New York state sex-crimes investigators decided that no crime could be proven, and dropped their case against Woody.
Experts at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut went as far as to
suggest that Mia may have coached her daughter to lie, thereby planting a
false abuse narrative in her head.
Mia’s adopted son Moses insists the allegations are preposterous.
“So many times I saw my mother try to convince her that she was
abused — and it has worked,” Moses wrote on his blog. “Some day, I hope
Dylan can escape from my mother, confront the truth and begin her own
healing.”
The custody trial concluded with Mia retaining the kids. But most of
us who experienced the spectacle believe that Mia helped emotionally
cripple Dylan, and alienated her from her father. She should be ashamed.
-- Andrea Peyser, "Mia Farrow has finally succeeded in destroying Woody Allen -- and we should be afraid" (NEW YORK POST).
Monday, March 30, 2020
Truest statement of the week II
Dunham wrote “Not That Kind of Girl,” a best-selling memoir, and launched a newsletter, but after a period of saturation, in which she became a quote-machine on topics unrelated to her TV show, people tired of her. After “Girls” went off the air, some HBO executives privately admitted that enough was enough. A second series on the network, “Camping,” failed to find an audience in 2018.
Without a TV platform, Dunham was adrift, and other voices filled the void — in particular Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose one-two punch of “Killing Eve” and “Fleabag” made Dunham look like a footnote. Dunham attempted to score some hipster cred by appearing as one of the Spahn Ranch girls in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in . . . Hollywood,” but no one noticed. And now the crumbling empire of Condé Nast has decided to link its fortunes with her, calling her one of the “most gifted writers” we have. Truly. And Candace Bushnell is Margaret Atwood.
-- qwertywap, "Do we really need more of Lena Dunham’s navel-gazing?" (QWERTYWAP).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Monday.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
And what did we come up with?
Andrea Peyser gets a truest.
As does QWERTYWAP.
Moqtada isn't just a thug, he's also an idiot.
Ava and C.I. take on the drivel.
It's a question the public needs to ask.
Ava and C.I. take on a very stupid book that pretends it's about women in rock but really isn't.
NPR pretends that they know about Bob Dylan's new song but they really don't.
Jess, Ava and C.I. participated in this Saturday roundtable so we repost it here.
Bob Dylan's new song.
What we listened to while writing.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
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,
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.
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?
Andrea Peyser gets a truest.
As does QWERTYWAP.
Moqtada isn't just a thug, he's also an idiot.
Ava and C.I. take on the drivel.
It's a question the public needs to ask.
Ava and C.I. take on a very stupid book that pretends it's about women in rock but really isn't.
NPR pretends that they know about Bob Dylan's new song but they really don't.
Jess, Ava and C.I. participated in this Saturday roundtable so we repost it here.
Bob Dylan's new song.
What we listened to while writing.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: The suffering never ends in Iraq
Coronavirus is all around and we all are suffering. That includes in Iraq. The World Health Organization noted today:
Iraq today reported 42 deaths since the start of the COVID19 outbreak in the country on 24 February 2020. This makes Iraq the country with the second highest number of COVID19 related deaths across the Eastern Mediterranean region after Iran.
The World Health Organization (WHO) expects a spike in tallies of infected cases within the coming 10 days due to the increase in lab testing capacity. Three laboratories became operational for COVID-19 testing in Najaf, Basrah, and Baghdad Medical City in Baghdad. This has increased the numbers of tested cases to more than 4500 tests a day compared to a maximum of 100 per day a few weeks ago.
Should one of your loved ones die in Iraq from coronavirus complications, your next hurdle is burying the beloved. AFP notes, "Fearing the respiratory illness could somehow spread from the corpses to nearby population centres, Iraqi religious authorities, tribes and townspeople have sent the bodies of COVID-19 victims back to hospital morgues, where they are piling up." TREND NEWS AGENCY notes, "Iraq's Health Ministry on Saturday confirmed two more deaths from COVID-19 and 48 new cases of infections with the virus, Trend reports citing Xinhua. The new cases included nine in the capital Baghdad, 10 in Najaf, six in Basra, five in Erbil and Duhok each, four in Muthanna, three in Karbala, two in Wasit and one in the provinces of Kirkuk, Sulaimaniyah, Diyala and Maysan each, the ministry said in a statement." KURDISTAN 24 notes that the number of confirmed cases is now 506.
And as if things couldn't get worse, along comes thug and cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Yasmine Mosimann (RUDAW) reports:
Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is the latest global religious leader to ignore scientific consensus and accuse the LGBT+ community of causing the coronavirus pandemic.
“One of most significant things to cause the spread of this epidemic is the legalization of same-sex marriage,” said the top cleric in a tweet on Saturday, adding “hence, I call on governments to repeal this law immedietely, without delay.”
Sadr’s comments come at a time when coronavirus has rapidly swept across the world, devastating countries with and without same-sex marriage alike.
Stephen Hickey, British ambassador to Iraq, responded to Sadr’s comment in a tweet saying the United Kingdom “will not change its law on equal marriage, which they are proud of.”
“Instead, let's work together on a better foundation of medical and scientific advice to win the battle against coronavirus,” added the ambassador.
Amir Ashour, founder and executive director at IraQueer, says tweets like Sadr’s are dangerous for Iraq’s LGBT+ community: “We believe such tweets are not only misleading the public scientifically, but are also an attempt to weaponize the current situation and capitalize on the fear of people from the unknown to increase attacks against LGBT+ people.”
“Muqtada al-Sadr is leading a militia which has a documented history of torturing and killing LGBT+ people in organized campaigns using horrific means,” added Ashour in an email statement to Rudaw English.
IRAQUEER, an LGBTQ organization in Iraq, released the following statement:
We condemn Muqtada Al Sadr's statement which claims that same sex marriage is the cause of the coronavirus. Such statements do not only lack scientific grounds, but are also weaponizing Iraqi people's fears during stressful times to target LGBT+ people. Making such ignorant statements will not only endanger LGBT+ people's lives, but will also put the lives of all Iraqis at risk. The coronavirus is a pandemic that must be dealt with seriously and medically, and Muqtada Al Sadr's tweet will only distract us from what is really important, which is to save Iraqi lives.
Moqtada's a bigot and probably a closet case.
TV: Entertainment?
HULU's offering entertainment and shouldn't that be enough?
We kept asking that question as we watched the first six episode of LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE -- an eight-part mini-series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington who also serve as producers. The series packs little pack and only real moments of inspiration tend to occur when Joshua Jackson shows up -- such as when he's brushing his teeth.
Joshua's delivering a performance -- too bad it's a supporting one but LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE can use all the help it can get.
This is Kerry's first series follow up to SCANDAL where she held court for seven seasons and delivered an Emmy worthy performance in one episode after another (she was nominated for Best Actress twice during the series run). She's had two other projects since then. LIVE IN FRONT OF A STUDIO AUDIENCE -- which found her playing Helen Willis from THE JEFFERSONS and partaking in a lie. We love the pretense that Jimmy Kimmel just came up with the idea, one day, out of the blue, to shoot old scripts from ALL IN THE FAMILY and THE JEFFERSONS and GOOD TIMES. It's a cute little lie and one that allowed ABC to save a lot of money. In 2019, pretend you're on to something novel and new and you don't owe the BBC a penny, right? Because BBC'S LOST SITCOMS is the name of the show that's being ripped off by Kimmel. In September of 2016, they took scripts from old sitcoms and filmed them with a new cast as well. One of those old sitcoms was, of course, TILL DEATH DO US PART and the ratings were very good for the series of remakes. You may not know TILL DEATH DO US PART but Jimmy Kimmel does, after all it's the show that became ALL IN THE FAMILY in the US version.
Kerry's other follow up is a film that ended up on NETFLIX as a NETFLIX ORIGINAL. AMERICAN SON starred Kerry and she also produced. We were eager to see it and thought we'd be reviewing it. Kenny Leon, a Tony winning director, was directing the film and Christopher Demos-Brown was adapting his own play for the screen. It should have been something.
It ended up being very little to praise.
Kerry was possibly the worst onscreen element. She pitched her performance far too high from the beginning so there was nothing to go from -- except over the top. She didn't do that in a campy way which might have made for entertainment. Instead, she just snarled and yelled more and became less and less like a mother fearing for her lost son and more and more like a temperamental actor having a snit fit on the set. It should have been a moving role -- and many actresses have made it one when they've played mothers fearing for the safety of their children -- see Michelle Pfeiffer in THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN, Halle Berry in LOSING ISAIAH, Nicole Kidman in BOY ERASED, Viola Davis in DOUBT, etc. You never believe Kerry's playing the mother of a child who is missing. You never even believe she's playing a character with a child. It's a lousy performance. That might not be all her fault. Possibly, director Leon failed to reign in her and maybe even encouraged her to play it as such a high pitch. In a theater, her performance might have worked. In the world of film -- with all its close ups -- her performance was off putting and annoying.
Off putting is Reese in LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, off putting is Reese in basically anything. Reese became a movie star via the old fashioned pattern -- she played a type. Plucky, headstrong, rigid. We're not saying she's given the same performance over and over because she hasn't. We are saying that like Cary Grant or Joan Crawford before her, she achieved fame playing a type and has been cast as that type repeatedly. For most, the type begins with ELECTION but it's already present in TWILIGHT, SFW and JACK THE BEAR. The type is present in most of her films. When it works, LEGALLY BLONDE, it works because she's surrounded by strong characters to play off of. When it doesn't work, HOT PURSUIT, she's got a weak script that no one can play and she's left coming off irritating and off putting with no resolution near the end and no reason to root for her to get to that resolution.
She was off putting playing her type in BIG LITTLE LIES and it worked because the script worked and the actors worked. Here, in LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, she's let down because there's really no reason to watch, the storyline is not involving, and because there's so little acting worthy of praise.
We can't praise Kerry's acting. It's the sort of I'm-slumming-and-not-breaking-a-sweat stuff actresses used to farm out in bad Sidney Sheldon mini-series and assorted corny TV movies. On top of that, she's poorly dressed. We don't mean her character wears cheap clothes, we mean the clothes do not enhance her. Her outfits hurt the eyes in the same way that Brad Pitt's swollen face -- cut down on the drinking and lose some weight before you go in front of a camera when you're known for your looks and not your acting -- hurts the eyes in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. When you're doing run-of-the-mill TV, maybe even trash TV, like LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, it does matter what you wear -- sometimes it's the only reason people keep watching.
Yes, TV can be that superficial. All of TV. Even TV news or 'news.' We were reminded of just how superficial it can be on Friday when CBS NEWS broke into live programming to 'cover' the stimulus package. "PRESIDENT SIGNS CORONAVIRUS RESCUE PACKAGE" was scrawled across the bottom of the screen, right above it the notation that this was live and a "CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT" -- or that's what CBS thought it was.
To our jaded eyes? It was CBS TALK SPECIAL TWO GALS DISHING.
Norah O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes are supposed to be news women. So it was truly sad just how run of the mill gossipy the whole thing was. If Ethel Mertz had walked in carrying cups and a pot of coffee, we wouldn't have been at all surprised.
6.2 trillion dollars, President Donald Trump announced, that was what he was signing in the clip CBS showed -- of Donald signing the bill into law live. It was a $2.2 trillion bill, that's a fact. It may go up to 6.2 trillion eventually (as Donald maintains) but, for now, the fact is that it's $2.2 trillion. It's also a fact that Norah and Nancy never noted. Math is hard said CBS NEWS Barbies.
