never rival Suzanne's and his directing will never rival Kenneth's but having managed to fumble through six episodes, AMAZON PRIME thinks he's worth a second season.
Were they watching the same show we were?
Possibly, in German, YOU ARE WANTED is not as bad -- still confusing, but not as bad.
But in English, dubbed English, it's bad. The dubbed in vocals are far worse than 1964's MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA.
Matthias, as producer, apparently sought out the highest pitched male voice actor he could find to dub his scenes. Even the actor dubbing the child's voice has a deeper voice.
But worse is that you're left to wonder if the dub actors understood English?
They pronounce the words correctly, they just don't seem to understand what they are saying. In fact, AMAZON's Alexa speaks more convincingly.
In terms of suspense, CRACKLE's CHOSEN had a lot more tension and suspense.
Is there a reason for the actress playing the wife in YOU ARE WANTED to even show up for her scenes?
If her character has an actual reason to be present, it's never clear. But this is AMAZON PRIME where males do and females watch. It's been one sausage fest after another on AMAZON. The upcoming HOMECOMING and the currently airing THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL can only do so much on the streaming service that's been dominated by BOSCH, HAND OF GOD, MAD DOGS, SNEAKY PETE, ALPHA HOUSE, JEAN-CLAUDE VAN JOHNSON, THE TICK, etc.
And YOU ARE WANTED is just another show where men do and women fret -- that includes the main police officer Sandra Jensen (Catrin Stiebeck) who's falls for so many red herrings and is so repeatedly wrong you keep expecting her cousin from Hazzard County, Boss Hogg, to show up and start screaming 'bout them Duke boys.
If the show needed anything, it was an active female character with actual motivations that went beyond save the man. If one thing was obvious in season one, it was that the 8 main characters were awfully short on women -- in fact, the numbers lay out as 6 males and 2 women (to qualify as a main character, you needed to appear in all six episodes). So imagine our surprise to learn that season two's 'big fix' will be adding Michael Landis to the cast.
We've got nothing against Landis. We praised him for his work on HOOTEN & THE LADY. But YOU ARE WANTED is not lacking in male characters -- let alone male characters who do. He's going to be playing a CIA agent coming after Lukas. Oh, joy, more dick swinging from AMAZON. At least Landis qualifies as a hot looking man -- maybe that's the new quality he'll be bringing to the series?
Of all of the streamers, NETFLIX offers the most choices and the most solid of choices. AMAZON and HULU? Even CRACKLE's limited offerings beat them.
There's not really any excuse for the crap they repeatedly greenlight.
Take THE LOOMING TOWER. There's not enough time in the world for us to trudge through that crap. Jeff Daniels is not a male lead. The man's only known 'gift' is The Sahara Effect -- the sight of his face alone can dry out any woman's vagina. He was perfectly cast as the trash Shirley MacLaine knew didn't deserve her daughter Debra Winger in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Queen Fussbudget, as he's been known on too many sets, has gone on to muck up many films such as THE BUTCHER'S WIFE, MAMA'S BOY, RADIO DAYS, THE HOURS, etc.
Notoriously disgusting sexist Aaron Sorkin cast him as the lead in his flop THE NEWSROOM. He was a natural for that show. This is the same Sorkin, remember, who finally found a way to write a script with a female lead (MOLLY'S GAME) -- but, of course, he could only do so by surrounding her with men. The token.
THE LOOMING TOWER is another sausage fest.
Only it's worse than anything Sorkin could spit out because this wants to be a true story about a major event.
What major event?
9-11.
Now there are people we might trust to handle such a story. Alex Gibney isn't one of them.
CIA asset Alex is the son of CIA asset Frank Gibney.
When you realize that Alex Gibney is the spawn of trash, you start to grasp what he's doing with those so-called 'documentaries.'
He's making them up the same way his father did, they are propaganda just like the 'books' his father wrote (with so much help from the CIA).
Is it any coincidence that the propagandist did a hatchet job 'documentary' on WIKILEAKS?
Or even worse, Alex's Iraq 'documentary' offers the propaganda that the problem with the illegal war was that it wasn't planned better.
That's the problem?
Not the illegal nature of the war itself?
We'd tell Alex Gibney to go to hell but it's crystal clear he's already packed his bags.
The same can be said of Lawrence Wright, a propagandist who gets praise for THE LOOMING TOWER from . . . the CIA.
Like a good propagandist, Wright gives interviews pretending the CIA is against the book but, point of fact, they praise the book. From the CIA's own website:
The Looming Tower offers by far the best explanation of the barely comprehensible radical Islamic reasoning behind 9/11. It is wonderfully written and thoroughly documented. Wright conducted more than 600 interviews in his research. The book ends with John O’Neill’s death in the World Trade Center and the disappearance of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri into the mountains.
