Media: The embarrassments of the 2024 presidential campaigns

The 2024 presidential election plays out like a wheel series.  Give it a week and each campaign will come even more into focus.  Take the Trump campaign where the news emerged last week that former US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard -- or, as Trina calls her, Trashy Garbage -- was advising Donald Trump.  Make sense, in 2017, she advised Bashar al-Assad so she has a history of playing footsie with brutal dictators.

 

 

The week's most political embarrassing moment, however, took place on Saturday as the US Green Party held both a coronation and a viewing of the corpse.  The coronation was for political failure Jill Stein and the viewing of the corpse was for whatever remains of the Green Party.

 

The Green Party of the United States?  It arrives on the national political map in 1996 as the Association of State Green Parties and has its greatest success in 2000 when Ralph Nader is their presidential candidate and Nader wins 2.8 million votes.  It was the high moment of the party which morphs into The Green Party of the United States and never, ever again has the same impact. 

Every four years, they serve up the lie that they're trying to build a national party.  And then they disappear for three years.  No one epitomizes this "catch you later" platform than the hideous Jill Stein.

The party's 2012 presidential nominee and 2016 presidential nominee more than Jill Stein who is now the party's 2024 nominee because nothing screams "NOTHING LEFT!" louder than a political party willing to run the same nominee three times.  The Grand Old Party also suffers from this fate and it speaks just as poorly for them.

The choice of a nominee sends a message to voters.  

Selecting 74-year-old Jill Stein sends the message that: We're not building a future, we're stuck in a geriatric past.  Long before the noted deaths of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein -- deaths that took place while one elderly woman sat on the Supreme Court and the other elderly woman served in the US Senate -- Americans were already feeling unrepresented by a government made up of the extreme elderly.  In a country where the minimum age to run for president is 35 and not 70, Jill's coronation isn't reassuring anyone. 

 

Nor are her press stumbles.  For example, she's been citing a 900+ pages Senate Intelligence Committee report, insisting it praises her, and it doesn't.  But she knows the lazy media's not going to go through the text and footnotes to a 900+ page report.  She and her campaign also lie that she has 45%  of Arab American voters who will be voting for her.  She doesn't.  She's basing that claim on one poll, taken in July, before Kamala Harris was the DNC official nominee.  More to the point, the organization in question, The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, is an organization that represents some Arab Americans, not all.  Its membership isn't that large and its rules do not require that you be Arab American to become a member.  But if Jill didn't have lies, she wouldn't be able to speak.

In her acceptance speech on Saturday, she insisted, "We are rising up and we are unstoppable."

She wishes.  What is she?  An eternal failure whose own campaign website doesn't provide a text for yesterday's acceptance speech probably because she served up more lies than even Donald Trump.  For example,  "In the last election in 2020, one out of every three eligible voters chose not to vote for the two candidates that were rammed down their throats.  This is a revolution in the making."

One-third of eligible voters (not registered voters) did not vote in 2020.  It wasn't due to "the two candidates that were rammed down their throats."  Howie Hawkins, for example, was the Green Party's presidential nominee and he got 400,000 votes.  The Libertarian Party's presidential nominee was Jo Jorgensen and she got 1.8 million votes.  They weren't the only candidates in the presidential election but, along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they made up the top four vote getters.  If people in 2020 wanted to vote for someone other than "the two candidates that were rammed down their throats," they had the opportunity to do so despite the lies of Jill Stein.

 

A month after the 2020 election, Domenico Montanaro (NPR) reported on the 80 million eligible voters (again, not registered voters) who elected not to vote in 2020

 

To better understand what motivates these nonvoters, NPR and the Medill School of Journalism commissioned Ipsos to conduct a survey of U.S. adults who didn't vote this year. The Medill school's graduate students did deep dives into various aspects of the survey here.

Nonvoters' reasons for not voting include:

• not being registered to vote (29%)
• not being interested in politics (23%)
• not liking the candidates (20%)
• a feeling their vote wouldn't have made a difference (16%)
• being undecided on whom to vote for (10%)

Yeah, Jill's lie isn't backed up by actual facts or data.

She's a grifter and a fake ass.  She fails at everything.

Including picking a vice presidential running mate.  She offered the slot to Abdullah Hammoud who had to remind her that, per the Constitution, he was too young to qualify as a running mate. After that fiasco, Jill and her campaign let the press know that her pick would be a Palestinian American -- see NBC NEWS, THE GUARDIAN, ALJAZEERA and THE NEW REPUBLIC.

And then she picked . . . Rudolph T. Ware III.

Who?