"I want to get to the details of what's in the bill," Norah insisted before ignoring that to argue that the signing ceremony was an example of the White House not practicing social distancing.
This led to Nancy telling Norah that no Democrats were at the singing and that she'd confirmed with US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office that Pelosi wasn't invited to the signing. Oh, and Nancy added, Senator Chuck Schumer wasn't there "and the President has made it very clear how he feels about Pelosi . . ."
Norah insisted that the $300 billion cash payments had been "already laid out" by Nancy even though all Nancy had said was "a massive economic bill that will get money in the hands of almost every American." Nancy was playing hot potato and tossing the credit right back to Norah:
What a lot of Americans are going to be wondering about this bill, Norah, is when will they see the money. Those cash payments that you mentioned should start going out fairly quickly, the Treasury Secretary says that people will see them in their bank accounts if they have direct deposit with the IRS within the next couple of weeks . . .
No, neither woman had bothered to address the one-time only cash payments -- not that they were one-time only nor that they were for only $1,200. When you're too busy gossiping about who got invited and who didn't -- we kept waiting for them to reflect on who everyone was wearing and who wore it better -- you can't be too sure of what facts you might have imparted or not imparted.
Four minutes of fluff passed off as a CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT.
For reality about what the law would do, you had to go to Barry Grey (WSWS):
The $2.2 trillion estimated cost of the bill, equal to more than half of the entire federal budget and far in excess of the $700 billion bank bailout bill passed in 2008, substantially underestimates the actual scale of the government handout to big business. The biggest single slice of the bill, $454 billion to finance guaranteed loans to big corporations, is designed to be leveraged by the Federal Reserve Board into some $4.5 trillion in loans and subsidies.
This amounts to a virtually unlimited backstop for the country's corporate and financial aristocracy, with no real strings attached. The provisions that provide stop-gap assistance to workers who are being laid off in the millions or being ordered to work without any protection against the deadly virus are designed to head off an eruption of class conflict in the short-term, so that the ruling class can buy time and prepare a counteroffensive to place the full cost of the corporate bailout on the backs of the working class. The bill's passage coincides with Trump's push to “open up” the country and force workers back into the plants and workplaces to resume pumping out profits for big business.
[. . .]
The vast bulk of the bill is a massive handout to business, with most of the money by far going to big corporations. In addition to the $454 billion Treasury backstop for Fed loans and grants to corporations, the bill provides $46 billion in targeted loans from the Treasury Department, mainly to the commercial airline industry, with $17 billion carved out for Boeing.
It sets aside $350 billion in loans and aid to small businesses, which are defined as enterprises with up to 500 employees. This could include multi-billion-dollar hedge funds and other financial firms.
There is also $50 billion for an “employee retention tax credit” to companies that keep their employees on the payroll.
There are other windfalls to business buried in the more than 800 pages of the legislation. One that could directly benefit Trump or his associates is the full restoration to the real estate sector of a huge tax break for interest costs and operating losses that was limited by the 2017 tax overhaul.
Restrictions imposed on corporations receiving government aid are largely nullified by caveats. There is a provision barring businesses receiving loans from cutting their employment levels until September 30. However, this is hedged with the phrase “to the extent practicable.”
HULU's offering lightweight entertainment -- the equivalent of the ABC mini-series HOLLYWOOD WIVES -- and isn't that enough? As Maria McKee asks in "Why Wasn't I More Grateful When Life Was Sweet," isn't that enough -- song appears on her YOU'VE GOT TO SIN TO GET SAVED and was written by Maria and Bruce Brody and Marvin Etzioni. It's a diversion and maybe it is enough for entertainment but it certainly is not enough for the news -- somebody break it to CBS.
We kept asking that question as we watched the first six episode of LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE -- an eight-part mini-series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington who also serve as producers. The series packs little pack and only real moments of inspiration tend to occur when Joshua Jackson shows up -- such as when he's brushing his teeth.
Joshua's delivering a performance -- too bad it's a supporting one but LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE can use all the help it can get.
This is Kerry's first series follow up to SCANDAL where she held court for seven seasons and delivered an Emmy worthy performance in one episode after another (she was nominated for Best Actress twice during the series run). She's had two other projects since then. LIVE IN FRONT OF A STUDIO AUDIENCE -- which found her playing Helen Willis from THE JEFFERSONS and partaking in a lie. We love the pretense that Jimmy Kimmel just came up with the idea, one day, out of the blue, to shoot old scripts from ALL IN THE FAMILY and THE JEFFERSONS and GOOD TIMES. It's a cute little lie and one that allowed ABC to save a lot of money. In 2019, pretend you're on to something novel and new and you don't owe the BBC a penny, right? Because BBC'S LOST SITCOMS is the name of the show that's being ripped off by Kimmel. In September of 2016, they took scripts from old sitcoms and filmed them with a new cast as well. One of those old sitcoms was, of course, TILL DEATH DO US PART and the ratings were very good for the series of remakes. You may not know TILL DEATH DO US PART but Jimmy Kimmel does, after all it's the show that became ALL IN THE FAMILY in the US version.
Kerry's other follow up is a film that ended up on NETFLIX as a NETFLIX ORIGINAL. AMERICAN SON starred Kerry and she also produced. We were eager to see it and thought we'd be reviewing it. Kenny Leon, a Tony winning director, was directing the film and Christopher Demos-Brown was adapting his own play for the screen. It should have been something.
It ended up being very little to praise.
Kerry was possibly the worst onscreen element. She pitched her performance far too high from the beginning so there was nothing to go from -- except over the top. She didn't do that in a campy way which might have made for entertainment. Instead, she just snarled and yelled more and became less and less like a mother fearing for her lost son and more and more like a temperamental actor having a snit fit on the set. It should have been a moving role -- and many actresses have made it one when they've played mothers fearing for the safety of their children -- see Michelle Pfeiffer in THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN, Halle Berry in LOSING ISAIAH, Nicole Kidman in BOY ERASED, Viola Davis in DOUBT, etc. You never believe Kerry's playing the mother of a child who is missing. You never even believe she's playing a character with a child. It's a lousy performance. That might not be all her fault. Possibly, director Leon failed to reign in her and maybe even encouraged her to play it as such a high pitch. In a theater, her performance might have worked. In the world of film -- with all its close ups -- her performance was off putting and annoying.
Off putting is Reese in LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, off putting is Reese in basically anything. Reese became a movie star via the old fashioned pattern -- she played a type. Plucky, headstrong, rigid. We're not saying she's given the same performance over and over because she hasn't. We are saying that like Cary Grant or Joan Crawford before her, she achieved fame playing a type and has been cast as that type repeatedly. For most, the type begins with ELECTION but it's already present in TWILIGHT, SFW and JACK THE BEAR. The type is present in most of her films. When it works, LEGALLY BLONDE, it works because she's surrounded by strong characters to play off of. When it doesn't work, HOT PURSUIT, she's got a weak script that no one can play and she's left coming off irritating and off putting with no resolution near the end and no reason to root for her to get to that resolution.
She was off putting playing her type in BIG LITTLE LIES and it worked because the script worked and the actors worked. Here, in LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, she's let down because there's really no reason to watch, the storyline is not involving, and because there's so little acting worthy of praise.
We can't praise Kerry's acting. It's the sort of I'm-slumming-and-not-breaking-a-sweat stuff actresses used to farm out in bad Sidney Sheldon mini-series and assorted corny TV movies. On top of that, she's poorly dressed. We don't mean her character wears cheap clothes, we mean the clothes do not enhance her. Her outfits hurt the eyes in the same way that Brad Pitt's swollen face -- cut down on the drinking and lose some weight before you go in front of a camera when you're known for your looks and not your acting -- hurts the eyes in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. When you're doing run-of-the-mill TV, maybe even trash TV, like LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, it does matter what you wear -- sometimes it's the only reason people keep watching.
Yes, TV can be that superficial. All of TV. Even TV news or 'news.' We were reminded of just how superficial it can be on Friday when CBS NEWS broke into live programming to 'cover' the stimulus package. "PRESIDENT SIGNS CORONAVIRUS RESCUE PACKAGE" was scrawled across the bottom of the screen, right above it the notation that this was live and a "CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT" -- or that's what CBS thought it was.
To our jaded eyes? It was CBS TALK SPECIAL TWO GALS DISHING.
Norah O'Donnell and Nancy Cordes are supposed to be news women. So it was truly sad just how run of the mill gossipy the whole thing was. If Ethel Mertz had walked in carrying cups and a pot of coffee, we wouldn't have been at all surprised.
6.2 trillion dollars, President Donald Trump announced, that was what he was signing in the clip CBS showed -- of Donald signing the bill into law live. It was a $2.2 trillion bill, that's a fact. It may go up to 6.2 trillion eventually (as Donald maintains) but, for now, the fact is that it's $2.2 trillion. It's also a fact that Norah and Nancy never noted. Math is hard said CBS NEWS Barbies.
"I want to get to the details of what's in the bill," Norah insisted before ignoring that to argue that the signing ceremony was an example of the White House not practicing social distancing.
This led to Nancy telling Norah that no Democrats were at the singing and that she'd confirmed with US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office that Pelosi wasn't invited to the signing. Oh, and Nancy added, Senator Chuck Schumer wasn't there "and the President has made it very clear how he feels about Pelosi . . ."
Norah insisted that the $300 billion cash payments had been "already laid out" by Nancy even though all Nancy had said was "a massive economic bill that will get money in the hands of almost every American." Nancy was playing hot potato and tossing the credit right back to Norah:
What a lot of Americans are going to be wondering about this bill, Norah, is when will they see the money. Those cash payments that you mentioned should start going out fairly quickly, the Treasury Secretary says that people will see them in their bank accounts if they have direct deposit with the IRS within the next couple of weeks . . .
No, neither woman had bothered to address the one-time only cash payments -- not that they were one-time only nor that they were for only $1,200. When you're too busy gossiping about who got invited and who didn't -- we kept waiting for them to reflect on who everyone was wearing and who wore it better -- you can't be too sure of what facts you might have imparted or not imparted.
Four minutes of fluff passed off as a CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT.
For reality about what the law would do, you had to go to Barry Grey (WSWS):
The $2.2 trillion estimated cost of the bill, equal to more than half of the entire federal budget and far in excess of the $700 billion bank bailout bill passed in 2008, substantially underestimates the actual scale of the government handout to big business. The biggest single slice of the bill, $454 billion to finance guaranteed loans to big corporations, is designed to be leveraged by the Federal Reserve Board into some $4.5 trillion in loans and subsidies.
This amounts to a virtually unlimited backstop for the country's corporate and financial aristocracy, with no real strings attached. The provisions that provide stop-gap assistance to workers who are being laid off in the millions or being ordered to work without any protection against the deadly virus are designed to head off an eruption of class conflict in the short-term, so that the ruling class can buy time and prepare a counteroffensive to place the full cost of the corporate bailout on the backs of the working class. The bill's passage coincides with Trump's push to “open up” the country and force workers back into the plants and workplaces to resume pumping out profits for big business.
[. . .]
The vast bulk of the bill is a massive handout to business, with most of the money by far going to big corporations. In addition to the $454 billion Treasury backstop for Fed loans and grants to corporations, the bill provides $46 billion in targeted loans from the Treasury Department, mainly to the commercial airline industry, with $17 billion carved out for Boeing.
It sets aside $350 billion in loans and aid to small businesses, which are defined as enterprises with up to 500 employees. This could include multi-billion-dollar hedge funds and other financial firms.