Grasp that reality the next time liar Wright starts claiming the CIA's opposed to the series or his book.
Add Jeff Bezos to the mix and the only issue becomes how they could hooked up with a Jewish fundie for the project? (The answer: The fundie Jew's been all over CIA-linked media projects for some time -- FOXTROT and A MIGHTY HEART being only two examples.) Well that and the fact that Jewish fundie's daddy was all up in the CIA as well -- a detail that Dan Futterman leaves out of his otherwise too wordy resume (which includes his four episodes of WILL & GRACE).
It's pure garbage and, no, we won't sit through it.
Jeff Daniels ensures that. We made it through the first episode barely. It was quite enough. We don't need to stay through the end -- which includes a final episode -- oh, how delightful -- entitled "Boys At War." How clever, no? A main cast of ten and only 3 are women -- one of which is a 'love interest' (and special ed teacher! they used to make the window dressing be museum curators back in the day).
The one episode reminded us of when we had to sit through the garbage that was HAND OF GOD.
Remember that?
When others finally started noting how awful the show was, Elaine remembered:
September 2, 2015, Deadline thinks Amazon's Hand To God is the worst show Amazon's ever done.
Hmm?
Who could have seen that coming?
Ava and C.I.
From August 31, 2014: [. . .]
AMAZON puts so much garbage on.
Last year it was YOU ARE WANTED.
Watching, we kept reminding one another that ABC (wow, CIA connections everywhere, Wiliam Casey must be so pleased) aired ITV's THE AVENGERS on Monday nights (right after PEYTON PLACE) and then on Friday nights (right after THE PHYLISS DILLER SHOW).
Maybe this was that sort of thing? The way NETFLIX sometimes buys up the rights to existing shows?
Nope.
AMAZON PRIME actually made YOU ARE WANTED.
It's a spy show.
It's supposed to be inspired by Ed Snowden's whistle-blowing but it's difficult to tell that by watching the series.
In fact, it's difficult to tell much of anything from watching the six-episode series -- including how did it get a greenlight?
Unlike AMAZON's pretense in the US that people have voted for the shows they develop, with YOU ARE WANTED, they set out to make a series with (and in) Germany.
For some reason, they went with comedic actor Matthias Schweighöfer -- who appears to alternate between beliefs that he's Germany's answer to Kenneth Branagh and that he's Germany's answer to Suzanne Somers. But at least Suzanne wasn't responsible for those cheesecake shots throughout THREE'S COMPANY. As director, writer and producer of YOU ARE WANTED, Matthias is responsible for the carefully lit and carefully shot shirtless scene his character Lukas participates in.
His chest will never rival Suzanne's and his directing will never rival Kenneth's but having managed to fumble through six episodes, AMAZON PRIME thinks he's worth a second season.
Were they watching the same show we were?
Possibly, in German, YOU ARE WANTED is not as bad -- still confusing, but not as bad.
But in English, dubbed English, it's bad. The dubbed in vocals are far worse than 1964's MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA.
Matthias, as producer, apparently sought out the highest pitched male voice actor he could find to dub his scenes. Even the actor dubbing the child's voice has a deeper voice.
But worse is that you're left to wonder if the dub actors understood English?
They pronounce the words correctly, they just don't seem to understand what they are saying. In fact, AMAZON's Alexa speaks more convincingly.
In terms of suspense, CRACKLE's CHOSEN had a lot more tension and suspense.
Is there a reason for the actress playing the wife in YOU ARE WANTED to even show up for her scenes?
If her character has an actual reason to be present, it's never clear. But this is AMAZON PRIME where males do and females watch. It's been one sausage fest after another on AMAZON. The upcoming HOMECOMING and the currently airing THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL can only do so much on the streaming service that's been dominated by BOSCH, HAND OF GOD, MAD DOGS, SNEAKY PETE, ALPHA HOUSE, JEAN-CLAUDE VAN JOHNSON, THE TICK, etc.
And YOU ARE WANTED is just another show where men do and women fret -- that includes the main police officer Sandra Jensen (Catrin Stiebeck) who's falls for so many red herrings and is so repeatedly wrong you keep expecting her cousin from Hazzard County, Boss Hogg, to show up and start screaming 'bout them Duke boys.
If the show needed anything, it was an active female character with actual motivations that went beyond save the man. If one thing was obvious in season one, it was that the 8 main characters were awfully short on women -- in fact, the numbers lay out as 6 males and 2 women (to qualify as a main character, you needed to appear in all six episodes). So imagine our surprise to learn that season two's 'big fix' will be adding Michael Landis to the cast.