That's the question you have to ask about a minor character who's WIKIPEDIA page is a violation of the very openness and transparency WIKIPEDIA says it promotes.  How else to describe a webpage with multiple revisions including 16 -- that in violation of transparency -- can't even be pulled up any longer?  

Who's Rudolph?  Someone who goes by "Butch" now.  Why?  Who knows?  When was he born?  Who knows?  Is he married?  Who knows?

Jill announced Butch was her running mate on Friday.  And they still can provide you the basics.

In fairness, Jill refuses to provide her own basics -- like explaining her marriage or that she has two kids.

Equally true, the most recent press release at her website right now is "Jill Stein files FEC complaint against CNN for violating corporate contribution rules and coordinated communications with Trump and Biden campaigns. Seeks injunction against upcoming debate"  which was released . . . June 20th.  Two months ago.  This is a serious political campaign?  On her YOUTUBE channel, you'll see she releases a video every week.  That's her idea of running for president and it's another reason why she's such a joke.

 

And not only is the text of the speech not posted, it's also not wanted.   On YOUTUBE, currently, the video of her speech that she has posted has only  916 views.  No one's interested in her failed campaign.

If they were, they'd be calling out the shell game she's trying to pull off.  She said she'd name a Palestinian American as her running mate.  Apparently, all approached rejected the idea of being the prop intended to give depth to the ultimate Karen and that's how she ended up with 'Butch' who, for the record, isn't Palestinian and also isn't Arab.  He's African-American and he converted to Muslim.  Only in the world of political theater -- and bad political theater at that -- does Butch qualify as Palestinian American.

Jill spends a lot of time whining about how mean Democrats are and how they try to keep other people off the ballot.  We're just supposed to listen to her whines and pretend she's rightfully aggrieved.  One of today's whines?  She can't get on the ballot in New York state.  Why? Because of a rule from when Andrew Cuomo was governor.  Here's the Green Party on that, "A source tells us Andrew Cuomo has SUCCEEDED in inserting the same language into the 2020 New York State Budget to kill the Green Party that was struck down by a judge in March." And that reveals the fraudulent nature of the national Green Party.  That's from their March 20, 2020 press release.  Over four years ago.  They had four years to address this through the courts, via ballot action, what have you.  Lazy Jill shows up every four years to do nothing but whine.  Nationally, the Green Party is inactive unless it's a presidential election year.

And last week saw a New York judge rule that Robert Kennedy Jr could not be on the ballot in New York.  Why?  He lied on his paperwork.  He doesn't live in New York.  He tried to put a lie over and that's why candidates face lawsuits.  

Or take independent presidential candidate Cornel West's removal from the Arizona ballot.  AP reported last week:

 

When Denisha Mitchell was asked why she filled out paperwork to serve as an Arizona elector for the independent presidential candidate Cornel West, her first response was “What?!” Her second: What’s an elector?

“I was shocked and surprised by it all. I didn’t even know what an elector was,” Mitchell told The Associated Press on Friday. “The crazy thing is it was all forged. None of it was my handwriting. It was definitely not my signature. My email was wrong, my address was wrong.”

Mitchell’s case is the latest example of dubious tactics used in an effort to qualify West, a left-wing academic, for the ballot in states across the U.S. It’s also among the more egregious. It’s an effort that West himself apparently knows nothing about. His campaign did not immediately respond for comment Friday evening.

You won't hear Jill Stein condemn Junior for lying about his residency or condemn whatever group collected signatures for Cornel's campaign.  Doing so would be admitting that there is a reason, a justified reason, for the legal challenges that come about every four years.  It would also be admitting to how they do nothing for three years and then spend a presidential election year pretending otherwise.

 

Iraq

From C.I.'s "Fundamentalists threaten the rights of Iraqi women, polio threatens Gaza"

Starting with Iraq and specifically women and girls in Iraq.  So we're all on the same page, let's drop back to July 29th:

Baghdad's Tahrir Square was the scene of a protest today.  SHAFAQ NEWS reports:

Hundreds of Iraqi women took to the streets of Baghdad on Sunday to protest against proposed amendments to the country’s personal status law, expressing particular outrage over provisions that would legalize child marriage.

Demonstrators, including members of women’s rights organizations, gathered in Tahrir Square, carrying signs that read "No to child marriage" and "The era of child brides is over." The protesters denounced the proposed amendments to Law 88 of 1959, arguing that they would roll back women’s rights.

Here are some photos of the protest. 

AP's Hadi Mizban has a photo of the protest here.  Not really sure why AL-MONITOR's Shelly Kittleson is insisting few turned out.   Reaction on Twitter to the proposal?