There is also $50 billion for an “employee retention tax credit” to companies that keep their employees on the payroll.
There are other windfalls to business buried in the more than 800 pages of the legislation. One that could directly benefit Trump or his associates is the full restoration to the real estate sector of a huge tax break for interest costs and operating losses that was limited by the 2017 tax overhaul.
Restrictions imposed on corporations receiving government aid are largely nullified by caveats. There is a provision barring businesses receiving loans from cutting their employment levels until September 30. However, this is hedged with the phrase “to the extent practicable.”
HULU's offering lightweight entertainment -- the equivalent of the ABC mini-series HOLLYWOOD WIVES -- and isn't that enough? As Maria McKee asks in "Why Wasn't I More Grateful When Life Was Sweet," isn't that enough -- song appears on her YOU'VE GOT TO SIN TO GET SAVED and was written by Maria and Bruce Brody and Marvin Etzioni. It's a diversion and maybe it is enough for entertainment but it certainly is not enough for the news -- somebody break it to CBS.
Did Joe Biden assault staffer Tara Reade
Arwa Mahdawi (GUARDIAN) observes:
"Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been accused of sexual assault by a former staffer. Tara Reade, who worked with Biden when he was a Delaware senator, alleges he inappropriately touched her and penetrated her with his fingers without consent in 1993."
Last week, the charges surfaced. In a community roundtable, this was noted by Mike:
First, to reply to four e-mails I got today, no, it's not the actress Tara Reid. Tara Reade is a different person. Among other things, she worked for Joe Biden's office in the 90s when he was a US Senator. He is currently running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. This week, Tara Reade became an issue for Joe when Ryan Grimm reported on her allegations for THE INTERCEPT and noted that TimesUp! refused to help her. He then discussed that on THE HILL's RISING with Krystal Ball. Katie Halper interviewed Tara about her story. Those late to the party can refer to my "Tara Reade was assaulted by Joe Biden" and "Joe Biden assaulted Tara Reade" and C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot." Anna North (VOX) explains, "Reade says Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall and penetrating her with his fingers. When she pulled away, she says, he said he thought she 'liked' him." The corporate media has been reluctant to cover the issue all week.
That roundtable was done early Saturday morning. Somehow what the community knew and grasped Chuck Todd couldn't. Joe Biden appeared Sunday on NBC's MEEK THE PRESS and meek Chuck refused to ask him about that.
Right there we should all stop a minute.
Remember this?
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Not Us Gals love Charlie Rose" was covering how, in a debate, Senator Elizabeth Warren raised the issue -- documented by THE WASHINGTON POST among other publications -- of Michael Bloomberg's workplace hostility towards women. Instead of allowing her to explore this, the moderators Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell shut it down.
Why?
We need to be asking.
Gayle and Norah looked the other way for years while Charlie Rose harassed other women. Are they enablers? Is Chuck Todd enabling harassment at NBC -- or is he himself a harasser?
When so-called journalists refuse to raise this very serious issue, we all have a right to wonder why that is. And maybe the conclusion is that those who are part of the harassment are the ones who don't want to raise the issue.
Libby Emmons (THE POST MILENNIAL) notes how Times Up! and Senator Kamala Harris have refused to help Tara Reade:
The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, part of the Women’s Law Center, endeavors to connect women who have been victimized by the patriarchy to attorneys who can represent them. They declined, however, to help Reade out, claiming that as a not-for-profit they couldn’t get involved due to the political nature of her case, and the Internal Revenue Service restrictions on not-for-profits making political statements.
“Time’s Up argued that the case was too political considering that Biden was a candidate for president,” wrote Tristan Justice in The Federalist, “and it didn’t want to jeopardize its status housed with the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) as a 501(c)(3) non-profit with the Internal Revenue Service, which allows the organization to be exempt from certain taxes.”
One wonders how connecting an abuse victim with an attorney constitutes political involvement, or making a political statement. They probably believe Reade and everything, they just don’t think they can do anything about it. A shame their hands are tied and they can’t make a giant case against such a hugely powerful individual such as Joe Biden. Serial predator Harvey Weinstein was one thing, but what serious damage could be done to the standing patriarchy by eliminating a top presidential contender. Then we’d all really know the chicks are getting serious.
Reade reached out to Kamala Harris’ office. This was a great bet, since Harris was a vocal proponent of Brett Kavanaugh’s condemnation as a sexual predator despite the lack of evidence. But Harris, who has endorsed Biden, has not reached back out. Probably she has super good reasons for not jumping on the bandwagon with Tara Reade. Maybe she needs more evidence or something.
As said of Harris by Brad Polumbo in the Washington Examiner, “If she does not immediately denounce [Biden] in light of this accusation, all her emotional condemnations of Kavanaugh were clearly simply the partisan theatrics of a deeply cynical, conniving politician willing to disregard due process for her political opponents, but not her allies.”
If the first-hand account posed by Tara Reade on Soundcloud, before God and everyone, aren’t enough to get the support of the whole Me Too and Time’s Up contingent, if it’s not enough to take down a man who has other allegations against him, or to even damage this man of power, this upholder of patriarchal privilege, then it’s over. That’s the only take away.
What does it say about our media when so much of it refuses to even acknowledge Tara Reade? What message does that send? And how much hypocrisy will the American people be expected to swallow?
Brammhi Balarajan (THE EMORY WHEEL) concludes:
What should we conclude about our democratic process if it forces us to choose our next president from two men accused of sexual assault? The lack of coverage and failure to address these issues suggests that the Democratic Party values control of the White House over justice and accountability. Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, we all need to take these allegations seriously. The recent Twitter controversy surrounding Reade’s accusation isn’t just warranted — it’s necessary.
We more than agree.
Avoid GIllian G. Gaar's very bad book (Ava and C.I.)
Few books stand the test of time. We realized that as we picked up Gillian G. Gaar's SHE'S A REBEL: THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ROCK & ROLL. Were it not for self-isolation and the pandemic, we probably would have continued to ignore the book.
It had received praise. From . . . feminists.
We're feminists. But we're leery of any book pretending to be about music that only receives praise from feminists who never cover music. Look, Ellen Willis praising the book? We'd take that seriously. The book came out in 1991 so Ellen could have praised it. Ellen was a feminist who loved music and was one of the country's best music critics. But Ellen took a pass, didn't she?
Susan Faludi loves the book and provides a dumb quote: "Gillian Gaar proves that American rock & roll is not a boy's club" -- really, Gillian proved that -- talk about rendering the work of all the women who came before invisible. Naomi Wolf babbles on with only the nonsense that Naomi can offer. Then there's the idiotic Lindsy Van Gelder who wants to issue a statement. Hey, Lindsy, when you apologize for "bra burning" being associated with feminism, we'll want to read your statement until then you're just travel writer who took a job at MS. because you couldn't get anything else at the time.
At least Lindsy's a lesbian.
We say that because too often this book is not about women who rocked (or even folked or even popped) but about women who had sex with other women -- and sometimes these women included didn't even make music.
Lesbians and straight, bi and trans women have made great contributions to popular music -- whether it was rock music or not -- and a book about their contributions could be very interesting. A book focusing on just one grouping of those females could also be very interesting. Gaar writes as though she's more interested in the lesbian story but doesn't have the guts to say so in print. It leads to many embarrassments. We'll get to it.
But first, Lou Reed never identified as a woman. He wasn't trans. So why does he get more time in the book than, for example, Carly Simon. In the actual text, Carly is mentioned in one sentence (two if you also include the book's introduction). So much for women who rocked. "You're So Vain" rocked. The same cannot be said about many of the women that Gaar tongue bathes.
10 pages. Ten. Eleven if you count the introduction. That's how many pages that Gaar spends tongue bathing Michelle Shocked.
To clear up reality for those who only know her from her career destroying move in San Francisco last decade, Michelle Shocked never mattered to music.
She performed live and someone recorded it. It came out as an album and wasn't groundbreaking and didn't sell. Her only hit was "Anchorage" and that was a minor hit. She is of no value or importance to rock or to the notion of women in rock.
But ten pages. Wow. Ten.
You know how many pages trail blazer Stevie Nicks got in the book?
Zero.
Stevie Nicks is a member of Fleetwood Mac and a solo artist. She is responsible for Fleetwood Mac's only number one hit single to this day -- she wrote and sang lead on "Dreams." Other hits she contributed to the group include "Landslide," "Rhiannon," "Gypsy," "Sara," "Paper Doll," "Say You Will" and "Silver Springs." Away from the group, she's scored hits with "Leather and Lace," "Edge of Seventeen," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," "Stand Back," "If Anyone Falls In Love," "Nightbird," "Talk To Me," "Needles & Pins," "Whenever I Call You Friend," "Gold," "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems," "Golden," "Bootylicious," "I Can't Wait,'' "Rooms On Fire," "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You," "Sometimes It's A Bitch," "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind," "Every Day," "Sorcerer," "Secret Love" and "For What It's Worth." In fact, let's note that last one because it's a song we love more with each passing year.
You're writing a book about women who rock and you don't even mention Stevie Nicks?
You're a disgrace, you're an embarrassment. (Yes, the book was published in 1992 -- Stevie was already a trail blazing artist by the mid-seventies.)
We should also note that Christine McVie notched up a few solo hits (four on the US charts) as well as singing on and writing hits for Fleetwood Mac ("You Make Loving Fun," "Over My Head," "Say You Love Me," "Don't Stop," "Hold Me," "Think About Me," "Love In Store," "Little Lies," "Everywhere," "Save Me" and "As Long As You Follow"). How many pages does Christine McVie get in this book? Zero.
But ten pages for the insignificant Michelle Schocked? Michelle never mattered. She never sold albums, she never wrote a song that had any lasting value. She was never an influencer. She did pretend to be a lesbian at the time Gaar was writing her bad book and apparently that is all it took. Pose as a lesbian and Gaar's in love -- blindly in love.
As we all know today, Michelle Shocked is not a lesbian, she's a loud and proud homophobe. She broadcast that from the stage in San Francisco in March of 2013:
I was in a prayer meeting yesterday and you gotta appreciate how scared … folks on that side of the equation are. I mean, from their vantage point, and I really shouldn’t say ‘their,’ ’cause it’s mine, too, we are nearly at the end of time. And from our vantage point, we’re gonna be, uh, I think maybe Chinese water torture is gonna be the means, the method, once Prop 8 gets instated and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the homosexuals, I’m pretty sure that that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back. You said you wanted reality. If someone would be so gracious as to tweet out that Michelle Shocked just said from stage, ‘God hates fa**ots.’ Would you do it now?
That's the woman Gillian Gaar couldn't stop tongue bathing for ten pages in her hideous book.
Again, Michelle was posing as a lesbian when Gaar wrote her book. Posing as a lesbian. A lesbian who married a man before Gaar's book was released. But in 1988 and 1989 especially, Michelle was deliberately misleading the public by claiming she was a lesbian. (She would later try to insist that she never claimed such a thing. Too bad for her, the interviews she gave to the gay press back then still exist.)
A lot of women have posed as lesbian to the press -- or marketed themselves as such -- when they weren't. Melissa Shocked is one, Holly Near is another and Ani DiFranco rounds out the unholy trinity. Of the three, only Ani deserves to be in a book about women in rock based on artistic contributions. Ani's not in the book (by the time the book was published, Ani had released her third album, apparently Gaar wasn't in the know about much of anything). While Ani's not present, Holly Near endlessly is. Yammering on and, no, we don't need to hear that Holly was on an episode of THE MOD SQUAD or anything else. She was a fat woman hired to play young fat women on several TV shows. And, for the record, this 'role' on THE MOD SQUAD, we all do grasp that Gaar is leaving out the name of the character Holly played -- "clerk." The TV appearances listed have nothing to do with music and, more to the point, had nothing to do with acting.
