The jailing of Chelsea Manning is a particularly outrageous attack on
democratic rights, carried out by a federal judge who is a byword for
reactionary pro-government, pro-police and pro-employer bias, and a
longtime collaborator with the national security state.
Hilton was one of a relative handful of federal judges selected by
Chief Justice William Rehnquist to serve on the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) court, the special judicial panel set up to
secretly rubber-stamp requests for spying authorizations for the FBI,
CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies. The court is notorious for
approving 99.9 percent of such requests. Hilton was on the panel from
2000 to 2007, during the period when the Bush administration set up
secret CIA torture camps and enormously escalated the NSA spying on
telecommunications and the internet.
Appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Hilton proved his
value to the military-intelligence apparatus early in his career, with a
1989 decision that cleared CIA operative Joseph Fernandez, charged with
four criminal counts in the Iran-Contra affair, after the CIA refused
to release documents required for the prosecution of the case. In
effect, the intelligence apparatus ensured impunity for its own criminal
operations by refusing to cooperate with the investigation by Special
Counsel Lawrence Walsh, a legal dodge approved by Judge Hilton.
According to the website “The Robing Room,” which allows lawyers and
litigants appearing before federal judges to rate their demeanor, legal
knowledge, and bias, Hilton routinely incorporates prosecution and
government briefs into his legal “opinions,” almost never rules in favor
of individuals suing their employers, the police or the government, and
frequently sleeps through oral arguments by defense attorneys.
One attorney, posting on the site, called Hilton, “The most
prejudiced judge with regard to average and below average income United
States citizens that I have ever observed. This judge has no sense
whatsoever of the search for Truth and Justice and he clearly avoids any
reasonable search for Truth and Justice, especially if a large
corporation or the federal government is the defendant!”
-- Patrick Martin, "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusal to testify against WikiLeaks" (WSWS).
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Truest statement of the week II
It should now be clear to all honest and sane people that the only
collusion was between the corporate media and the Democratic Party to
spin a phony tale.
The Russiagate investigation is as much a witch hunt as the despicable Donald Trump always insisted. The charge that Trump colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 election has been abandoned even by the people who turned the allegation into a well paid cottage industry. The Mueller investigation has come up empty and Democrats are scrambling to keep their creation alive in order to make themselves politically relevant. They should be planning how to go about giving the people what they need and want. But Medicare for All and any other proposals that would benefit the masses are off the table for them and their corporate donors.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Russiagate and Democratic Defeat" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
The Russiagate investigation is as much a witch hunt as the despicable Donald Trump always insisted. The charge that Trump colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 election has been abandoned even by the people who turned the allegation into a well paid cottage industry. The Mueller investigation has come up empty and Democrats are scrambling to keep their creation alive in order to make themselves politically relevant. They should be planning how to go about giving the people what they need and want. But Medicare for All and any other proposals that would benefit the masses are off the table for them and their corporate donors.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Russiagate and Democratic Defeat" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Tuesday morning.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
And what did we come up with?
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Tuesday morning.
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?
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- Editorial: Reasons?
- TV: Truth and lies
- From The TESR Test Kitchen
- Kaya Taitano
- Tweet of the week
- DiFi goes beserk
- International Women's Day Tweet
- This edition's playlist
- Highlights
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: Reasons?
There are many reasons the ongoing Iraq War started.
There are no reasons to continue it.
_-* It's Simple *-_
We used to have a monopoly on the oil trade.
Iraq dropped our fiat currency and profited.
Iran, Venezuela + Russia saw this + took steps to do the same.
Our economic dominance was at risk.
Today, millions have died in the name of a faux "War on Terror."
There are no reasons to continue it.
TV: Truth and lies
Truth, justice and the American way? That's what Superman fought for. TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES? Not so much. In fact, they're currently standing in a puddle of deceit each Thursday night.
Hold on, we'll get to it.
Truth -- or the pursuit of it -- is a staple of television. So-called 'reality' TV is illusion and fakery sold as the search for truth but, honestly, there was more truth sought in a "Take the test!" episode of Jerry Springer than in a full season of THE BACHELOR.