Anna Gordon (TIME) explains:

Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status law prohibits marriage for individuals under the age of 18. Exceptions can be made for women as young as 15 if they have permission from both a judge and the parents, according to Marsin Alshamary, a scholar of Middle Eastern politics and an assistant professor at Boston College. 

Iraq’s 1959 law was heavily influenced by the Iraqi Women’s League and is one of the most progressive laws in the region, according to Nadje Al-Ali, a professor of anthropology and Middle East studies at Brown University.  

“The reason it is perceived to be one of the most progressive laws of the time and even later on, is because it made it much more difficult for a man to marry a second, third, or fourth wife. He actually had to have the permission of the first wife,” Al-Ali tells TIME. “It also made divorce possible for women, it pushed the marriage age to 18, and very crucially, it was a unified set of laws that applied to both Shia and Sunni Muslims.”

That law and other customs which protected the rights of women went out the window after the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. US 'help' -- real or pretend -- rarely helps those in need.  It didn't help Iraqi women when the US government put cowardly fundamentalists in charge of Iraq (cowardly because they'd all fled Iraq and only returned after the US invaded).  Instead of backing freedom and rights, the US focused on advancing crooks and cretins who they hoped would sign away Iraq's rights to oil.    THE WEEK notes,  "After youth protests erupted across Iraq in 2019, politicians 'saw that the role of women had begun to strengthen in society', Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of the Aman Women's Alliance, told The Guardian. 'They felt that feminist, gender and women’s organisations, plus civil society and activist movements, posed a threat to their power and status'."  Cathrin Schaer (FRANCE 24) adds, "The other big problem is how the choice could divide Iraqi society. While the current law applies to all Iraqis equally, separate legal systems could inflame societal and sectarian tensions and degrade the status of Iraq's judiciary."  ANHA notes a statement from Iraqi women opposed to proposal who are calling "on all institutions and organizations advocating for women's and children's rights in Iraq to raise their voices against these legal amendments. It stressed that 'a 9-year-old girl’s place is not in marriage and childbirth, but in playing in parks and attending school.' The women urged for the cancellation of this decision before it is approved and called on Iraqi society to oppose these amendments that threaten women's rights and dignity."  At Brookings, Marsin Alshamary observes, "Iraqi women have more rights than many of their regional counterparts, but they must constantly battle to preserve them. In response to the proposed bill, activists, politicians, and lawyers formed Coalition 188 (named after the original PSL) and demonstrated throughout Iraq. Female legislators and policymakers including Nour Nafea, who emerged from the 2019 protest movement -- and veteran politician Ala Talabani -- have worked tirelessly to protest the law."  And Christina Lamb (SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON) provides this context,  "It’s not the first time Iraqi lawmakers have tried this -- previous attempts were blocked. But the country's political system is dominated by conservative Shia Muslim parties who form the largest coalition in parliament and have been pushing to erode women's and LGBT rights. In April they made same-sex relationships punishable with up to 15 years' imprisonment. Initially they were trying to impose the death penalty. The law also criminalised transgender people and what it called 'intentional practice of effeminacy'."  

At FORBES today,  Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab explains:

The proposed legal change is clearly in violation of international law standards and Iraq’s international law obligations.

Iraq is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). However, at the time of accession, Iraq made several reservations that ultimately undermined the treaty and its effectiveness. As its reservation, Iraq indicated that “approval of and accession to this Convention shall not mean that the Republic of Iraq is bound by the provisions of article 2, paragraphs (f) and (g), nor of article 16 of the Convention. The reservation to this last-mentioned article shall be without prejudice to the provisions of the Islamic Shariah according women’s rights equivalent to the rights of their spouses so as to ensure a just balance between them.” Article 2 of CEDAW states that “States Parties condemn discrimination against women in all its forms, agree to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women and, to this end, undertake: (...) (f) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women (g) To repeal all national penal provisions which constitute discrimination against women.”

Article 16 of CEDAW states that “1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women (...) 2. The betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory.”

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued the following:

Iraq’s parliament is moving forward an amendment to the country’s Personal Status Law that would allow Iraqi religious authorities, rather than state law, to govern marriage and inheritance matters at the expense of fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Iraqi parliament, which completed its first reading of the bill on August 4, 2023, will have two more readings of the bill and a debate before deciding whether to vote it into law.

If passed, the amendment would have disastrous effects on women’s and girls’ rights guaranteed under international law by allowing marriage for girls as young as 9, undermining the principle of equality under Iraqi law, and removing protections for women regarding divorce and inheritance. Child marriage puts girls at increased risk of sexual and physical violence, adverse physical and mental health consequences, and being denied access to education and employment.