Cris Williamson earned her place in the book. She's an artist. 1975's THE CHANGER AND THE CHANGED is a classic -- a major classic -- and she has other albums as well that have stood the test of time. She is short changed when a do-nothing like Michelle Shocked is given ten pages.
We also question the inclusion of WOMEN SOUND -- a sound company that provided audio speakers and microphones to a concert and to some speaking gigs (Gloria Steinem, etc). Speaking gigs aren't rock and roll. What was the point?
Time and again, we're taken away from actual accomplishments in the musical industry for nonsense like that or like Michelle Shocked or other b.s.
Real women who rocked -- or popped or folked -- are overlooked completely (Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Ani DiFranco, etc) or shortchanged (Cher -- one and a half pages for Cher a woman who has produced a number one chart hit in every decade since the sixties, a woman who has one of the best selling tours, a woman who has lasted six decades on the music charts and counting; Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Etta James whose career apparently ended in the 50s because Gaar ignores James' classic work in the 60s and 70s, etc).
Real artists are ignored and short changed. The book is a joke and demonstrates nothing of value. One more example, in a snit fit of rage, John Phillips briefly pulled Michelle Phillips' co-writing credit on "California Dreamin'" -- instead of exploring that or the sexism involved, Gaar accepts it as warranted. Michelle earned her co-writing credit on all of the songs she co-wrote (six were recorded by the group). In a book supposedly about women in rock and the hardships they endured, Gaar refused to question John Phillips' attempt to erase Michelle's credit. She didn't even note that, for example, for years John Phillips had falsely claimed credit for writing "500 Miles" -- Hedy West wrote that song.
Gaar accomplished nothing with her useless book. "SHE" may be A REBEL but "SHE" clearly does not refer to Gaar.
It had received praise. From . . . feminists.
We're feminists. But we're leery of any book pretending to be about music that only receives praise from feminists who never cover music. Look, Ellen Willis praising the book? We'd take that seriously. The book came out in 1991 so Ellen could have praised it. Ellen was a feminist who loved music and was one of the country's best music critics. But Ellen took a pass, didn't she?
Susan Faludi loves the book and provides a dumb quote: "Gillian Gaar proves that American rock & roll is not a boy's club" -- really, Gillian proved that -- talk about rendering the work of all the women who came before invisible. Naomi Wolf babbles on with only the nonsense that Naomi can offer. Then there's the idiotic Lindsy Van Gelder who wants to issue a statement. Hey, Lindsy, when you apologize for "bra burning" being associated with feminism, we'll want to read your statement until then you're just travel writer who took a job at MS. because you couldn't get anything else at the time.
At least Lindsy's a lesbian.
We say that because too often this book is not about women who rocked (or even folked or even popped) but about women who had sex with other women -- and sometimes these women included didn't even make music.
Lesbians and straight, bi and trans women have made great contributions to popular music -- whether it was rock music or not -- and a book about their contributions could be very interesting. A book focusing on just one grouping of those females could also be very interesting. Gaar writes as though she's more interested in the lesbian story but doesn't have the guts to say so in print. It leads to many embarrassments. We'll get to it.
But first, Lou Reed never identified as a woman. He wasn't trans. So why does he get more time in the book than, for example, Carly Simon. In the actual text, Carly is mentioned in one sentence (two if you also include the book's introduction). So much for women who rocked. "You're So Vain" rocked. The same cannot be said about many of the women that Gaar tongue bathes.
10 pages. Ten. Eleven if you count the introduction. That's how many pages that Gaar spends tongue bathing Michelle Shocked.
To clear up reality for those who only know her from her career destroying move in San Francisco last decade, Michelle Shocked never mattered to music.
She performed live and someone recorded it. It came out as an album and wasn't groundbreaking and didn't sell. Her only hit was "Anchorage" and that was a minor hit. She is of no value or importance to rock or to the notion of women in rock.
But ten pages. Wow. Ten.
You know how many pages trail blazer Stevie Nicks got in the book?
Zero.
Stevie Nicks is a member of Fleetwood Mac and a solo artist. She is responsible for Fleetwood Mac's only number one hit single to this day -- she wrote and sang lead on "Dreams." Other hits she contributed to the group include "Landslide," "Rhiannon," "Gypsy," "Sara," "Paper Doll," "Say You Will" and "Silver Springs." Away from the group, she's scored hits with "Leather and Lace," "Edge of Seventeen," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," "Stand Back," "If Anyone Falls In Love," "Nightbird," "Talk To Me," "Needles & Pins," "Whenever I Call You Friend," "Gold," "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems," "Golden," "Bootylicious," "I Can't Wait,'' "Rooms On Fire," "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You," "Sometimes It's A Bitch," "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind," "Every Day," "Sorcerer," "Secret Love" and "For What It's Worth." In fact, let's note that last one because it's a song we love more with each passing year.
You're writing a book about women who rock and you don't even mention Stevie Nicks?
You're a disgrace, you're an embarrassment. (Yes, the book was published in 1992 -- Stevie was already a trail blazing artist by the mid-seventies.)
We should also note that Christine McVie notched up a few solo hits (four on the US charts) as well as singing on and writing hits for Fleetwood Mac ("You Make Loving Fun," "Over My Head," "Say You Love Me," "Don't Stop," "Hold Me," "Think About Me," "Love In Store," "Little Lies," "Everywhere," "Save Me" and "As Long As You Follow"). How many pages does Christine McVie get in this book? Zero.
But ten pages for the insignificant Michelle Schocked? Michelle never mattered. She never sold albums, she never wrote a song that had any lasting value. She was never an influencer. She did pretend to be a lesbian at the time Gaar was writing her bad book and apparently that is all it took. Pose as a lesbian and Gaar's in love -- blindly in love.
As we all know today, Michelle Shocked is not a lesbian, she's a loud and proud homophobe. She broadcast that from the stage in San Francisco in March of 2013:
I was in a prayer meeting yesterday and you gotta appreciate how scared … folks on that side of the equation are. I mean, from their vantage point, and I really shouldn’t say ‘their,’ ’cause it’s mine, too, we are nearly at the end of time. And from our vantage point, we’re gonna be, uh, I think maybe Chinese water torture is gonna be the means, the method, once Prop 8 gets instated and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the homosexuals, I’m pretty sure that that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back. You said you wanted reality. If someone would be so gracious as to tweet out that Michelle Shocked just said from stage, ‘God hates fa**ots.’ Would you do it now?
That's the woman Gillian Gaar couldn't stop tongue bathing for ten pages in her hideous book.
Again, Michelle was posing as a lesbian when Gaar wrote her book. Posing as a lesbian. A lesbian who married a man before Gaar's book was released. But in 1988 and 1989 especially, Michelle was deliberately misleading the public by claiming she was a lesbian. (She would later try to insist that she never claimed such a thing. Too bad for her, the interviews she gave to the gay press back then still exist.)
A lot of women have posed as lesbian to the press -- or marketed themselves as such -- when they weren't. Melissa Shocked is one, Holly Near is another and Ani DiFranco rounds out the unholy trinity. Of the three, only Ani deserves to be in a book about women in rock based on artistic contributions. Ani's not in the book (by the time the book was published, Ani had released her third album, apparently Gaar wasn't in the know about much of anything). While Ani's not present, Holly Near endlessly is. Yammering on and, no, we don't need to hear that Holly was on an episode of THE MOD SQUAD or anything else. She was a fat woman hired to play young fat women on several TV shows. And, for the record, this 'role' on THE MOD SQUAD, we all do grasp that Gaar is leaving out the name of the character Holly played -- "clerk." The TV appearances listed have nothing to do with music and, more to the point, had nothing to do with acting.
Cris Williamson earned her place in the book. She's an artist. 1975's THE CHANGER AND THE CHANGED is a classic -- a major classic -- and she has other albums as well that have stood the test of time. She is short changed when a do-nothing like Michelle Shocked is given ten pages.
We also question the inclusion of WOMEN SOUND -- a sound company that provided audio speakers and microphones to a concert and to some speaking gigs (Gloria Steinem, etc). Speaking gigs aren't rock and roll. What was the point?
Time and again, we're taken away from actual accomplishments in the musical industry for nonsense like that or like Michelle Shocked or other b.s.
Real women who rocked -- or popped or folked -- are overlooked completely (Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Ani DiFranco, etc) or shortchanged (Cher -- one and a half pages for Cher a woman who has produced a number one chart hit in every decade since the sixties, a woman who has one of the best selling tours, a woman who has lasted six decades on the music charts and counting; Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Etta James whose career apparently ended in the 50s because Gaar ignores James' classic work in the 60s and 70s, etc).
Real artists are ignored and short changed. The book is a joke and demonstrates nothing of value. One more example, in a snit fit of rage, John Phillips briefly pulled Michelle Phillips' co-writing credit on "California Dreamin'" -- instead of exploring that or the sexism involved, Gaar accepts it as warranted. Michelle earned her co-writing credit on all of the songs she co-wrote (six were recorded by the group). In a book supposedly about women in rock and the hardships they endured, Gaar refused to question John Phillips' attempt to erase Michelle's credit. She didn't even note that, for example, for years John Phillips had falsely claimed credit for writing "500 Miles" -- Hedy West wrote that song.
Gaar accomplished nothing with her useless book. "SHE" may be A REBEL but "SHE" clearly does not refer to Gaar.
NPR hires idiots who strip women of the credit they earned and deserve (Ava and C.I.)
Bob Dylan released a new track and NPR showed how stupid they truly are. They took it upon themselves to tell you which songs are mentioned in Bob's new song "Murder Most Foul." Ann Powers and Bob Boilen compiled a list of 74 songs supposedly mentioned in Bob's new song.
Supposedly?
Well, for starters, their list includes Etta James' "Tell Mama." Huh? He name checks Etta's "I'd Rather Go Blind" but we're missing where he's referring to "Tell Mama."
We find it curious that they say "Walk On By" is in the mix -- or rather that the say "Burt Bacharach's 'Walk On By'." All the other songs are identified by who sang them, not who wrote them. Clearly, Dionne Warwick sang "Walk On By" and had the huge hit with it. Do they have an aversion to mentioning Dionne Warwick?
Maybe it's an aversion to Amy Heckerling's CLUELESS? Dionne and Cher are the names of the main characters in that film. For some reason, they insist that "Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is noted in Dylan's new song. But get this, they credit it to Nancy Sinatra. Strange because Sonny Bono wrote that song for Cher, Cher was the first artist to record it and Cher's version of the song made it to number two on the charts. How high did Nancy's version go? It was never released as a single. It wasn't known to the public back then. It was an album cut on an album that didn't even go gold. Nancy's album HOW DOES THAT GRAB YOU only made it as high as number 41 on the charts, Cher's album containing "Bang Bang" (THE SONNY SIDE OF CHER) made it to number 26. Oh, and Cher's version of "Bang Bang"? It sold over a million copies. It was a huge hit in this country and around the world.
If you're not getting the point, 1970 saw the release of Nancy Sinatra's first GREATEST HITS. Eleven tracks are on the album -- "Bang Bang" is not one of them. She only had nine top forty hits so there were still two slots on the album -- either could have gone to "Bang Bang" if anyone in real time thought it was worth noting. No one did.