Around the world, people are hungry for the truth -- probably because we're fed so many lies. Sometimes, we are lied to for nefarious purposes, sometimes because some idiot thinks they know better. Which reminds us of the "Storage Wars" episode of HOT IN CLEVELAND (here for our real time call out). If you missed it, Victoria discovers a letter Abe Lincoln wrote in which he confesses to an affair with an intern. Melanie convinces her to bury it. You have a piece of history, details that can flesh out not only the Lincoln White House but also issues of power and abuse. (For the record, the letter only existed in the fictional episode.) And the message is to bury it? Who gets to decide to bury history? That episode was so offensive on so many levels. But it also goes to why some lies are told. People who think they know better, think they have the right to decide what we can watch or hear or know.
Which may explain the Secret Service's desperate search for photos of JFK and Marilyn Monroe in the days after her death -- as they went from one photo service to another, grabbing pictures and destroying them.
That might explain those actions. Then again, that might not.
The need to know the truth is why some consume mainstream media -- more and more, though, it's obvious that MSM is focused on something other than the truth.
Sunday on ABC's THIS WEEK, Terry Moran noted a few obvious -- and honest -- points:
No, but the most central and most serious question in this investigation -- the reason Robert Mueller started it -- is: Did the current president of the United States assist the Kremlin in an attack on our democracy? And if Mueller, after two years, comes back and says, "I don't have the evidence to support that charge"? That's a reckoning. That's a reckoning for progressives and Democrats who hoped that Mueller would essentially erase the 2016 election. It's a reckoning for the media. It’s a reckoning around the country if, in fact, after all this time, there was no collusion.
Martha Raddatz and Pierre Thomas basically ignored what he said -- which was how you knew it was true, the awkward truth.
Two years of this nonsense and it still continues. Not to mention how this nonsense has helped re-start the Cold War. And if it all ends up the nothing that so many of us have said it was? Will they get honest? Will they apologize?
No.
This has been their non-stop Chandra Levy nonsense, distractions while the country should have been paying attention to real news. The corporate media is an embarrassment and public trust in it is at an all time low.
The search for truth fuels the consumption of independent media in the US.
The reality is that the bulk of so-called independent media is nothing but partisan spin where people willingly give up their own independence to become a front group for this or that political party.
SECRET CITY has a second season that's streaming on NETFLIX. The Anna Torv-led series revolves around Harriett. Season one found her searching for truth as a journalist. Her pursuit of truth led to her being imprisoned.
If that seems a cynical fate, grasp that it's not a new view. The original truth teller, Cassandra of Greek mythology, didn't fare much better. Season two finds Torv's Harriett released from prison and working for a politician as she continues her search for the truth. There are twists and turns and it is a satisfying follow up. Anna Torv remains one of the finest actresses working in television today. But, that said, we honestly fear season three. We'll be watching to be sure, it's a great show. But Harriett suffers so for pursuing the truth.
"The snakes in our government bite and then slither back into the cracks. This country is broken."
That's a quote from a character in AMAZON's THE WIDOW. Kate Beckinsale stars as Georgia Wells, a woman determined to find out whether or not her dead husband is really dead. While SECRET CITY builds on suspense, THE WIDOW builds more around action.
What we found most impressive about THE WIDOW is that Georgia can process. Too often, a show about the truth ends with the truth discovered. Georgia discovers the truth and discovers it -- and the man -- really don't matter to her. She adapts and the story continues.
That's a little closer to life and reality.
Meanwhile, TCM can't get further from reality. Thursdays this month, TCM is saluting "Journalism in the movies." And it's doing so with hosts Anderson Cooper and Carl Bernstein.
Are you scratching your head yet?
Thought so. Anderson a talking head, a talk show host -- he's not really a journalist. Just because he no longer hosts THE MOLE doesn't make him a journalist. But let's forget him and focus on Carl.
The breasty Carl Bernstein is on TCM why? Those MOOBS don't need to be sported, let alone shown off.
More to the point, any career Carl had in journalism died in the 70s.
He's of no use and no value to anyone. Yes, he has barked on MSNBC repeatedly about Russia -- that nonsense that hasn't panned out all this time later.
He's a joke.
But that's not why we're objecting.
How can you salute journalism and the movies with Carl?
Nora Ephron was married to Carl. He cheated on her -- and worse. She wrote a book about her life then, a comic memoir. Carl was fine with that. He fancied himself a writer and wasn't all that impressed with Nora's writing. That's why he never objected to HEARTBURN -- not when Nora was writing it, not when it was being published, not when Nora was promoting it.