“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of this bill would be a devastating step backward for Iraqi women and girls and the rights they have fought hard to enshrine in law,” said Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Formally legalizing child marriage would rob countless girls of their futures and well-being. Girls belong in school and on the playground, not in a wedding dress.”

The draft amendment would legalize, rather than try to reverse, Iraq’s significant and growing child marriage problem, Human Rights Watch said. 

Iraqi rights groups and activists have taken to the streets to protest the amendment, and a group of more than 15 women parliament members from diverse parties have come together to oppose its passage. Parliament proposed similar amendments to the Personal Status Law in 2014 and again in 2017, both of which failed to pass.

Under the draft amendment, couples concluding a marriage contract could choose whether the provisions of the Personal Status Law or the provisions of specific Islamic schools of jurisprudence would apply. If couples are from different sects, the school followed by the husband’s sect would apply. 

This arrangement would effectively establish separate legal regimes with different rights accorded to different sects. It would further enshrine sectarianism in Iraq, undermining the right to legal equality for all Iraqis found in article 14 of the constitution and international human rights law.

For instance, the Jaafari school of law, which many Shia Muslims in Iraq follow, allows for girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to be married. The Personal Status Law sets the legal age for marriage at 18, or 15 with a judge’s permission and depending on the child’s “maturity and physical capacity,” which already contravenes international legal standards and best practices.

The draft amendment would also authenticate unregistered marriages, which are conducted by religious leaders but not registered with personal status courts and are illegal under the current Personal Status Law. The amendment would also remove criminal punishments for men entering into these marriages and allow religious leaders, rather than the courts, to finalize marriages.

Unregistered marriages are already a loophole enabling child marriage in Iraq, where child marriage rates have been rising over the last 20 years, a March 2024 report by Human Rights Watch found. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 28 percent of girls in Iraq are married before age 18. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, 22 percent of unregistered marriages involved girls under age 14.

Unregistered marriages also have extremely harmful effects on women and girls’ ability to obtain government services, register their children’s birth, and claim their rights, Human Rights Watch said. Without a civil marriage certificate, women and girls are unable to give birth in hospitals, itself an unjust obstruction to health care, and are forced to give birth at home with limited access to emergency obstetric services. This increases the risk of medical complications that threaten the life of both the mother and her baby. Children and young women are especially vulnerable to some pregnancy complications. 

The amendment would also remove and undermine protections for divorced women. Under the existing Personal Status Law, if a husband requests a divorce, the wife has the right to remain in their marital home for three years at the husband’s expense and to receive two years of spousal maintenance and the current value of her dowry. If a wife requests a divorce, a judge can award her some of these benefits depending on the circumstances.

If religious law were applied, women would lose many of these protections. For example, under the Jaafari school of law, a woman who gets divorced has no right to the marital home, maintenance, or her dowry, and children would continue living with her for only two years, regardless of their age, contingent on her not remarrying. 

Women would also lose some inheritance rights. Even under existing law, daughters inherit a lower proportion of a parent’s wealth than sons. But under some religious laws, daughters would inherit even less, and if a family has no son to inherit the agricultural land, it would revert to the state.

Finally, the amendment stipulates that the Scholar Council of the Shia Endowment Office and the Fatwa Council of the Sunni Endowment Office will develop a “code of Sharia [Islamic law] rulings on personal status matters” and submit it to the house of representatives within six months from the date of entry into force of the law. 

This would mean lawmakers and the general public would not have a chance to review or vote on the code before it becomes law, removing democratic oversight and granting disproportionate power to religious authorities in setting the law, Human Rights Watch said. 

The proposed amendment was introduced by Raad al-Maliki, an independent member of parliament who also introduced the amendment to Iraq’s Law on Combatting Prostitution that criminalized same-sex relations, gender-affirming medical interventions, and “promoting homosexuality,” which passed in April 2024.The law violates fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq.

The proposed amendment would violate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Iraq ratified in 1986, by depriving women and girls of their rights on the basis of their gender. The amendment also violates the Convention on Rights of the Child, which Iraq ratified in 1994, by legalizing child marriage, putting girls at risk of forced and early marriage, leaving them susceptible to sexual abuse, and not requiring decisions about children in divorce cases to be made in the best interests of the child.

The draft amendment appears to violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by depriving certain people of their rights on the basis of their religion.

“Iraqi parliamentarians should reject efforts to strip women and girls of their legal protections and refuse to undo decades of hard-won rights,” Sanbar said. “Failure to do so means current and future generations of Iraqi women will remain strangled by an oppressive patriarchal legal system.”