Also, if we're not mistaken, Nancy recorded just one Bob Dylan song in the sixties ("It Ain't Me Babe"). Cher? A lot. As we noted in January 2017's "CHER SINGS THE SONGS OF DYLAN," from 1965 to 1969, Cher released her version of these ten Bob Dylan songs:
1) "All I Really Want To Do"
2) "Blowin' In The Wind"
3) "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."
4) "Like A Rolling Stone"
5) "I Want You"
6) "The Times They Are a-Changin'"
7) "Masters of War"
8) "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You"
9) "I Threw It All Away"
10) "Lay Baby Lay"
Do Ann and her idiot man at NPR think Bob Dylan didn't know Cher or, for that matter, Sonny?
They not only go back to the sixties, Cher continued to socialize with Dylan long after she and Sonny split.
Here they are performing "All I Really Want To Do" (Bob's song that Cher took to number 15 on the top forty) at David Geffen's birthday party in 1974.
Where are the pictures of Nancy Sinatra and Bob Dylan?
Oh, that's right, those pictures don't exist.
Let's be really clear here, F**K Ann Powers.
We've called that fool out before and we will again. She plays like she's a feminist but she's not. She constantly strips women of their credit.
"Bang Bang" is Cher's hit. It is her million selling single. No one else charted with it in the sixties. Cher knows Dylan. Bob knows Cher. Why in the world would anyone assume that's Nancy Sinatra's version -- never known until asshole Tarantino pulled one of his revisionary and anti-woman moves and put it in his KILL BILL crap -- is the one mentioned by Bob in his new song -- if it's even mentioned in that song?
Ann Powers needs to be called out for the harmful liar that she is. She constantly finds a way to strip women of their earned credits. F**K Ann and F**K NPR.
-----
Note: We're not really thrilled with Cher of late. That doesn't matter. The credit she earned is credit deserved and how dare NPR attempt to credit someone else for her accomplishments.
Supposedly?
Well, for starters, their list includes Etta James' "Tell Mama." Huh? He name checks Etta's "I'd Rather Go Blind" but we're missing where he's referring to "Tell Mama."
We find it curious that they say "Walk On By" is in the mix -- or rather that the say "Burt Bacharach's 'Walk On By'." All the other songs are identified by who sang them, not who wrote them. Clearly, Dionne Warwick sang "Walk On By" and had the huge hit with it. Do they have an aversion to mentioning Dionne Warwick?
Maybe it's an aversion to Amy Heckerling's CLUELESS? Dionne and Cher are the names of the main characters in that film. For some reason, they insist that "Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is noted in Dylan's new song. But get this, they credit it to Nancy Sinatra. Strange because Sonny Bono wrote that song for Cher, Cher was the first artist to record it and Cher's version of the song made it to number two on the charts. How high did Nancy's version go? It was never released as a single. It wasn't known to the public back then. It was an album cut on an album that didn't even go gold. Nancy's album HOW DOES THAT GRAB YOU only made it as high as number 41 on the charts, Cher's album containing "Bang Bang" (THE SONNY SIDE OF CHER) made it to number 26. Oh, and Cher's version of "Bang Bang"? It sold over a million copies. It was a huge hit in this country and around the world.
If you're not getting the point, 1970 saw the release of Nancy Sinatra's first GREATEST HITS. Eleven tracks are on the album -- "Bang Bang" is not one of them. She only had nine top forty hits so there were still two slots on the album -- either could have gone to "Bang Bang" if anyone in real time thought it was worth noting. No one did.
Also, if we're not mistaken, Nancy recorded just one Bob Dylan song in the sixties ("It Ain't Me Babe"). Cher? A lot. As we noted in January 2017's "CHER SINGS THE SONGS OF DYLAN," from 1965 to 1969, Cher released her version of these ten Bob Dylan songs:
1) "All I Really Want To Do"
2) "Blowin' In The Wind"
3) "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."
4) "Like A Rolling Stone"
5) "I Want You"
6) "The Times They Are a-Changin'"
7) "Masters of War"
8) "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You"
9) "I Threw It All Away"
10) "Lay Baby Lay"
Do Ann and her idiot man at NPR think Bob Dylan didn't know Cher or, for that matter, Sonny?
They not only go back to the sixties, Cher continued to socialize with Dylan long after she and Sonny split.
Here they are performing "All I Really Want To Do" (Bob's song that Cher took to number 15 on the top forty) at David Geffen's birthday party in 1974.
Where are the pictures of Nancy Sinatra and Bob Dylan?
Oh, that's right, those pictures don't exist.
Let's be really clear here, F**K Ann Powers.
We've called that fool out before and we will again. She plays like she's a feminist but she's not. She constantly strips women of their credit.
"Bang Bang" is Cher's hit. It is her million selling single. No one else charted with it in the sixties. Cher knows Dylan. Bob knows Cher. Why in the world would anyone assume that's Nancy Sinatra's version -- never known until asshole Tarantino pulled one of his revisionary and anti-woman moves and put it in his KILL BILL crap -- is the one mentioned by Bob in his new song -- if it's even mentioned in that song?
Ann Powers needs to be called out for the harmful liar that she is. She constantly finds a way to strip women of their earned credits. F**K Ann and F**K NPR.
-----
Note: We're not really thrilled with Cher of late. That doesn't matter. The credit she earned is credit deserved and how dare NPR attempt to credit someone else for her accomplishments.
Roundtable
C.I.: We're doing another roundtable and it wasn't planned but the Biden campaign really ticked me off so Ava and I called around and invited everyone to attend. Participating in our roundtable are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jess, Ava, and me, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. We'll be covering Joe Biden, the allegations of assault against him, Bernie Sanders, coronavirus and much more. You're reading a rush transcript. Mike, let's start with you. Tell us about Tara Reade.
Mike: Sure. First, to reply to four e-mails I got today, no, it's not the actress Tara Reid. Tara Reade is a different person. Among other things, she worked for Joe Biden's office in the 90s when he was a US Senator. He is currently running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. This week, Tara Reade became an issue for Joe when Ryan Grimm reported on her allegations for THE INTERCEPT and noted that TimesUp! refused to help her. He then discussed that on THE HILL's RISING with Krystal Ball. Katie Halper interviewed Tara about her story. Those late to the party can refer to my "Tara Reade was assaulted by Joe Biden" and "Joe Biden assaulted Tara Reade" and C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot." Anna North (VOX) explains, "Reade says Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall and penetrating her with his fingers. When she pulled away, she says, he said he thought she 'liked' him." The corporate media has been reluctant to cover the issue all week. Tossing to Ann.
Ann: Thank you. On Friday, with no real pressure from the media -- CNN, CBS, NBC, TIME, NEWSWEEK, THE NEW YORK TIMES, etc. -- none of them were covering it -- the Biden campaign finally 'responds' and now -- only now -- NEWSWEEK finds the story.
Biden's campaign team has categorically denied the allegations, which Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director Kate Bedingfield called "false."
"Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims," Bedingfield said. "We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false."
Marianne Baker, who served as executive assistant to then-Senator Biden from 1982 to 2000, also rejected the assertions, saying that in the nearly 20 years she worked with Biden, she had never witnessed, heard or received reports of inappropriate conduct.
Ann (Con't): C.I.?
C.I.: And that's what really pissed me off and made me call for a roundtable. Marianne Baker? No one should take that woman seriously, she spent her whole career carrying a torch for Joe and everyone made fun of her for that. But set that aside for a moment. Tara Reade has made a very significant accusation. It needs a response. Where's Joe? Don't give me 'his campaign responded for him.' Not when his buddy Glenn Kessler 'fact checks' for THE WASHINGTON POST by repeatedly allowing conflicting statements from Joe and the campaign to be smoothed over and called 'truth' as long as either the campaign or Joe was correct. Joe says the sun is purple, the campaign says orange and Glenn rushes in with "True! Because a week later the campaign said . . ." Joe is the candidate and we don't need a statement of "We" from the campaign, we need a statement from him. Why is he so scared to issue a statement in his name? The campaign is happy to issue a statement from Marianne Baker. Who the hell cares what that motivated by self-interest piece of trash has to say? She has every reason to lie. It was her job to protect the workers. Tara telling the truth means that Marianne didn't do her damn job. You don't take a statement from trash like Marianne. Her self-interest is showing. Were she an impartial person, she wouldn't be providing a statement to the campaign. This wasn't even the campaign steering the press privately to a friendly source. Again, if Tara's telling the truth, this reflects on Marianne who clearly was not doing her job which was to ensure that the office was a safe environment for all. She should not be seen as impartial or even as honest broker at this point. And I'm so tired of women stabbing other women in the back. When a charge of harassment or rape emerges, let it be sorted out. To immediately respond with this sort of nonsense? You're trying to stack the deck and people should not respect you for that. There is no reason in the world for Marianne or any woman to weigh in right now. The charge is not even a week old and it has not been investigated by the media. More to the point, Joe has not made himself available to speak to the press so we don't need to hear from anyone -- certainly not horny Marianne who always wanted Joe to herself. Ann?
Ann: When you called me about doing a roundtable, I was on the fence and then you told me about Marianne's statement and I wasn't on the fence. I did not want to do a four a.m. roundtable -- which is when this started and when you thought it would probably have to for everyone to participate. But then you told me about Marianne's statement and that pissed me off. As most of the people reading this know if they know my site, I am a rape survivor. I did take my rapist to court. I did win. But when the court date was set, a few women tried to smear me, women who knew my rapist. I wasn't telling the truth, he would never do a such thing, nonsense like that. If someone wants to offer an opinion -- anyone -- after we've had this issue before us and it has been seriously investigated by the press, fine. A woman or a man comes forward to say that they were assaulted or raped. You don't have to believe them. But take a moment to let a serious dialogue on the issue emerge. Don't try to put your finger on the scales, don't try to spin the events. Wait at least long enough for the accused to make a statement all by themselves. Not through a campaign and certainly not via a "We" statement. Tara made a serious allegation. Is it true? I don't know. But I know it's a serious allegation and we should take it seriously. We may all include that she's lying or that she's confused. We may also end up concluding that she's telling the truth. At this point, she had the courage to speak. Joe Biden has refused to speak. Until he does, I don't need to hear from his surrogates. It's insulting to any person who has come forward to make a charge. We need to hear from Joe Biden and only Joe Biden. Efforts at anything else make me distrust Joe and lean towards Tara.
Marcia: I would agree. The campaign is spinning and they issue a "We" statement on behalf of the campaign and then a personal statement from Marianne Baker but no personal statement from Joe Biden? Why is Joe unable to make a statement? Why is he unable to speak to the press about this? Someone who's innocent should be able to. They should be able to deny the charge -- all by themselves. That Joe has not done that, as Ann was noting, makes me suspect of his actions.
Kat: I want to drop in the interview Krystal Ball has done with Tara Reade for THE HILL.
Ava: Done. We're also going to include Krystal's take on the corporate media's response of silence to Tara Reade's accusations.
Stan: I'm sorry, if someone accuses me of assault, I don't need to struggle for words or time to respond. That Joe does makes him suspect to me. Wally?
Wally: I'm with you on that, Stan. If you're innocent, why is it difficult for you to make your own statement? It is suspect.
Betty: This Marianne Baker, why the hell are we supposed to believe her to begin with? What has she ever done that makes her someone we should trust?