We've got nothing against Landis. We praised him for his work on HOOTEN & THE LADY. But YOU ARE WANTED is not lacking in male characters -- let alone male characters who do. He's going to be playing a CIA agent coming after Lukas. Oh, joy, more dick swinging from AMAZON. At least Landis qualifies as a hot looking man -- maybe that's the new quality he'll be bringing to the series?
Black Box Voting moves to the US colony of Iraq
And everyone wants to pretend that's a good thing.
Far from preventing voter fraud, electronic voting often encourages it. There are a number of issues at stake and you should refer to Bev Harris and BLACK BOX VOTING for more on what's at play.
The previous method resulted in results within a week which, for Iraq, wasn't that long.
So why the move to electronic voting?
In 2010, Nouri al-Maliki lost the election.
Did that mean he was gone?
No. He got a second term as prime minister thanks to US President Barack Obama who helped broker The Erbil Agreement -- a contract that gave Nouri the second term as prime minister that the voters didn't want him to have.
Now the US government doesn't have to broker any agreement if their puppet loses, they could just alter the vote count.
What's being sold to Iraqis as progress is potentially just greater colonial control over the country by the US.
#IHEC: The electronic voting process used in the next elections prevents electoral fraud. #IraqiElections2018
Far from preventing voter fraud, electronic voting often encourages it. There are a number of issues at stake and you should refer to Bev Harris and BLACK BOX VOTING for more on what's at play.
The previous method resulted in results within a week which, for Iraq, wasn't that long.
So why the move to electronic voting?
In 2010, Nouri al-Maliki lost the election.
Did that mean he was gone?
No. He got a second term as prime minister thanks to US President Barack Obama who helped broker The Erbil Agreement -- a contract that gave Nouri the second term as prime minister that the voters didn't want him to have.
Now the US government doesn't have to broker any agreement if their puppet loses, they could just alter the vote count.
What's being sold to Iraqis as progress is potentially just greater colonial control over the country by the US.
From The TESR Test Kitchen
Who doesn't like beverages?
We all know they're important, especially on a hot day.
Spring's just around the corner and you may be tempted to grab one of the new cans of Diet Coke. You know the new ones, they come in various flavors. We tried Twisted Mango, Ginger Lime and Feisty Cherry.
Our verdict?
Avoid unless you're confined to diet colas for some reason (such as diabetes). All three taste metallic. Twisted Mango briefly tastes like something distantly related to mangos and Ginge Lime briefly tastes like a candy version of lime. But both soon lose the flavor and, by sip four, taste only metallic.
Feisty Cherry? Maybe it's the feisty part? But the flavor does hang around until the last sip. It's a metallic cherry taste. It's nothing that we'd recommend. For example, if diabetes or some other reason means you need to rely on diet colas, we'd suggest Coca-Cola Cherry Zero which is a diet drink and which has a cherry taste without the metallic accompaniment.
Let's move over to sugar. Yes, we work both sides of the street.
M&M's. There are three new flavors we haven't tested yet.
So we grabbed up the Almond, the Strawberry Nut and the White Chocolate.
M&M lovers, we recommend White Chocolate which is a new taste that manages to preserve what we've all grown to love in a pack of M&M's.
After that?
Almond isn't a great deal different from peanut but it's a little bit sharper.
Stawberry Nut?
These honestly tasted like Skittles.
We all know they're important, especially on a hot day.
Spring's just around the corner and you may be tempted to grab one of the new cans of Diet Coke. You know the new ones, they come in various flavors. We tried Twisted Mango, Ginger Lime and Feisty Cherry.
Our verdict?
Avoid unless you're confined to diet colas for some reason (such as diabetes). All three taste metallic. Twisted Mango briefly tastes like something distantly related to mangos and Ginge Lime briefly tastes like a candy version of lime. But both soon lose the flavor and, by sip four, taste only metallic.
Feisty Cherry? Maybe it's the feisty part? But the flavor does hang around until the last sip. It's a metallic cherry taste. It's nothing that we'd recommend. For example, if diabetes or some other reason means you need to rely on diet colas, we'd suggest Coca-Cola Cherry Zero which is a diet drink and which has a cherry taste without the metallic accompaniment.
Let's move over to sugar. Yes, we work both sides of the street.
M&M's. There are three new flavors we haven't tested yet.
So we grabbed up the Almond, the Strawberry Nut and the White Chocolate.
M&M lovers, we recommend White Chocolate which is a new taste that manages to preserve what we've all grown to love in a pack of M&M's.
After that?
Almond isn't a great deal different from peanut but it's a little bit sharper.
Stawberry Nut?
These honestly tasted like Skittles.