Monday, August 27, 2018

Truest statement of the week

Glorifying McCain as a war hero allows us to imagine away the sins of Vietnam by making ourselves the victim. He encouraged unjust war in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and more as a cornerstone of his career.

-- Peter Van Buren, "See Ya, John" (WE MEANT WELL).




Truest statement of the week II

If you want to see a world with more and more John McCains, with more and more US wars of aggression and regime change interventionism, then by all means play right along with his public beatification. If you want to see a world where neoconservative war whores are treated with the revulsion, disdain and rejection they deserve, then now is your chance to help create that world. Refuse to be shamed and guilted into polite silence and move in the exact opposite direction from where the establishment shepherds are herding you.


Caitlin Johnstone, "Do NOT! Let Them Make A Saint of This Asshole" (MEDIUM).
















A note to our readers

Hey --

Early Monday morning  And we're done. 

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?


Peter van Buren gets a truest.
As does Catlin Johnstone.
The man who helped start the Iraq War died.
Ava and C.I. look at flipping shows.  And there's a new illustration for their media pieces.
Again, he's dead.
Stephen King's nose.  We hadn't seen a photo until working on this, but his nose, what happened to his nose?  
The threads of Twitter are written on the subway walls.
Praise for Jane Wagner.
Continuing to note community coverage of books.
Maggie is hideous.
Basra.   
What we listened to while writing.
A look at some of the best.


Peace,





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











Editorial: Deaths



Cindy and I send our prayers to the family and friends of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin who was killed in a helicopter crash in .


That's the last Tweet from Senator John McCain.  Some are rushing to insist he called the Iraq War a "mistake."

Crime.  It was and is a crime.  And John McCain supported it, cheerleaded it, trumpeted it.


Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin was on his ninth combat deployment when he died on Monday from injuries he received when his helicopter crashed in Sinjar, Iraq, defense officials announced on Tuesday




Last week, Taylor Galvin became the latest US service member to die in the Iraq War.



  1. U.S. soldier killed in Iraq helicopter crash identified as Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin


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  2. Today we pause to remember Pilot Taylor J. Galvin of Spokane, Washington who died in Iraq this week. CW3 Galvin was deployed nine times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was just 34. In awe of today's heroic young people who enter our armed forces not for wealth or fame, but to serve. – at Red Room at the White House




John McCain's support for the Iraq War doomed so many -- Americans and Iraqis.


He was a War Monger.

He is finally dead but the Iraq War continues.

His bloody fingerprints are all over this illegal war.


























TV: The flipped out flipper

So many questions popping up lately.  Let's start with just one:  How many bocce courts does one city need?

We think it's a fair question as Lindsey Bennett insists upon going home to home throughout Palm Springs plopping bocce courts all over.

3 JESS


DESERT FLIPPERS is the HGTV show that Lindsey and her husband Eric star in.  Lindsey's supposedly known for her pizzazz.  We don't see it.

What we see is a Wisconsin-ite coming to the California desert and imposing bland on home after home.

Here's how Lindse 'renovates:' tear down a wall to make a kitchen and a living room -- two rooms -- into one room while swearing that she's providing an "open concept" when all she's really doing is making it look like an efficiency apartment, then she sprays everything inside with white paint before creating that mud plop in the backyard that she dubs a bocce court. If there's any extra space at all?  She's going to turn it into a little suite ("casita").  It's a cookie cutter renovation on home after home.

Another problem issue is her idea of what a lawn must be.  In any city or town, her foolish belief that a lawn must be lush greenery belongs to another time yet still she brings in the sod and rolls it out on yard after yard.  For doing this  in the desert city of Palm Springs, she should be stoned.  Eco-friendly gardens can be very attractive.

And what's with the pools and spas she keeps adding?  Has she never heard of a stone-lined retention pool that can provide water for plants?  Time and again, we see that she has no idea of what the native plants to the area are or why you need to use them (pollunation, among other reasons).


Worst of all?  The Wisconsinite does not like Spanish architecture.  So what the heck is she doing in Palm Springs?

Mainly tearing down stucco exterior walls, demolishing arched doorways and arched entryways in her attempt to stomp out any touches of Spanish artchitecture.  Even arched windows ("So, good to see this thing gone," she snaps) are a problem for Lindsey.  We're not really sure if it's a lack of imagination or xenophobia but it does remind us how HGTV could use a splash of color in their hosts.


Other than that, we're mainly bothered by how, time and again, Eric and Lindsey are surprised to find a wall they're in the midst of tearing down is a load bearing wall.  How do you not know what a load bearing wall is?  How do you not look around a room and know what a load bearing wall is?

Now if you're job and/or hobby has nothing to do with remodeling or architecture or building inspection, maybe you have no clue.  But if, for ten years, you've been flipping homes for a living, you damn sure should know what a load bearing wall is.

Our favorite moments are when Eric tries to conceal just how pissed he's getting with Lindsey when she's fussing around.  "I could have been done twenty minutes ago," he huffs at one point when she interrupts his hammering or, while he's working on the plumbing under the sink and she decides to start tugging on his pants, he snaps, "Seriously, get out of here."


Eric's funny.  Sometimes actually funny like when he plays a prank on Lindsey and, after, reveals that "yatzi" is their safe word -- before getting embarrassed and adding that's a family safe word and not a couple safe word.  Sometimes he's funny because what he says is so corny.  When Lindsey's a good sport and laughs anyway, she's immensely more likable.


We often marvel over Lindsey's tastes in outfits -- the dress, for example, that was off shoulder on one side and came above the knee on the right side but did everything else on the other.  The shoes she paired with it only made it scarier.  Another time she wore a dress (that Eric compared to a bouquet of flowers due to the floral print) with some ankle boots that a sex kitten couldn't have pulled off.  She also frequently wears skirts that look like the bland backsplashes she can't seem to live without.