C.I.: Nothing. She's not done a damn thing to earn anyone's trust. Her time 'supervising' and "duties with respect to human resources"? Don't make me laugh. This occurs when he's paying women significantly less than men. She took her job seriously? No, she didn't. If she wants to issue a statement, that statement needs to be, "I'm sorry that I allowed Joe to pay women 67 cents for every dollar a man made." And that was in a 'good' year for women working for Joe, it dipped much lower in some years. So if Marianne Baker wants to speak of hour she ensured HR practices were followed and blah, blah, blah, she needs to accept that she's a liar and the world knows she's a liar. She's already allowed -- in her 18 years working for Joe -- women to be discriminated in pay.
Betty: That is not a minor issue. I had no help from my ex-husband, not even child support. I had three kids. I had to work, it pisses me off that Joe Biden or anyone is paying men more for the same job.
Ann: No one can afford to toss away money and let's also note the other issue, the insult being made when you do not have equal pay for equal work and the way you destroy and undermine a person's own self-confidence by doing that.
C.I.: Using the most favorable figure for Joe -- when he was paying women 67 cents for the dollar -- that means, if Betty worked for him, that she would take home $686.40 less in a year. That would have meant that, in three years, she would have made $2059.20 less than her male co-worker working for Joe.
Betty: I mean, we're talking dentist bills, rent, school clothes, that would have been money my kids and I could have used. And, let me leave my area of need for a moment. It doesn't matter if the woman was Marcia who has no kids. Being paid less than your co-worker because of gender? That's outrageous and offensive.
Isaiah: If I can just toss this out, we're talking averages. I bring that up because I'm willing to bet Marianne Baker ensured that she herself was paid well. So she probably skews the average as a result and other women were paid far less well.
Rebecca: I'd agree that's very likely.
Marcia: Agreed and co-signed.
Elaine: I find it very telling that when Joe's accused by a woman, Marianne The Liar Baker wants to step in with a statement insisting nothing happened. But when a news outlet documents the serious and troubling discrimination in pay, she has nothing to say. I'm tired of people like that . . . person. I'll keep it clean. I'm tired of liars like Marianne. She wants to flaunt her supervision expertise and her concern over human resources to shut down Tara but we already know she has no expertise or real concern over human resources because we're talking something as basic as pay -- you don't have to do an investigation, you don't have to speak to people, you just look at the numbers and there the discrimination is. But that mattered not one bit to her. So she just needs to shut the hell up and stop pretending that's she has any area of expertise to offer or that any of us take her seriously.
Stan: I guess, if confronted on that difference in pay, Marianne Baker would insist, "Those were different times." Equally true, on office place harassment, those were different times as well. She failed on one, she likely failed on all. She has no standing and should shut her damn mouth. No one needs her, no one wants her, shut the hell up.
Marcia: Agreed.
Rebecca: But if Joe couldn't hide behind Marianne's skirt, whose skirt would he hide behind? I'm so sick of men who hide behind women when accused of assault or harassment and I am so sick of these women who provide cover for these men.
Ruth: And we should note that Ms. Reade is talking about assault and we have had other women already speak out about Mr. Biden making them uncomfortable: Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, DJ Hill, Caitlyn Caruso, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek and Vail Kohnert-Yount.
Rebecca: Good point. And this allegation from Tara Reade -- who worked for him -- needs to be explored and assessed and, yes, Joe's pattern is an issue. We need to figure out what is going on.
Cedric: Well no one needs to wonder for too long a Krassentein wife on Twitter explained that an expose on Tara was forthcoming.
Wally: I forget, who is the wife in that couple? Brian or Ed?
Cedric: Brian Krassentein, of course.
Wally: Oh, right. No one believes those two brothers are married to anyone except maybe each other. And the 'wife' account really comes off like a way for the brothers to fake a person and get around the ban Twitter imposed on them because they're con artists.
Cedric: Time's up, game's over. Time for Joe to address the allegation. The con artists are rushing to smear Tara. That includes Howard Dean. So many of us were once taken in by him.
Elaine: I was. I supported his 2004 run. C.I. didn't. She knew he was a fake ass even then. He is a political operative and a liar. In 2008, he refused to call out the sexism aimed at Hillary Clinton, refused to even admit it was taking place or, after she had ended her campaign, that it had. He's a liar and he's disgusting. Cute the way, though, he enriched his own brother -- crooked, crony capitalism at its worst.
Trina: We've all been fooled before. You can't live very long without a politician fooling you at least once.
Cedric: I've been fooled many times, sadly. I think being a Democrat requires that I get fooled many times, I think it's written into the bylaws or something.
Mike: The bulk are liars and they proved it this week. Americans need a minimum of $2,000 a month from the government during this pandemic. Minimum. The same Congress that's giving billions to business refuses to address the needs of the American people.
Kat: David Sirota Tweeted, "For $2 trillion, you could give $500 billion to frontline health care facilities and then cut a $10,000 check to every single worker in America. Please try to explain to me how this wouldn't be better than giving much of the emergency stimulus money to corporations."
Stan: Exactly.
Marcia: And excuse me but corporations are supposed to produce something that sales. So give the people the money and they'll buy what they want and the markets will determine how the corporations do. People need money to ease the worries and the fears. All the Congress did was enrich the corporations yet again.
Trina: They betrayed the people.
Jess: I would like to ask a rhetorical question: How did we get to this point when one of the two potential nominees for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination is accused of assault?
Ava: A very good point. And it has been worse before -- there was a time, 2016, when we had a nominee who was under criminal investigation so the FBI refused to use that term -- as though they conduct civil court investigations?
Jess: And they have worked overtime, the leaders of the DNC, to ensure that Bernie Sanders does not get the nomination. While recent weeks have only raised more questions about Joe Biden -- including is he senile? -- recent weeks have demonstrated just how right Bernie is -- for this moment, for this time -- and I say that as a member of the Green Party.
Isaiah: I would agree with that. The current pandemic makes it clear that we need Medicare For All. As Trina has always said, it is a need not a want. It is what the country needs. The coronavirus pandemic has made that clear. Currently, people are living in fear. Some have already lost their jobs and fear losing their insurance. Some are stressed every day as they wonder if they'll have a job next week and whether they'll have insurance. If we had Medicare For All, no one would suffer from stress about whether or not they have insurance. If we had Medicare For All, no one would have to fear economic wipeout if they get the coronavirus.
Rebecca: Right and, as C.I. has repeatedly pointed out, why is Bernie the only leader nationally who is talking about the "economic anxiety" that so many Americans are facing. That is the correct term but does Joe Biden even want to acknowledge it? No. The stress from the economic anxiety could be easily avoided by Medicare For All and one other issue that'll I'll bring up when we're done talking about Medicare For All.
Trina: With the pandemic, America is only as healthy as its least insured. Medicare For All would provide insurance for all and lift up our rate of health. We spend so much money on so-called defense of the country -- that money goes to bombs and other weapons. If we really want to defend our country, we need Medicare For All to ensure a strong baseline of health for every American.
Isaiah: It really is that simple.
Ruth: Senator Bernie Sanders Tweeted, "People today are dying, knowing they're sick, but they're not going to the hospital because they can't afford the bill that they'll be picking up. That is an international disgrace. We need to make health care a right."
Trina: We really do. And this really is simple. It really is. But some want to lie and keep us from having what we need. I will not forget what went down in 2019 and this year. I will not forget the various whores that started out for Medicare For All -- or gave lip service -- only to then walk away and attack those who supported it -- that's Tiny Pete Buttigieg, that's Tulsi Fake Ass Gabbard, that's so many. I hold trash like Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar responsible. So many of us have fought for Medicare For All and we have gotten so close this year but corporate media and corporate candidates have lied and whored to try to hold us back.
Cedric: The nonsense cries of "How are you going to pay for it!" No one asked that about the defense industry, the ongoing wars, only when it's something that the American people need does that question even pop up.
Wally: Heather Gautney Tweeted, "No Dem/Rep should ever get away with saying to Bernie Sanders 'how are you going to pay for it?' w/regard to Medicare For All or his other programs. Our people are now paying dearly for decades of cuts to the safety net. We must change course and think big." She's a senior policy advisor to Bernie's campaign.
Betty: I agree with that. The safety net has been cut and gutted and no president has made an attempt to strengthen in. Bernie wants to do that and that is apparently threatening to corporate America. We should not forget that. This crisis was the perfect time to strengthen the safety net but instead Congress is sending our money -- our tax dollars -- to corporations with a token, one-time payment of $1,200 for some Americans.
Mike: Nor should we forget, getting to Jess' point earlier, the way Barack Obama pulled the strings from behind the curtain, calling Tiny Pete, Amy Klobuchar and others to get them to drop out right before Super Tuesday to clear the field for Joe. Barack's a bastard.
Cedric: Linguistically correct since his mother was not married to his father. His drunk of a father came to this country with a wife already back in Africa. We don't recognize multiple marriages in this country and bigamy is a crime. Stanley the Ford Foundation whore was never married to Barack's father. So, yes, he is a bastard. And, yes, he needs to be called out for the work he put in trying to destroy Bernie's chances to get the nomination. He is disgusting and his legacy is one of corruption and violence. The Nobel Peace Prize committee revealed themselves to be a fraud by giving him a prize he hadn't earned and would not go on to earn. He and his manly wife need to find another way to entertain because this is one African-American male who is not going to applaud Barack for his okey-dokes.
Kat: I think his ability to fool the people grows less and less each day. But a large number of hopium addicts fell for St. Barack and many have still not faced reality. They need that fix, they're addicts.
Betty: I hear the faux 'resistance' attack Donald Trump supporters and insist that they are fools to still believe him. Uh, same with Barack supporters. He was going to close Guantanamo, he wasn't going to reauthorize the Patriot Act, he was going to get US troops out of Iraq -- I'm confused, which promise did he keep? When was he ever, as he promised to be, on a picket line? When did he, as he promised to, end veterans homelessness?
Stan: Barack did nothing to help the American people and it should never be forgotten. He oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the rich so the corporate media will lie for him so it is up to We The People to ensure that the truth about Barack is told and told frequently.
Ruth: That Mr. Obama and the corporate media worked so hard to try to destroy Bernie Sanders is the story of 2020 and probably the most important story of an election ever. He spoke to the people and was supported by the people and that was a threat to the corporations so smear campaigns and lies were used to destroy him -- in full view of the American people. It was the equivalent of an assassination.
Jess: I agree Ruth. They've been using the media to assassinate for some time now. And they did it to destroy Bernie.
C.I.: Ann and Jess are both Greens. Did either or both of you want to weigh in on any Green issues?
Jess: I'll go first! Ann wrote "I don't support Joe and I don't support Dario" this week noting she was switching from support of Dario Hunter to Howie Hawkins for the Green Party's presidential nomination. She noted that Dario is doing nothing. I like his views too but if he's not trying to campaign, he's useless. If he got the nomination, then what? Howie is going to campaign. I understand her switch and I want to note that I'm now for Howie as well.
Ann: I'm not able to be a hypocrite. I don't see how others are. Kat and Betty were talking about the addiction some people have to a politician -- be it Barack or Donald -- and I'm not that way. You're there to serve me, if you're not, you don't have my support. Howie is busting his butt to get the word out on his campaign. Dario doesn't really care. He's made that obvious. I've called Hidin' Biden out for his failure to show leadership during this pandemic, I have to call Dario out as well. Otherwise? I'm a hypocrite. I kept waiting for him to get serious and he didn't. So I'm done with Dario.
Jess: And I agree because all he's got to campaign on right now is social media and he has no presence on social media. His campaign is too inept to even manage one daily Tweet.
Ann: Not even one daily Tweet Monday through Friday. It' pathetic.