Book Talk (Ty, Ava and C.I.)

 

As we did in 2021 and 2023, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. This go round, we're talking to Ty about his review of CARRIE FISHER & DEBBIE REYNOLDS: PRINCESS LEIA & UNSINKABLE TAMMY IN HELL (Ty). Ty, an overview?

 

 

Ty: Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince  wrote the book and it's about Debbie Reynolds was Carrie Fisher's mother and the two were actresses.  Debbie was nominated for an Academy Award, a Tony, an Emmy (in fact prime time and daytime nominations), Golden Globes, etc.  Carrie lucked into STAR WARS -- a franchise that made her famous and provided her with three big hits.  Otherwise her acting career really isn't anything except SHAMPOO, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY . . ., HANNAH AND HER SISTERS and THE BLUES BROTHERS.  She really didn't do much on screen as an actress.  She did have more of an impact as a writer -- of screenplays, novels, monologues and memoirs.   But in terms of acting?  She was better than her father Eddie Fisher but not as prolific or as talented as her mother.

 

Now your husband has been really interested in Debbie Reynolds this year.

 

Ty: Yes.  Before 2024, I was much more familiar with Carrie Fisher than Debbie Reynolds and I had no idea that Debbie had such a strong career.  I knew SINGING IN THE RAIN and IN AND OUT, for example, but she had a lot more than that.  She had HOW THE WEST WAS WON, for example, a huge hit, and I didn't even note that in my review of the book. So this year, we read two of Debbie's memoirs and we read that awful book on Carrie Fisher, see Marcia's "Sheila Weller's Carrie Fisher: A Life On The Edge" and we read this book and I'd argue this is the best one.  It covers the battle that it was for Debbie to have a career.  It covers so much and you really respect her and start to feel sympathetic to her -- it's one thing to write POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE -- a solid novel by Carrie -- but to turn into that piece of garbage film?  It is a piece of garbage and Carrie really did whore there because the movie star mother is really not in the novel but she becomes the co-lead character in the film.  And I would be insulted if I was Debbie Reynolds because, yes, that was her that Carrie was writing about.  And, again, the film's story is not the book's story.  

So the book made you really admire Debbie Reynolds?

Ty: It really did.  Carrie was a taker -- this is me, not the book.  She took so much from her mother and it's amazing that Debbie was able to, for example, do the Liberace movie with Michael Douglas and to be so good in it.  She did that while dealing with all of Carrie's never-ending crazy.  At some point, you need to grow the hell up but Carrie never did.  And that shock therapy that she did and claimed cured her didn't help a damn bit.  Just another lie -- another lie that harmed others -- in a long list of lies.

 

---------------------

Previous book discussions: 

 

"Book Talk (Stan, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Trina, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Ruth, Jim, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Ty, Ava and C.I.)" 

 "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

"Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Stan, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Dona, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Ty, Ava and C.I.)" 

 "Book Talk (Mike, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Stan, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Mike, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Ann, Marcia, Trina, Ava and C.I.)"

"Book Talk (Elaine, Ava and C.I.)" 

"Books (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)"

 "Book Talk (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

 

 

CARRIE FISHER & DEBBIE REYNOLDS: PRINCESS LEIA & UNSINKABLE TAMMY IN HELL (Ty)

Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince wrote this 2018 book about mother and daughter Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher who both passed away in December of 2016.  I read the book because my husband did.  We generally try to read books together and talk about them.  This year, we read Debbie Reynolds' UNSINKABLE: A MEMOIR and MAKE 'EM LAUGH: SHORT-TERM MEMORIES OF LONGTIME FRIENDS and Sheila Weller's CARRIE FISHER: A LIFE ON THE EDGE.

And?  Debbie (and co-writer Dorian Hannaway on both books) wrote in an entertaining manner but the books were sleight.  Sheila Weller's fan girl book was an embarrassment.

Debbie Reynolds was an Academy Award nominated actress, a Tony nominated one and an Emmy nominated one.  Her classic films include SINGING IN THE RAIN, MOTHER, IN AND OUT, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR (the film's theme "Tammy" also provided Debbie with a number one hit on BILLBOARD's pop chart), THE CATERED AFFAIR with Bette Davis, GOODBYE CHARLIE, THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN, THE GAZEBO, THE SINGING NUN, ONE FOR THE MONEY and the TV movie THESE OLD BROADS.   Her daughter Carrie Fisher is known for the STAR WARS films, the comedy classic WHEN HARRY MET SALLY . . . , SHAMPOO and HANNAH & HER SISTERS.  She was also a writer with a string of strong books including POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE and THE BEST AWFUL and she wrote the screenplays for the film of POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE and THESE OLD  BROADS as well as being a script doctor on many other films.  She was also the voice of Peter's boss Angela on 25 episodes of FAMILY GUY.  