Bland.  Lindsey Bland should be her name.  She whitens or greys every interior.

We'd love to see Lindsey meet Tracy Metro.

Tracy hosts NETFLIX's HOUSE DOCTOR.  In this show, American Tracy helps British home owners with the 'staging' that can sell a house.  Time and again, Tracy will note the bland (the same bland Lindsey keeps inflicting on Palm Springs) and tell them that, if it doesn't look like someone lives in the home, no prospective buyer is going to be able to picture living in the home.

Tracy's got enough personality to host the program all by herself.  There's nothing bland about her.

But as bland as Lindsey's tastes can be, we'll take her over the lifeless CBS SUNDAY MORNING with Jane Pauley which always plays out like a rebroadcast on DECADES -- despite being a live and new program.  Doubt us?  This Sunday's big features?  "The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago" and "singer-songwriter Art Garfunkel" who last released an album eleven years ago.  That Jane Pauley, how she manages to work one whole day a week and keep up with the times, we'll never know.  Again, so many questions.






Racist and War Monger John McCain died -- finally

A JOHN MCCAIN

Somewhere, John McCain is trying to push out another dump but now that's the business of Satan and his minions.

Yes, the US Senator has left the earth and we all can breathe a little easier.

Oh, his kind still exists here on earth.  Certainly, Senator Tammy Duckworth's been trying to unseat him as biggest War Monger in the Senate for years now.

But the special kind of public evil John offered will never be on display again.

Even Tammy, for example, knows she can't be racist against MLK.

But John McCain could and was.

The media whores slobbering over John McCain apparently can't tell you what TEEN VOGUE was able to explain to their readers last July -- TEEN VOGUE!:



Throughout his career, McCain has found himself in hot water numerous times for making racist comments and taking hypocritical political stances.

McCain voted against the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

As a first-year congressman in 1983, McCain voted against a holiday commemorating one of the most important leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. McCain said at the time that Dr. King shouldn't be memorialized because "presidents were not recognized," citing cost as another reason for his dissenting vote. Beyond voting to reject the establishment of the holiday, McCain has a history of voting against civil rights legislation, like the 1990 Civil Rights Act, which sought to ban discrimination in employment at American businesses.

McCain has been quoted using a racial slur in reference to Vietnamese people.

According to a 2000 San Francisco Gate report, McCain, who spent 5 and half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp during the Vietnam War, referred to his captors as "g**ks" when speaking with reporters at a press conference.

I hate the g**ks. I will hate them as long as I live," McCain said.
Diane Chin, executive director of the San Francisco–based organization Chinese for Affirmative Action, told the Gate at the time,"The use of a racist slur can't be acceptable for any national leader, regardless of his background."
"For someone running for president not to recognize the power of words is a problem," she said.



That's TEEN PEOPLE being more hard hitting and sporting more journalism than Jake Tapper, Kelly O'Donnell, Andrea Mitchell and so many others combined.



And once upon a time, the Democratic National Committee wasn't opposed to noting McCain's long, long history of opposing MLK day:



1983: McCain Voted Against Law Creating National Martin Luther King Holiday. In 1983, McCain voted against passing a bill to designate the third Monday of every January as a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That was the year the holiday was passed into law, supported by 338 members of the House and 78 members of the Senate. [1983 House Vote #289, 8/2/1983; 1983 Senate Vote #303]
1987: McCain Supports AZ Governor's Effort to Rescind Martin Luther King Day as State Holiday. In 1987, Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded "what he termed an illegal executive order by his predecessor, Democrat Bruce Babbitt, to establish a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." Speaking to the Arizona Teenage Republican Convention, when asked about Mecham's decision to rescind the holiday, "McCain said that he felt Mecham was correct in rescinding the holiday." [Washington Post, 1/14/1987; Phoenix Gazette, 4/13/1987]
1989: McCain Urged Lawmakers to Create State Holiday, But Expressed Opposition to Federal Holiday. In 1989, McCain expressed his support for a state law recognizing an Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But, McCain said, "I'm still opposed to another federal holiday... but I support the (Arizona) Martin Luther King holiday because of the enormous proportions this issue has taken on as far as the image of our state and our treatment towards not only blacks but all minorities." [Phoenix Gazette, 5/2/1989]
1992: McCain Endorsed Proposition Creating State Holiday. "McCain endorsed Proposition 300, which would establish a paid state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." [Phoenix Gazette, 10/28/1992]
1994: McCain Voted To Strip Federal Funding From the MLK Federal Holiday Commission. In 1994, McCain voted to prohibit federal funds for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. The Commission was established in 1984 "to encourage the observance of King's birthday." According to Al King, head of the California chapter of the commission, the organization "helped keep 'senators' and 'representatives' feet to the fire to recognize the holiday." [1994 Senate Vote #127, 5/24/1994; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/24/1995, 5/26/1995]




It was not one vote, it was not one year.  It was a long history of opposing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That racism is also behind his hatred and desire to kill so many.




  Retweeted
In 1973, John McCain spoke out to save Senate funding for Nixon’s secret carpet-bombing of Cambodia, which killed a half million people








John McCain heavily promoted the lies that led to the Iraq war. He championed the NATO bombing of Libya. He supported & armed the jihadists destroying Syria. He played a role in bringing neo-Nazis to power in Ukraine & backed Saudi Arabia’s genocide in Yemen. He was no hero.







McCain's "mistakes" and "errors" resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths but this won't matter because those deaths were Iraqi, Vietnamese, Palestinian, Yemeni. e.g. populations with zero purchase among US media elites.







When peace activists protested war criminal Henry Kissinger in the Senate in 2015, John McCain called their demonstration "despicable" and shouted at them, "Get out of here, you low life scum!"


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