What happened next?
Mike Nichols wanted to make a film of HEARTBURN. Suddenly, Carl was alarmed. He threatened to sue. He demanded changes. He championed censorship.
The film bares little resemblance to the book and that's due to all of Carl's censorship demands.
After what he did, you don't bring him on as a host and you certainly don't promote him as a "truth teller." Truth telling requires telling the truth and when you threaten to sue your ex-wife over how she portrays your very public affair, your very public cheating on her (everyone in DC knew Carl was cheating before his pregnant wife Nora did), you lose the right to be seen as a truth teller. TCM makes a mockery of truth and journalism by utilizing Carl Bernstein. More to the point, they make a mockery of movies. Mike Nichols was very talented, Jack Nicholson is one of the country's finest movie stars, Meryl Streep was eager to play Nora. All three suffered as a result of Carl's efforts at censorship. Carl Bernstein does not belong on TCM. Ever.
Hold on, we'll get to it.
Truth -- or the pursuit of it -- is a staple of television. So-called 'reality' TV is illusion and fakery sold as the search for truth but, honestly, there was more truth sought in a "Take the test!" episode of Jerry Springer than in a full season of THE BACHELOR.
Around the world, people are hungry for the truth -- probably because we're fed so many lies. Sometimes, we are lied to for nefarious purposes, sometimes because some idiot thinks they know better. Which reminds us of the "Storage Wars" episode of HOT IN CLEVELAND (here for our real time call out). If you missed it, Victoria discovers a letter Abe Lincoln wrote in which he confesses to an affair with an intern. Melanie convinces her to bury it. You have a piece of history, details that can flesh out not only the Lincoln White House but also issues of power and abuse. (For the record, the letter only existed in the fictional episode.) And the message is to bury it? Who gets to decide to bury history? That episode was so offensive on so many levels. But it also goes to why some lies are told. People who think they know better, think they have the right to decide what we can watch or hear or know.
Which may explain the Secret Service's desperate search for photos of JFK and Marilyn Monroe in the days after her death -- as they went from one photo service to another, grabbing pictures and destroying them.
That might explain those actions. Then again, that might not.
The need to know the truth is why some consume mainstream media -- more and more, though, it's obvious that MSM is focused on something other than the truth.
Sunday on ABC's THIS WEEK, Terry Moran noted a few obvious -- and honest -- points:
No, but the most central and most serious question in this investigation -- the reason Robert Mueller started it -- is: Did the current president of the United States assist the Kremlin in an attack on our democracy? And if Mueller, after two years, comes back and says, "I don't have the evidence to support that charge"? That's a reckoning. That's a reckoning for progressives and Democrats who hoped that Mueller would essentially erase the 2016 election. It's a reckoning for the media. It’s a reckoning around the country if, in fact, after all this time, there was no collusion.
Martha Raddatz and Pierre Thomas basically ignored what he said -- which was how you knew it was true, the awkward truth.
Top Democrats are now running around admitting that the collusion narrative they've drilled into voters' heads for 2+ years was fantastically wrong. But they'll never pay any real price for this. No matter how spectacular the failure, political and media elites don't get punished
Two years of this nonsense and it still continues. Not to mention how this nonsense has helped re-start the Cold War. And if it all ends up the nothing that so many of us have said it was? Will they get honest? Will they apologize?
No.
This has been their non-stop Chandra Levy nonsense, distractions while the country should have been paying attention to real news. The corporate media is an embarrassment and public trust in it is at an all time low.
The search for truth fuels the consumption of independent media in the US.
The reality is that the bulk of so-called independent media is nothing but partisan spin where people willingly give up their own independence to become a front group for this or that political party.
SECRET CITY has a second season that's streaming on NETFLIX. The Anna Torv-led series revolves around Harriett. Season one found her searching for truth as a journalist. Her pursuit of truth led to her being imprisoned.
If that seems a cynical fate, grasp that it's not a new view. The original truth teller, Cassandra of Greek mythology, didn't fare much better. Season two finds Torv's Harriett released from prison and working for a politician as she continues her search for the truth. There are twists and turns and it is a satisfying follow up. Anna Torv remains one of the finest actresses working in television today. But, that said, we honestly fear season three. We'll be watching to be sure, it's a great show. But Harriett suffers so for pursuing the truth.