Porter and Prince's book is a strong one and it restores some order in that you get Debbie Reynolds was a film star and not just a celebrity who was famous because her then-husband Eddie Fisher left her (and daughter Carrie and son Todd) for Elizabeth Taylor. 

She made a lot of films -- many of which were hits.  Not all were good as she herself noted.  MGM, for example, didn't really care for her.  When Dore Schary took over after ousting Louis B. Mayer,  she was contracted to a studio whose boss made no effort to hide that he hated her.  The only reason she was kept on at that point was because she was so popular with film audiences and MGM could make a small fortune by loaning her out to other studios. 

And it was a small fortune.  She was a big star but when she married Eddie Fisher, MGM was only paying her a little less than $500 a week -- that was three years after SINGING IN THE RAIN.  But she was under contract and they could pay her peanuts and turn around and loan her out to RKO  and pocket about $40,000 dollars since they would demand that other studios pay her actual value to have her on loan.  (MGM would continue paying the less than $500 a week and pocket the thousands extra.)

She didn't like Dore Shary and you can't blame her.  (He wasn't very likable for many.)  She also didn't care for Richard Brooks who didn't want her in THE CATERED AFFAIR and who, she shared, slapped her across the fact after one take during THE CATERED AFFAIR when he realized Debbie still had on her actual wedding ring.  She had to be strong to survive that and so much more.  

She fought for roles.  She had a very productive 60s film career post-MGM.  Then she had THE DEBBIE REYNOLDS SHOW on NBC -- a success that got cancelled because she refused to go along with cigarette advertising during her show.  That left her pretty much banned from TV.  But she goes on to Broadway.  And she has her own cabaret and club act.

No roadblock ever stopped Debbie Reynolds, she just turned a corner and took off on another road.

I really appreciated her and her accomplishments after reading this book.

And it will make you wonder about parents and children.  Debbie was a survivor.  Carrie was a basket case.

Who didn't want to her mother.  Ever.

Her most convincing performance on screen is in SHAMPOO -- espcially when she's arguing with Warren  Beatty and insisting, "I'm nothing like my mother!"

I don't really see the heroic on Carrie.  THE BEST AWFUL is a great book.  But when you think about the story it tells and when you grasp that it was always autobiographical when it came to Carrie's novels, that's not a hero.  That's a mother whose addictions, disease and other things aren't really heroic.  

Carrie was also a bit of a star f**ker.  She was a little too devoted, for example, to Elizabeth Taylor.

While Debbie appeared to have forgiven her and moved along with life, there's really no reason for Carrie to want so badly to be close to the woman her father left the family for.

Or Michael Jackson.  That's just creepy.  She came off like a real star f**king bitch in SHOCKAHOLIC -- a transcript pretending to be some form of a book.  Yes, Carrie, the boys are the liars.  Yes, Carrie, the dentist was the big problem.  She was just a star f**ker and you can understand why Penny Marshall had stepped away from her. 

As Princess Lea, her big claim to fame, she delivered a so-so performance that wasn't all that.  Her friendship with Meryl Streep was largely two mean women bonding over the women they hated. 

Debbie had an amazing live and CARRIE FISHER & DEBBIE REYNOLDS: PRINCESS LEIA & UNSINKABLE TAMMY IN HELL makes that clear while noting that drug odyssey Carrie got herself lost on and that's apparently supposed to excuse her acting career.

Book List

 

Books reviewed in the community this year.

1) "J Randy Taraborrelli's awful Beyonce book" -- Ann reviews a book on Beyonce.

 

2)  "Sheila Weller's Carrie Fisher: A Life On The Edge" -- Marcia reviews a puff piece bio.

 

3)   "Sheet Pan Fajita Shrimp in the Kitchen" -- Trina reviews a cookbook.

 

4) "Container Gardening (book review), Idiot of the Week, and Kylie Minogue performed at the Brit Awards" -- Mike covers a book on container gardening. 

5) "Type II Diabetes (books)" -- Stan reviews four books on diabetes.

6) "faye dunaway" -- Rebecca reviews a biography of Faye Dunaway.  

 

7)  "THE FIVE-INGREDIENT COOKBOOK FOR MEN" -- Mike reviews a cookbook. 

 

 

8)  "SILENT SISTERS: PROFILES OF THE SHORT LIVES OF KAREN CARPENTER, PATSY CLINE, CASS ELLIOT, RUBY ELZY, JANIS JOPLIN AND SELENA" -- Ty reviews a sketch book.