Mike: I'd like to note, speaking of people having a social media presence, Bernie did another livestream yesterday.
Kat: And let me toss out that there is a new podcast of HEAR THE BERN.
Ava: Okay, good points and we're wrapping up. Our main points are? Tara Reade needs to be listened to. Believed? That happens after we listen -- we determine whether or not we believe her. But her allegations have to get a public airing. We can't just dismiss them. Juanita Broaddrick did not get a fair hearing in the 90s and we still are grappling with how to make up for that. Tara Reade could be a liar. That's very much a possibility. However, she may be telling the truth and this issue needs to be aired publicly and aired completely. Joe Biden needs to speak to this issue and stop hiding behind campaign staff. We don't need to hear from Marianne Baker or any other person in that office that enabled gender discrimination -- they're already suspect as a result of that. Bernie Sanders was right to call for Medicare For All. Bernie continues to provide leadership throughout this pandemic. He's still in the race and we need him to be.
Mike: Sure. First, to reply to four e-mails I got today, no, it's not the actress Tara Reid. Tara Reade is a different person. Among other things, she worked for Joe Biden's office in the 90s when he was a US Senator. He is currently running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. This week, Tara Reade became an issue for Joe when Ryan Grimm reported on her allegations for THE INTERCEPT and noted that TimesUp! refused to help her. He then discussed that on THE HILL's RISING with Krystal Ball. Katie Halper interviewed Tara about her story. Those late to the party can refer to my "Tara Reade was assaulted by Joe Biden" and "Joe Biden assaulted Tara Reade" and C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot." Anna North (VOX) explains, "Reade says Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall and penetrating her with his fingers. When she pulled away, she says, he said he thought she 'liked' him." The corporate media has been reluctant to cover the issue all week. Tossing to Ann.
Ann: Thank you. On Friday, with no real pressure from the media -- CNN, CBS, NBC, TIME, NEWSWEEK, THE NEW YORK TIMES, etc. -- none of them were covering it -- the Biden campaign finally 'responds' and now -- only now -- NEWSWEEK finds the story.
Biden's campaign team has categorically denied the allegations, which Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director Kate Bedingfield called "false."
"Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims," Bedingfield said. "We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false."
Marianne Baker, who served as executive assistant to then-Senator Biden from 1982 to 2000, also rejected the assertions, saying that in the nearly 20 years she worked with Biden, she had never witnessed, heard or received reports of inappropriate conduct.
Ann (Con't): C.I.?
C.I.: And that's what really pissed me off and made me call for a roundtable. Marianne Baker? No one should take that woman seriously, she spent her whole career carrying a torch for Joe and everyone made fun of her for that. But set that aside for a moment. Tara Reade has made a very significant accusation. It needs a response. Where's Joe? Don't give me 'his campaign responded for him.' Not when his buddy Glenn Kessler 'fact checks' for THE WASHINGTON POST by repeatedly allowing conflicting statements from Joe and the campaign to be smoothed over and called 'truth' as long as either the campaign or Joe was correct. Joe says the sun is purple, the campaign says orange and Glenn rushes in with "True! Because a week later the campaign said . . ." Joe is the candidate and we don't need a statement of "We" from the campaign, we need a statement from him. Why is he so scared to issue a statement in his name? The campaign is happy to issue a statement from Marianne Baker. Who the hell cares what that motivated by self-interest piece of trash has to say? She has every reason to lie. It was her job to protect the workers. Tara telling the truth means that Marianne didn't do her damn job. You don't take a statement from trash like Marianne. Her self-interest is showing. Were she an impartial person, she wouldn't be providing a statement to the campaign. This wasn't even the campaign steering the press privately to a friendly source. Again, if Tara's telling the truth, this reflects on Marianne who clearly was not doing her job which was to ensure that the office was a safe environment for all. She should not be seen as impartial or even as honest broker at this point. And I'm so tired of women stabbing other women in the back. When a charge of harassment or rape emerges, let it be sorted out. To immediately respond with this sort of nonsense? You're trying to stack the deck and people should not respect you for that. There is no reason in the world for Marianne or any woman to weigh in right now. The charge is not even a week old and it has not been investigated by the media. More to the point, Joe has not made himself available to speak to the press so we don't need to hear from anyone -- certainly not horny Marianne who always wanted Joe to herself. Ann?
Ann: When you called me about doing a roundtable, I was on the fence and then you told me about Marianne's statement and I wasn't on the fence. I did not want to do a four a.m. roundtable -- which is when this started and when you thought it would probably have to for everyone to participate. But then you told me about Marianne's statement and that pissed me off. As most of the people reading this know if they know my site, I am a rape survivor. I did take my rapist to court. I did win. But when the court date was set, a few women tried to smear me, women who knew my rapist. I wasn't telling the truth, he would never do a such thing, nonsense like that. If someone wants to offer an opinion -- anyone -- after we've had this issue before us and it has been seriously investigated by the press, fine. A woman or a man comes forward to say that they were assaulted or raped. You don't have to believe them. But take a moment to let a serious dialogue on the issue emerge. Don't try to put your finger on the scales, don't try to spin the events. Wait at least long enough for the accused to make a statement all by themselves. Not through a campaign and certainly not via a "We" statement. Tara made a serious allegation. Is it true? I don't know. But I know it's a serious allegation and we should take it seriously. We may all include that she's lying or that she's confused. We may also end up concluding that she's telling the truth. At this point, she had the courage to speak. Joe Biden has refused to speak. Until he does, I don't need to hear from his surrogates. It's insulting to any person who has come forward to make a charge. We need to hear from Joe Biden and only Joe Biden. Efforts at anything else make me distrust Joe and lean towards Tara.
Marcia: I would agree. The campaign is spinning and they issue a "We" statement on behalf of the campaign and then a personal statement from Marianne Baker but no personal statement from Joe Biden? Why is Joe unable to make a statement? Why is he unable to speak to the press about this? Someone who's innocent should be able to. They should be able to deny the charge -- all by themselves. That Joe has not done that, as Ann was noting, makes me suspect of his actions.
Kat: I want to drop in the interview Krystal Ball has done with Tara Reade for THE HILL.
Ava: Done. We're also going to include Krystal's take on the corporate media's response of silence to Tara Reade's accusations.
Stan: I'm sorry, if someone accuses me of assault, I don't need to struggle for words or time to respond. That Joe does makes him suspect to me. Wally?
Wally: I'm with you on that, Stan. If you're innocent, why is it difficult for you to make your own statement? It is suspect.
Betty: This Marianne Baker, why the hell are we supposed to believe her to begin with? What has she ever done that makes her someone we should trust?
C.I.: Nothing. She's not done a damn thing to earn anyone's trust. Her time 'supervising' and "duties with respect to human resources"? Don't make me laugh. This occurs when he's paying women significantly less than men. She took her job seriously? No, she didn't. If she wants to issue a statement, that statement needs to be, "I'm sorry that I allowed Joe to pay women 67 cents for every dollar a man made." And that was in a 'good' year for women working for Joe, it dipped much lower in some years. So if Marianne Baker wants to speak of hour she ensured HR practices were followed and blah, blah, blah, she needs to accept that she's a liar and the world knows she's a liar. She's already allowed -- in her 18 years working for Joe -- women to be discriminated in pay.
Betty: That is not a minor issue. I had no help from my ex-husband, not even child support. I had three kids. I had to work, it pisses me off that Joe Biden or anyone is paying men more for the same job.
Ann: No one can afford to toss away money and let's also note the other issue, the insult being made when you do not have equal pay for equal work and the way you destroy and undermine a person's own self-confidence by doing that.
C.I.: Using the most favorable figure for Joe -- when he was paying women 67 cents for the dollar -- that means, if Betty worked for him, that she would take home $686.40 less in a year. That would have meant that, in three years, she would have made $2059.20 less than her male co-worker working for Joe.
Betty: I mean, we're talking dentist bills, rent, school clothes, that would have been money my kids and I could have used. And, let me leave my area of need for a moment. It doesn't matter if the woman was Marcia who has no kids. Being paid less than your co-worker because of gender? That's outrageous and offensive.
Isaiah: If I can just toss this out, we're talking averages. I bring that up because I'm willing to bet Marianne Baker ensured that she herself was paid well. So she probably skews the average as a result and other women were paid far less well.
Rebecca: I'd agree that's very likely.
Marcia: Agreed and co-signed.
Elaine: I find it very telling that when Joe's accused by a woman, Marianne The Liar Baker wants to step in with a statement insisting nothing happened. But when a news outlet documents the serious and troubling discrimination in pay, she has nothing to say. I'm tired of people like that . . . person. I'll keep it clean. I'm tired of liars like Marianne. She wants to flaunt her supervision expertise and her concern over human resources to shut down Tara but we already know she has no expertise or real concern over human resources because we're talking something as basic as pay -- you don't have to do an investigation, you don't have to speak to people, you just look at the numbers and there the discrimination is. But that mattered not one bit to her. So she just needs to shut the hell up and stop pretending that's she has any area of expertise to offer or that any of us take her seriously.
Stan: I guess, if confronted on that difference in pay, Marianne Baker would insist, "Those were different times." Equally true, on office place harassment, those were different times as well. She failed on one, she likely failed on all. She has no standing and should shut her damn mouth. No one needs her, no one wants her, shut the hell up.
Marcia: Agreed.
Rebecca: But if Joe couldn't hide behind Marianne's skirt, whose skirt would he hide behind? I'm so sick of men who hide behind women when accused of assault or harassment and I am so sick of these women who provide cover for these men.
Ruth: And we should note that Ms. Reade is talking about assault and we have had other women already speak out about Mr. Biden making them uncomfortable: Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, DJ Hill, Caitlyn Caruso, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek and Vail Kohnert-Yount.
Rebecca: Good point. And this allegation from Tara Reade -- who worked for him -- needs to be explored and assessed and, yes, Joe's pattern is an issue. We need to figure out what is going on.
Cedric: Well no one needs to wonder for too long a Krassentein wife on Twitter explained that an expose on Tara was forthcoming.
Wally: I forget, who is the wife in that couple? Brian or Ed?
Cedric: Brian Krassentein, of course.
Wally: Oh, right. No one believes those two brothers are married to anyone except maybe each other. And the 'wife' account really comes off like a way for the brothers to fake a person and get around the ban Twitter imposed on them because they're con artists.
Cedric: Time's up, game's over. Time for Joe to address the allegation. The con artists are rushing to smear Tara. That includes Howard Dean. So many of us were once taken in by him.
Elaine: I was. I supported his 2004 run. C.I. didn't. She knew he was a fake ass even then. He is a political operative and a liar. In 2008, he refused to call out the sexism aimed at Hillary Clinton, refused to even admit it was taking place or, after she had ended her campaign, that it had. He's a liar and he's disgusting. Cute the way, though, he enriched his own brother -- crooked, crony capitalism at its worst.
Trina: We've all been fooled before. You can't live very long without a politician fooling you at least once.
Cedric: I've been fooled many times, sadly. I think being a Democrat requires that I get fooled many times, I think it's written into the bylaws or something.
Mike: The bulk are liars and they proved it this week. Americans need a minimum of $2,000 a month from the government during this pandemic. Minimum. The same Congress that's giving billions to business refuses to address the needs of the American people.
Kat: David Sirota Tweeted, "For $2 trillion, you could give $500 billion to frontline health care facilities and then cut a $10,000 check to every single worker in America. Please try to explain to me how this wouldn't be better than giving much of the emergency stimulus money to corporations."