"The snakes in our government bite and then slither back into the cracks. This country is broken."
That's a quote from a character in AMAZON's THE WIDOW. Kate Beckinsale stars as Georgia Wells, a woman determined to find out whether or not her dead husband is really dead. While SECRET CITY builds on suspense, THE WIDOW builds more around action.
What we found most impressive about THE WIDOW is that Georgia can process. Too often, a show about the truth ends with the truth discovered. Georgia discovers the truth and discovers it -- and the man -- really don't matter to her. She adapts and the story continues.
That's a little closer to life and reality.
Meanwhile, TCM can't get further from reality. Thursdays this month, TCM is saluting "Journalism in the movies." And it's doing so with hosts Anderson Cooper and Carl Bernstein.
Are you scratching your head yet?
Thought so. Anderson a talking head, a talk show host -- he's not really a journalist. Just because he no longer hosts THE MOLE doesn't make him a journalist. But let's forget him and focus on Carl.
The breasty Carl Bernstein is on TCM why? Those MOOBS don't need to be sported, let alone shown off.
More to the point, any career Carl had in journalism died in the 70s.
He's of no use and no value to anyone. Yes, he has barked on MSNBC repeatedly about Russia -- that nonsense that hasn't panned out all this time later.
He's a joke.
But that's not why we're objecting.
How can you salute journalism and the movies with Carl?
Nora Ephron was married to Carl. He cheated on her -- and worse. She wrote a book about her life then, a comic memoir. Carl was fine with that. He fancied himself a writer and wasn't all that impressed with Nora's writing. That's why he never objected to HEARTBURN -- not when Nora was writing it, not when it was being published, not when Nora was promoting it.
What happened next?
Mike Nichols wanted to make a film of HEARTBURN. Suddenly, Carl was alarmed. He threatened to sue. He demanded changes. He championed censorship.
The film bares little resemblance to the book and that's due to all of Carl's censorship demands.
After what he did, you don't bring him on as a host and you certainly don't promote him as a "truth teller." Truth telling requires telling the truth and when you threaten to sue your ex-wife over how she portrays your very public affair, your very public cheating on her (everyone in DC knew Carl was cheating before his pregnant wife Nora did), you lose the right to be seen as a truth teller. TCM makes a mockery of truth and journalism by utilizing Carl Bernstein. More to the point, they make a mockery of movies. Mike Nichols was very talented, Jack Nicholson is one of the country's finest movie stars, Meryl Streep was eager to play Nora. All three suffered as a result of Carl's efforts at censorship. Carl Bernstein does not belong on TCM. Ever.
From The TESR Test Kitchen
Who doesn't like ice? And you can never have enough ice on hand. So do you plop down a hundred bucks and buy an ice maker?
THE ORIGINAL ICE GENIE ICE CUBE MAKER claims to be the answer to your problems.
It claims to be a non-electric ice maker. You put a sleeve in the round container. You fill the circle between the container and the sleeve. You put the lid on. Then you pop it into the freezer for a few hours. Presto, you have some ice.
That's the claim, anyway.
The reality?
You're wasting your money on this product. Half the time, you get a few cubes of ice -- maybe ten. They are pellet size and that would be fine if they would make the amount of ice they're supposed to but they never do.
We got this product on February 16th. We tried and tested it more than any product we've ever done.
For seven days straight we tried it.
Then, a week later, we started trying it again.
It makes, on a good attempt, about 1/4 the ice it promises and the rest forms a thick circle inside the sleeve.
It's 20 or so dollars you're tossing in the garbag.
It's not even good at holding ice cubes. And the plastic tongs it comes with? They snap apart almost immediately.
This is a product to avoid at all costs.
Kaya Taitano
Disgraced Nathan Phillips will always have to live with the facts that (a) he lied about being a Vietnam War veteran, (b) he lied about the Covington Kids and (c) he's some sort of a predator that targets boys but he's not really the full story, is he?
While he lied repeatedly to get press attention, he was already known as an attention whore.
The person who appears to be escaping criticism is Kaya Taitano.
Who?
This is the person who filmed and posted the short video. That was the video that made it look like the kids had surrounded predator Nathan Phillips when it was the perp who walked up to the kids. She's also the one who repeatedly told the press that the kids chanted "Build that wall!" -- you know the lie that no tape proved.
In other words, Kaya Taitano set out to deliberately lie. This was no accident, this was her idea of 'activism' apparently.
She took what happened and distorted it.
She posted a tiny segment of the video to lie about what happened and she lied about what happened to the press. And the press, so thankful to have cheap trash like Taitano, even gave her press credit for stills from the video. How often do you ever see that happen?
Kaya Taitano lied. She lied repeatedly. She tried to destroy 16-year-old Nick Sandmann.
She knows she lied.
She knows she's trash.
It's time the world grasped that fact too. Don't be surprised if the media begins exploring her actions as lawsuits against the press make it to court.
While he lied repeatedly to get press attention, he was already known as an attention whore.
The person who appears to be escaping criticism is Kaya Taitano.
Kaya Taitano
Education
- Washington, District Of Columbia
- Primary/Secondary Education
Who?
This is the person who filmed and posted the short video. That was the video that made it look like the kids had surrounded predator Nathan Phillips when it was the perp who walked up to the kids. She's also the one who repeatedly told the press that the kids chanted "Build that wall!" -- you know the lie that no tape proved.
In other words, Kaya Taitano set out to deliberately lie. This was no accident, this was her idea of 'activism' apparently.
She took what happened and distorted it.
She posted a tiny segment of the video to lie about what happened and she lied about what happened to the press. And the press, so thankful to have cheap trash like Taitano, even gave her press credit for stills from the video. How often do you ever see that happen?
Kaya Taitano lied. She lied repeatedly. She tried to destroy 16-year-old Nick Sandmann.
She knows she lied.
She knows she's trash.
It's time the world grasped that fact too. Don't be surprised if the media begins exploring her actions as lawsuits against the press make it to court.
Tweet of the week
- Margaret Kimberley RetweetedYouTube has determined that our @GrayzoneProject’s compilation of @billmaher’s racist diatribes against Muslims and Palestinians is “offensive to some audiences.” Yet Maher’s own content containing the same racism does not come with such a disclaimer. https://youtu.be/sZGC56pfWKo
DiFi goes beserk
The skit didn't air but it should have. Senator Dianne Feinstein is a menace. We noted that here. We noted that we had a wonderful choice, a progressive choice, but instead Cher and her ilk decided to attack the Latino man and elevate Dianne The Liar Feinstein.
Look what you got, a useless, corrupt and bought politician.
- Yes. The children in Dianne Feinstein's office made some extremely cogent points on the 93 trillion dollar green new deal! #kidsResistToo
- Dianne Feinstein doesn't teach cynicism to young children because she really believes that change can't happen. What she really believes is what the lobbyists tell her to believe! They are betting big $ on cynicism as a veil covering for inaction.
Dianne Feinstein Horrendous Reaction To Children Activists https://youtu.be/--tSbKjzsAM
Children arguing with Senator Diane Feinstein (California, Democrat), what the US government needs to do to try and stem climate change; and refuse to buy her arguments. (3:17 duration)
- Listen to the children
Remember when @SenFeinstein snapped at children telling them we don’t have any money for the Green New Deal
Stop yelling at children..
Do your job..get real..grow a heart..
Stop giving up on California...
Way to brow beat those children @SenFeinstein really proved your point
- Hear from Isha Clarke, the teen climate activist who recently paid a visit to @SenFeinstein She's helping to organize a US #schoolstrike4climate on March 15. Children shouldn't have to be protesting for a liveable future, it should be their right!
- Until you apologize to those children I think you need to resign.
- Listen to the children
- Feinstein has direct financial interests in the same fossil fuel companies that the Green New Deal threatens. Maybes that's why her answer to a group of pleading children was that climate change was "not going to get turned around in ten years."
- @SenFeinstein I am not happy the way you treated the children who came to talk to you about climate change. You didn't listen and you weren't a very good role model. You acted like a dictator. But I guess they learned a valuable lesson in government...no one listens.
- 60 Minutes aired episode on climate lawsuit. Government has known about impact of fossil fuels since 1965. You touted your years of experience to the children calling on you to act with urgency on the emergency we are now in. Shame on you for ignoring the problem for 30 years.