 

9) "THE LESSONS OF MAMA TEMBO (Dona)" -- Dona reviews a children's book.

 

10) "Michael Schulman's OSCAR WARS: A HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD IN GOLD, SWEAT AND TEARS" -- Stan's book review. 

 

11) "Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life ..." -- Ann reviews a bad book about an early film star. 

12) "MY MAMA, CASS" -- Kat reviews a book by the daughter of Cass Elliot.  

13) "Media: The stupid return to target Target and a man writes a really dull, boring book" -- Ava and C.I. review A. Ashley Hoff's  WITH LOVE, MOMMIE DEAREST: THE MAKING OF AN UNINTENTIONAL CAMP CLASSIC.

 

14)  "THE DARK SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD (Ty)" -- Ty reviews a book about Charlie Chaplin, Lupe Velez and Jean Harlow.

 

15) "LADIES WHO PUNCH: THE EXPLOSIVE INSIDE STORY OF THE VIEW" -- Ruth reviews a book about ABC's long running gasbaggery. 

 

16)  "HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (Jim)" -- Jim covers a book that fails to deliver. 

 

17) "Andrew McCarthy's BRAT" -- Kat reviews Andrew's bio.

 

18) "A really bad book gets reviewed -- plus Paul Rudnick, Diana Ross, Chase Rice, Sam Smith " -- Elaine reviews Tina Brown's  THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES.

 

19)  "Boze Hadleigh's Hollywood Lesbians: from Garbo to Foster" and "'hollywood lesbians: from garbo to foster' by boze hadleigh" -- Marcia and Rebecca do their annual summer read.

 

20) "C'MON, GET HAPPY is the worst book of 2024 " -- Kat reviews a book supposedly covering the film SUMMER STOCK.

 

21) "Diet Clam Chowder in the Kitchen"  -- Trina reviews a book on the history of chowder. 

 

22) "CINEMA SPECULATION" -- Stan reviews Quentin Tarantino's book. 

 

23) "carrie courogen's elaine may book" -- Rebecca reviews MISS MAY DOES NOT EXIST.

 

24) CARRIE FISHER & DEBBIE REYNOLDS: PRINCESS LEIA & UNSINKABLE TAMMY IN HELL (Ty) -- Ty reviews a book about Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Streaming

NETFLIX

MOVIES

1) THE UNION

2) THE EMOJI MOVIE

3) NIGHT SCHOOLS

4) TROLLS BAND TOGETHER

5) DR SEUSS' THE LORAX

6) SAVING BIKINI BOTTOM

7) PEARL

8) INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG

9) JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK AGAIN

10) THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

 

PARAMOUNT+

Movies

1) IF

2) TOPGUN MAVERICK

3) SOUTH PARK THE END OF OBESITY

4) MEAN GIRLS

5) JACK REACHER

6) JACK REACHER NEVER GO BACK

7) SHOOTER

8) SOUTH PARK (NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN)

9) TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS

10) CLUELESS

TV

1) SEAL TEAM

2) CRIMINAL MINDS

3) SPONGE BOB SQUAREPANTS

4) NCIS

5) EVIL

6) FRASIER

7) EVERYBODY LOVES REYMOND

8) MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN

9) BLUE BLOODS

10) FIRE COUNTRY 

HULU

1) IMMACULATE

2) KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

3) SMILE

4) GENERAL HOSPITAL 

5) THE BACHELORETTE

6) MASTER CHEF GENERATIONS

 7) ALIEN COVENANT

8) ALIEN

9) CHIEF OF STATION

10) SWEET HOME ALABAMA

11) CLAIM TO FAME

12) ALIENS

13) 20/20

14) STEPBROTHERS

15) FUTURAMA

 

PEACOCK

1) THE BIKERIDERS

2) ABIGAIL

3) JUST GO WITH IT

4) CLUELESS

5) THE PROPOSAL

6) MIIB MEN IN BLACK ii

7) NOBODY

8) FAST & FURIOUS 9

9) OLD

10) MIB3

TV

1) LOVE ISLAND USA

2) BEL AIR

3) THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY

4) CHICAGO PD

5) CHICAGO FIRE

6) BELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN

7) THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY

8) CHICAGO MED

9) BELOW DECK

10) VANDERPUMP RULES 

 

THIRD 

What we streamed

1) THE UNION (NETFLIX)

2) DAMAGES (HULU)

3) WILL & GRACE (NBC VAULT)

4) THE KROLL SHOW (COMEDY CENTRAL)

5) WILL TRENT (HULU)

6) THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW (PLUTO, SHOUT TV)

7) MODERN FAMILY (PEACOCK)

8) SO HELP ME TODD (PARAMOUNT+)

9) THE PROPOSAL (PEACOCK)

10) ALIEN (PARAMOUNT+)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2024 passings

 

 

1) "bad news (settlers shot a child in the back and adan canto has died)" -- Rebecca covers the passing of THE CLEANING LADY and DESIGNATED SURVIVOR star.