Stan: Exactly.
Marcia: And excuse me but corporations are supposed to produce something that sales. So give the people the money and they'll buy what they want and the markets will determine how the corporations do. People need money to ease the worries and the fears. All the Congress did was enrich the corporations yet again.
Trina: They betrayed the people.
Jess: I would like to ask a rhetorical question: How did we get to this point when one of the two potential nominees for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination is accused of assault?
Ava: A very good point. And it has been worse before -- there was a time, 2016, when we had a nominee who was under criminal investigation so the FBI refused to use that term -- as though they conduct civil court investigations?
Jess: And they have worked overtime, the leaders of the DNC, to ensure that Bernie Sanders does not get the nomination. While recent weeks have only raised more questions about Joe Biden -- including is he senile? -- recent weeks have demonstrated just how right Bernie is -- for this moment, for this time -- and I say that as a member of the Green Party.
Isaiah: I would agree with that. The current pandemic makes it clear that we need Medicare For All. As Trina has always said, it is a need not a want. It is what the country needs. The coronavirus pandemic has made that clear. Currently, people are living in fear. Some have already lost their jobs and fear losing their insurance. Some are stressed every day as they wonder if they'll have a job next week and whether they'll have insurance. If we had Medicare For All, no one would suffer from stress about whether or not they have insurance. If we had Medicare For All, no one would have to fear economic wipeout if they get the coronavirus.
Rebecca: Right and, as C.I. has repeatedly pointed out, why is Bernie the only leader nationally who is talking about the "economic anxiety" that so many Americans are facing. That is the correct term but does Joe Biden even want to acknowledge it? No. The stress from the economic anxiety could be easily avoided by Medicare For All and one other issue that'll I'll bring up when we're done talking about Medicare For All.
Trina: With the pandemic, America is only as healthy as its least insured. Medicare For All would provide insurance for all and lift up our rate of health. We spend so much money on so-called defense of the country -- that money goes to bombs and other weapons. If we really want to defend our country, we need Medicare For All to ensure a strong baseline of health for every American.
Isaiah: It really is that simple.
Ruth: Senator Bernie Sanders Tweeted, "People today are dying, knowing they're sick, but they're not going to the hospital because they can't afford the bill that they'll be picking up. That is an international disgrace. We need to make health care a right."
Trina: We really do. And this really is simple. It really is. But some want to lie and keep us from having what we need. I will not forget what went down in 2019 and this year. I will not forget the various whores that started out for Medicare For All -- or gave lip service -- only to then walk away and attack those who supported it -- that's Tiny Pete Buttigieg, that's Tulsi Fake Ass Gabbard, that's so many. I hold trash like Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar responsible. So many of us have fought for Medicare For All and we have gotten so close this year but corporate media and corporate candidates have lied and whored to try to hold us back.
Cedric: The nonsense cries of "How are you going to pay for it!" No one asked that about the defense industry, the ongoing wars, only when it's something that the American people need does that question even pop up.
Wally: Heather Gautney Tweeted, "No Dem/Rep should ever get away with saying to Bernie Sanders 'how are you going to pay for it?' w/regard to Medicare For All or his other programs. Our people are now paying dearly for decades of cuts to the safety net. We must change course and think big." She's a senior policy advisor to Bernie's campaign.
Betty: I agree with that. The safety net has been cut and gutted and no president has made an attempt to strengthen in. Bernie wants to do that and that is apparently threatening to corporate America. We should not forget that. This crisis was the perfect time to strengthen the safety net but instead Congress is sending our money -- our tax dollars -- to corporations with a token, one-time payment of $1,200 for some Americans.
Mike: Nor should we forget, getting to Jess' point earlier, the way Barack Obama pulled the strings from behind the curtain, calling Tiny Pete, Amy Klobuchar and others to get them to drop out right before Super Tuesday to clear the field for Joe. Barack's a bastard.
Cedric: Linguistically correct since his mother was not married to his father. His drunk of a father came to this country with a wife already back in Africa. We don't recognize multiple marriages in this country and bigamy is a crime. Stanley the Ford Foundation whore was never married to Barack's father. So, yes, he is a bastard. And, yes, he needs to be called out for the work he put in trying to destroy Bernie's chances to get the nomination. He is disgusting and his legacy is one of corruption and violence. The Nobel Peace Prize committee revealed themselves to be a fraud by giving him a prize he hadn't earned and would not go on to earn. He and his manly wife need to find another way to entertain because this is one African-American male who is not going to applaud Barack for his okey-dokes.
Kat: I think his ability to fool the people grows less and less each day. But a large number of hopium addicts fell for St. Barack and many have still not faced reality. They need that fix, they're addicts.
Betty: I hear the faux 'resistance' attack Donald Trump supporters and insist that they are fools to still believe him. Uh, same with Barack supporters. He was going to close Guantanamo, he wasn't going to reauthorize the Patriot Act, he was going to get US troops out of Iraq -- I'm confused, which promise did he keep? When was he ever, as he promised to be, on a picket line? When did he, as he promised to, end veterans homelessness?
Stan: Barack did nothing to help the American people and it should never be forgotten. He oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the rich so the corporate media will lie for him so it is up to We The People to ensure that the truth about Barack is told and told frequently.
Ruth: That Mr. Obama and the corporate media worked so hard to try to destroy Bernie Sanders is the story of 2020 and probably the most important story of an election ever. He spoke to the people and was supported by the people and that was a threat to the corporations so smear campaigns and lies were used to destroy him -- in full view of the American people. It was the equivalent of an assassination.
Jess: I agree Ruth. They've been using the media to assassinate for some time now. And they did it to destroy Bernie.
C.I.: Ann and Jess are both Greens. Did either or both of you want to weigh in on any Green issues?
Jess: I'll go first! Ann wrote "I don't support Joe and I don't support Dario" this week noting she was switching from support of Dario Hunter to Howie Hawkins for the Green Party's presidential nomination. She noted that Dario is doing nothing. I like his views too but if he's not trying to campaign, he's useless. If he got the nomination, then what? Howie is going to campaign. I understand her switch and I want to note that I'm now for Howie as well.
Ann: I'm not able to be a hypocrite. I don't see how others are. Kat and Betty were talking about the addiction some people have to a politician -- be it Barack or Donald -- and I'm not that way. You're there to serve me, if you're not, you don't have my support. Howie is busting his butt to get the word out on his campaign. Dario doesn't really care. He's made that obvious. I've called Hidin' Biden out for his failure to show leadership during this pandemic, I have to call Dario out as well. Otherwise? I'm a hypocrite. I kept waiting for him to get serious and he didn't. So I'm done with Dario.
Jess: And I agree because all he's got to campaign on right now is social media and he has no presence on social media. His campaign is too inept to even manage one daily Tweet.
Ann: Not even one daily Tweet Monday through Friday. It' pathetic.
Mike: I'd like to note, speaking of people having a social media presence, Bernie did another livestream yesterday.
Kat: And let me toss out that there is a new podcast of HEAR THE BERN.
Ava: Okay, good points and we're wrapping up. Our main points are? Tara Reade needs to be listened to. Believed? That happens after we listen -- we determine whether or not we believe her. But her allegations have to get a public airing. We can't just dismiss them. Juanita Broaddrick did not get a fair hearing in the 90s and we still are grappling with how to make up for that. Tara Reade could be a liar. That's very much a possibility. However, she may be telling the truth and this issue needs to be aired publicly and aired completely. Joe Biden needs to speak to this issue and stop hiding behind campaign staff. We don't need to hear from Marianne Baker or any other person in that office that enabled gender discrimination -- they're already suspect as a result of that. Bernie Sanders was right to call for Medicare For All. Bernie continues to provide leadership throughout this pandemic. He's still in the race and we need him to be.
Murder Most Foul
There's little new about Bob Dylan that interests us.
Don't get us wrong, we love his sixties albums up through HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED. Not too thrilled with anything after. Now we do like EMPIRE BURLESQUE and we love KNOCKED OUT LOADED.
In fairness to Bob, his output after KNOCKED OUT LOADED might have been impressive (OH MERCY) but after the attacks on KOL by the critics, we were pretty much done, thank you. KOL is a great album. Hugely underrated. Bob is being rhythmic and exploring so many themes. "Drifting Too Far From Shore," "Maybe Someday," etc are great song. He should have been hailed for the revival he was having in his art but instead the album was attacked.
So we're not normally interested in new news about him but this did peek our interest:
Bob Dylan shocked the world on Friday by releasing a new song that officially stands as his longest to date, clocking in at 16 minutes and 57 seconds.
The acclaimed singer released “Murder Most Foul” at midnight on March 27. The lengthy track’s runtime is several seconds longer than his previously fan-dissected track “Highlands,” which clocks in at 16 minutes and 31 seconds. The new song is a slow and soulful free-association dedicated to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years,” Dylan wrote in a statement announcing the track. “This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you. Bob Dylan.”
Check it out, it's pretty impressive.
This edition's playlist
1) Dionne Warwick's SHE'S BACK.
2) The Mamas and the Papas' DELIVER.
3) The Mamas and the Papas' THE PAPAS AND THE MAMAS.
4) Bob Dylan's KNOCKED OUT LOADED.
5) Harry Style's FINE LINE.
6) Ben Harper's Both Sides of the Gun.
7) Carly Simon's THE BEDROOM TAPES.
8) Janet Jackson's UNBREAKABLE.
9) Sam Smith's IN THE LONELY HOUR DROWNING SHADOW EDITION.
10) Stevie Nicks' 24 Karat Gold Songs From The Vault.
Highlights
This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
"Tara Reade and coronavirus roundtable," "Did Joe Biden Assault A Woman Roundtable," "A roundtable about assault allegations against Joe Biden and other topics," "Assault allegations roundtable," "Coronavirus and Biden assault allegations roundtable," "A roundtable about the charges against Biden," "the 'how disgusting is joe biden' roundtable," "Did Joe Biden assault Tara Reade roundtable," "Roundtable on charges against Joe Biden and on coronavirus," "Roundtabling on issues like the assault allegations against Joe Biden," "Joe Biden needs to answer assault accusations," "A roundtable," "Roundtable on Biden and coronavirus," "A roundtable" and "Roundtabling the allegations against Biden and other things" -- most requested highlight by readers of this community.
"Nah-nah-nah-Batwoman!," "Love Woody Allen's new book!," "Worst actress at the box office?," "will & grace," "nick jonas' crotch did not impress," "Worst actress at the box office?," "queen of mean ellen de generes," "Dylan Farrow can't stop lying," "Pretenders," "Billie Joe Armstrong's new music video" and "Read the book" -- pop cultural coverage in the community.
"We need Bernie," "What world are they living in? Republican Senators and writers for In These Times, what world?," "We need real help," "Potatoes, Dario Hunter, Howie Hawkins, Joe Biden, …,"
"I don't support Joe and I don't support Dario," "Maybe some good news," "Food and the coronavirus," "Coronavirus response," "Where's the money?" "Just this one Tweet," "The sad stories never end," "Yes, the vanity on some celebrities is appalling," "Do not buy Trappys Baby Lima Beans," "retire them all, fire them all," "The American people in need," "When does Congress and the president plan on addre…," " Britney, Fran and more," "Thank you, Britney," "We need real help," "Potatoes, Dario Hunter, Howie Hawkins, Joe Biden, …," "I don't support Joe and I don't support Dario," "We need Bernie," "What world are they living in? Republican Senators and writers for In These Times, what world?," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot" and "Talking entry" -- news coverage.