 

 2 and 3) "David Soul and Glynis Johns have passed" -- two passings -- one you knew from STARSKY & HUTCH, the other you knew from MARY POPPINS.

4) "Mary Weiss, The Leader of the Genre?" -- Elaine notes the passing of the leader of The Shangri-Las. 

5) "The death of Norman Jewison and the death of Taraji P. Henson's career" -- Stan notes the passing of film director Norman Jewison.

 

 6) "Melanie: Queen of the Music festivals ," "Thank you to Melanie (Jess)," "Jon Stewart to return to the desk," "Melanie, REACHER, young voters," "When are they going to arrest Kari Lake?," "We lose Melanie and Dexter King but are still stuck with Jonathan Turley?," "my top five melanie albums," "Ugly Chaya Chachi Ratchik," "Where's Florida's "Don't Say Southern Baptist" law?," and "Melanie, Mary Weiss, Green Day" -- remembering singer-songwriter Melanie.

7) "Norman Jewison and Melanie" -- Ruth notes Melanie and director Norman Jewison's passing. 

8) "Chita Rivera" -- a trailblazer's life is noted by Elaine.  

9) "Carl Weathers" -- Stan covers the actor and the athlete's passing.

 

10) "Richard Lewis" --  Ruth notes the passing of a stand up comic and actor.

 

11)  "Eric Carmen" -- Kat notes the passing of a singer-songwriter.

 

12)  "Louis Gossett Jr." -- Stan notes a passing of a breakthrough and Academy Award winning actor.

 

13) "I do Barbara Rush" -- Betty notes a passing of a golden age actress.

 

14) "Joe Flaherty" -- Stan notes a passing of a comic actor. 

15) "Robert MacNeil" -- Ruth notes a passing of a news anchor.

 

 16)  "meg bennett" -- Rebecca notes that passing of an actress and writer.

 

17) "David Sanborn" -- Kat notes the passing of a saxophone legend.

 

18) "Dabney Coleman" -- Stan notes a character actor who became a star.

 

19) "Charlie Colin" -- Kat notes the passing of an alternative rocker.

 

20)  "morgan spurlock, demi moore" -- Rebecca notes the passing of a filmmaker.

 

 21) "Rev. James Lawson" -- Ann notes the passing of a pioneer.

 

22) "Donald Sutherland" -- Stan notes the passing of a true original. 

23) "The media is full of liars" -- Ann notes the passing of Martin Mull and how the media had to fudge the truth.

24) "Robert Towne" -- Stan notes a passing.

 

25) "Media: Reality versus the lies the media loves to spread" -- Ava and C.I. note Dr Ruth's passing -- and the reality of her so-called 'ally' status.

 

26)   "shannen doherty" -- Rebecca notes the passing of the TV actress.

 

27) "Bob Newhart" -- Marcia notes the passing of the TV sitcom star.

 

28) "Richard Simmons" -- Ruth notes the passing of the fitness guru.

 

29)  "Obituaries -- thoughts on Sheila Jackson Lee and others" -- Elaine notes the passing of Sheila Jackson Lee -- exposed as a crook in Greg Palast's THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY -- and why we cover the deaths we cover.

 

30) ''Gena Rowlands" -- Stan notes the passing of a legendary actress.

 

31)  "Taco Spaghetti in the Kitchen" -- Trina notes the passing of game show host Peter Marshall.

 

 

 

 

Tweet of the week

 

VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt responds to Trump's remarks on the Medal of Honor:

"These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation's highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and…

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 17, 2024

This edition's playlist

 

1) Diana Ross'  SURRENDER.

 

2) The Rolling Stones's HACKNEY DIAMONDS.

 

3) Diana Ross' THANK YOU.

 

4) Laura Nyro's GO FIND THE MOON.

 

5) Ben Harper's BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN.  

 

6) Ben Harper's WHITE LIES FOR DARK TIMES. 

 7) Joni Mitchell's FOR THE ROSES.

 

8) Sonny & Cher's LOOK AT US. 

 

9) Beyonce's COWBOY CARTER.

 

10) Aretha Franklin's YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK.