Media Failures

The thing about the media is when it does its job, that's great.  But when it does its job, that's only about 1% of the time.  Sometimes it just provides meaningless fluff.  That's sad but what's worse is when it actively makes errors or promotes lies.

  

 

FOX "NEWS"?

 

They have so much to answer for.

 

That includes: Who's the secret MR. ED fan at the network.  

 

There is one, right?

 

That's the only explanation for horse-faced, 62-year-old Laura Ingraham being on the network for nearly two decades now when she should have been put out to pasture -- or dropped off at a glue factory -- over 15 years ago.  Instead, they inflict her nightly on shut-ins around the country.  

 

Must be for the laughs.

 

Like on her program tonight where she felt the most important thing to do was to castigate young American women over the results on an NBC NEWS poll.  Young women were not making marriage their number one goal -- or number two, or number three, or number four . . .

 

This distressed Laura so much she had to call in professional metrosexual Charlie Kirk.  

 

While he unsuccessfully attempted to come off manly, Laura tsk-ed tsk-ed and we had to wonder if we were the only ones laughing?

 

Others watching were aware, right, that 62-year-old Laura has never, ever married?

 

She also attacked young American women for wanting to put off having children.  

 

Viewers were aware that Laura was over 40 when she adopted, right? 

 

For years and years, the network's slogan was "Fair and balanced."  More and more, it seems to be "Hypocrites in hiding."

 

Take 'Christian' Charlie who told Laura that young women had their rankings wrong and the order of them wrong.  They should have babies right now and can work later in life.  He insisted that "young men are ordering their life correctly.  They want to first and foremost have children, get married, and then they have a nice job or to be able to travel."

 

Oh, so the right order, per Charlie, is that a man gets a woman pregnant, then they get married and then the men get "a nice job or [the ability] to be able to travel."  Such passes for 'family values' from con artists pimping Chump.

 

And Charlie never looks less manly then when he opens his mouth and multiple clutch bags fall out.

 

We caught Laura wallowing in her own hypocrisy, stewing in it, basting in her own foul juices back on Thursday, August 28th when friends started calling saying she was making a bigger ass of herself than usual.  What was she doing?

 

She was raging against California Governor  Gavin Newsome.  She bitched, moaned and whined that he wasn't being fair to Convicted Felon Donald Chump.  

Worse than that, she insisted, his mocking Chump could lead to another assassination attack!!!!!

 

!!!!

 

She had a lot of rage and anger to express . . . over a fantasy she came up with herself.

 

What struck as odd was that all month, she's ignored a very real example of how words bring about violence.

 

 

Two weeks prior to her trashing Gavin Newsome, police officer David Rose was killed during an attack on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.  He was 33 years old.

 

WIKIPEDIA:

 

On August 8, 2025, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia, attacked the CDC's Roybal Campus in Atlanta, Georgia. White attempted to enter the headquarters, but was thwarted by security. White then drove across the street to a CVS Pharmacy where he barricaded himself inside on the second floor, and fired at the campus with a rifle, striking four CDC buildings on multiple floors over 180 times, breaking about 150 windows and piercing some of the blast-resistant windows; authorities recovered more than 500 shell casings and five firearms after the shooting.^[100][101] 33-year-old David Rose, a DeKalb County Police Department officer, was fatally wounded by White as he arrived on the scene.^[102] Officers entered the pharmacy and found White dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.^[103][104]

White is believed to have been motivated by distrust in vaccines, and believed the COVID-19 vaccine had made him depressed and suicidal.^[102] He had reached out for mental health assistance for weeks before the attack.^[102] Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, blamed the attack on the anti-vaccine rhetoric of members of the Trump administration, saying that Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety".^[105][102] A union representing CDC employees called on both the CDC and the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services to denounce vaccine misinformation, and said that the attack was a result of compounding misinformation and obloquy towards science and health officials. While Kennedy Jr. had reached out to CDC staff and said "no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others", Dr. Jerome Adams, a former Surgeon General, described Kennedy Jr.'s response as "tepid" and that Kennedy Jr. must do more given his past "inflammatory rhetoric".^[106] On August 11, Kennedy Jr. toured the Roybal Campus with deputy secretary Jim O'Neill and CDC director Susan Monarez, but did not speak with the media during the visit, although he did meet privately with Rose's widow.^[100] A day later, in an interview with Scripps News, when Kennedy Jr. was asked if he had a message for CDC employees concerned about the consequences of misinformation about vaccines, he said political violence was "wrong" and claimed not enough was known about White's motives yet to draw conclusions before criticizing the government's previous vaccination efforts as "overreaching" and that the government had said "things that are not always true" in order to get people vaccinated.^[107] Trump did not respond to the shooting of the police officer.^[108][109]

 

 Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Priya Sridhar and Daniela Hernandez (NBC NEWS) reported August 11th:

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers are voicing frustration over Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s past vaccine comments, following Friday’s shooting at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta that left one police officer dead.

Although the motive of the suspected shooter -- Patrick White, 30, from Kennesaw, Georgia -- remains unknown, he told a neighbor that he believed the Covid vaccines had made him sick, a source told NBC News on the condition of anonymity.

[. . .]

For some employees, the shooting highlighted growing hostility toward public health officials, which they feel has been shaped by Kennedy’s long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the Covid vaccine.

In 2021, Kennedy filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration revoke the authorization of the Covid vaccines. The same year, he described the Covid shot as the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” 

For some employees, the shooting highlighted growing hostility toward public health officials, which they feel has been shaped by Kennedy’s long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the Covid vaccine.

In 2021, Kennedy filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration revoke the authorization of the Covid vaccines. The same year, he described the Covid shot as the "deadliest vaccine ever made."

Just last week, Kennedy terminated 22 contracts focused on developing mRNA vaccines -- the same technology used to develop Pfizer’s and Moderna's Covid shots. In an announcement on X, Kennedy claimed "mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses."

 

She's ignored that but she feels Gavin mocking Chump the way Chump mocks others was just too risky.  Or that's the latest lie she told her viewers.

 

Of course, FOX "NEWS" is not the only problem. 

 

Norah O'Donnell demonstrated this week how much damage that even a professional and trained journalist can do.  Bounced from the anchor desk on CBS EVENING NEWS, she's trying to reinvent herself and she did so this week via an interview with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.  

 

Interview?   

 

More like infomercial.  Amy's got a book to sell and she used CBS' airtime to sell her wares while Norah appeared to snooze through the remarks.  

 If there was any reason to interview the justice -- this was her first TV interview since joining the Supreme Court in 2020 -- it was to get an understanding of DOBBS and grasp what it mean for future rulings from the ethically challenged Amy.

 

DOBBS overturned ROE V WADE.  Norah pressed her on that.  Ames can't take responsibility so she yammered away including claiming, "The Supreme Court's decision in DOBBS gave that decision to the democratic process and to the states.  It didn't roll back rights.  It didn't render abortion illegal, unconstitutional or anything else and -- in effect -- many states very fully protected abortion rights -- more than under the regime of ROE since the time of the decision in DOBBS."

 

Norah tried to follow it up by pointing out that it overturned the Constitutional right to an abortion and Ames insisted, "Well, what it said" -- "it"?  she was one of the six justices who voted to strike down ROE -- "is that the Constitution had not protected the abortion right under the Due Process Clause. And it said that Roe had been an error and Casey had been an error to hold otherwise."

 

Amy's a liar and we all know it.  But we hope you read the above because Norah soon decided to take a nap during the interview.  That was right after she asked about the Court and whether it would attempt to overturn marriage equality?  

 

In 2015, OBERGEFELL V HODGES was the case that decided marriage equality. Amy replied to Norah, "You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law; sometimes in statutes. But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That's for the democratic process."

 

Norah just snoozed through it.  Worse, some idiots in the press are hailing that remark as proof that OBERFEFELL is safe.

 

No, it's not.  And the idiot justice just told you that:  "You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law; sometimes in statutes. But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That's for the democratic process."

 

Too many moderates are reading that to mean that she's saying the Court she's on now "should not be imposing its own values on the American people," which, in fact, she's not.  She's saying that the 2015 decision was a case of the Supreme Court "imposing its own values on the American people." 

 

That's what she's saying.  

 

And that's how journalists -- even real ones -- disappoint the American public.  They refuse to cut through the nonsense and instead rush to tie a bow around everything.

 

If we had a media we deserved, we wouldn't have Chump in the White House.  This week, in "Stop Acting Like This Is Normal" (NEW YORK TIMES), Ezra Klein offered, "I often heard people complain that Democrats lacked a message. What Democrats really lacked was power. They didn’t have the House or the Senate [. . .]"  And he's right.  But the Dems also didn't have the media.  Not even at MSNBC which is to Dems what FOX "NEWS" is to Republicans.  We could have had it and we certainly had the facts on our side.  But we were betrayed and backstabbed by Norman Solomon and Rashida Tlaib.  The most important issue in any American election is and always should be: America.

 

Sitting out the election or voting for Jill Stein or Donald Chump did not end the war on Gaza and only idiots and liars thought it would. We do not believe that Kamala Harris was 'the lesser of two evils.'  But for those fools who did, grasp that Operation Iron Wall has killed over a thousand people and displaced 4,000 more per UNRWA.  Operation Iron Wall?  Netanyahu kicked it off January 21st -- the same day Chump was sworn in for his second term. That's blood on a lot of hands -- the hands of people like Amy Goodman who used their 'left' outlets to tear down Kamala Harris and elect Donald Chump.   

We don't get the government we deserve, we get the government the media markets.

 

Truest statement of the week

Last week, in a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump took the Smithsonian’s museums to task for emphasizing “how bad slavery was.” The White House staff followed up on August 21 with a statement titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian,” flagging several objectionable exhibits, including one, weirdly, on Anthony Fauci.

Trump is in eminent company. For nearly a century, between the 1860s and the 1950s, defenders of slavery succeeded in creating a dominant narrative in the nation’s textbooks, trying to show that slavery wasn’t so bad and that the real outrage was the abbreviated period of Reconstruction.

The whitewashing of slavery began as early as 1867, with publication of a book by Edward Pollard, titled The Lost Cause. In this account, slavery was mostly a benign system that uplifted Blacks; plantation owners were typically kindly. This echoed a century of antebellum Southern propaganda. Pollard contended that the Civil War was not really about slavery; it was a war over states’ rights.

 As public education systems became more widespread in the South after the Civil War, states of the former Confederacy set standards to ensure that textbooks for public schools would portray a sympathetic view. These laws influenced Northern publishers. Meanwhile, some prominent Northern scholars embraced the Lost Cause view. The most notable of these was William Archibald Dunning of Columbia University.

 --  Robert Kuttner, "How Bad Slavery Was: Donald Trump joins a long line of apologists for America’s peculiar institution." (THE AMERICAN PROSPECT).

 

A note to our readers

 Hey --

Tuesday. 

Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, 

Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

 

And what did we come up with?

  

• Truest statement of the week
• Media: That what you fear the most could meet yo...
• Roundtable
• The WILL & GRACE Game (Jess)
• Do the country a favor, tell a dumb Bondi joke
• 2025 passings
• Video of the week
• Jim's World
• Rebecca's take on a book
• Marcia's take on a book
• Deep album cut of the week
• This edition's playlist
• Highlights

 

Peace.

 

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

 

 

Media: That what you fear the most could meet you halfway

Some live to be humiliated or maybe they can't help themselves?  It's a high for them and their drug of choice..  Think 'journalist' Glenneth Greenwald.  At the end of May, GiGi got outed and worked hard to spin it.  

 

As we've long noted over the years, Glenneth hates women.  Can't stand women.  Part of that's his college days.  By the way, some of this we've written about here before.  And we've long noted his computer flash drive that was turned over to one of us by an unknown person (left at the agency C.I.'s signed with).  We've long noted the MAGA cashmaster he did online 'hookups with' and we know his computer history.  

 

So last May, it was delicious justice, when 'manly' girl Glenneth got exposed in her halter top and skirt with her meth and meth pipe on the bed while Glenneth went to town on the feet of a man who was spitting on him and verbally humiliating him.  We are aware that he's bragged to his few friends that he now masturbates to that exposure and has a mind blowing orgasm.

 

 There was the misogynist Glenneth, the trans hating Glenneth, the widow Greenwald who ignored his death bed (former sex worker) husband to start his own talk show, dressed as a woman.  

 

And paying a man to humiliate him.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 

Eddie Vedder sings that refrain from "Crazy Mary" on the album SWEET RELIEF: A BENEFIT FOR VICTORIA WILLIAMS.  

 

 "That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 And it certainly met Glenneth. 

 

A man who hates women, has spent years actively insulting them, undermining them and sidelining them, needs to dress up as one to get off?

 

It should make you think.  It should make you look for connections and shadings and possible confessions.

 

In the second half of the last century, a phenomenon emerged known as "White flight." For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the American Psychological Association in 2021:

 

As the population of people of color grows across the United States, white Americans are still prone to move when neighborhoods diversify, and their fears and stereotypical beliefs about other racial and ethnic groups may help maintain segregation, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a nationally representative survey and six additional studies, white Americans perceived a threat to their culture and way of life when presented with information about changing demographics in hypothetical white-majority neighborhoods and schools, compared with when no demographic change was projected. The projected population growth of Arab Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans evoked the strongest feelings of foreign cultural threat, followed by the projected population growth of Black Americans. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

“The more that white Americans perceived this foreign cultural threat, the more they reported wanting to move out of those communities,” said lead researcher Linda Zou, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maryland. “Racial segregation of schools and neighborhoods never ended. The country is growing more diverse, but those changing racial demographics may trigger heightened perceptions of threat among white Americans and contribute to the persistence of segregation.” 

 

White flight, in the second half of the 20th century, was one of the factors creating the growth in suburbs.  One.  And we don't say all who left the cities for the suburbs were motivated by Black people moving into city neighborhoods they were previously prevented from.  Nor do we assert that every White person took part in White flight.  Nor do we overlook the role of the press in scaring people or its historic racism.

 

But we do wonder about those who fled to the suburbs and did so to avoid living near a Black person.

 

There were a lot of racists.  There are still a lot of racists.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

At the heart of some racists is the basic humiliation that they fear the people they target with racism are actually superior to them.   

 

Take Donald Chump, for example.  He needs buck dancers to flatter him constantly and these Uncle Toms are kind-of, sort-of welcomed by him until they cross a line.  These Uncle Toms reassure his troubled manhood that Black people aren't superior to him or they wouldn't rush to kiss his ass.

 

But at the heart of it all, yes, Chump realizes he's beneath every Black person.  While he doesn't grasp is that he's really beneath all Americans regardless of their skin color, he does grasp that, for instance, US House Rep Jasmine Crockett is smarter than he is, is stronger than he is and is more of a leader than he is. 

 

When Crockett or any other Black person refuses to just grin and nod along, it's very hurtful for Chump because it reminds him that these people he thinks are beneath him are above him and that peels the scab off of the never healing wound from all the times his father told him just how worthless he is. 

 

Kelby Vera (HUFFINGTON POST) noted this week:

President Donald Trump’s plot to control American history got a sharp takedown from a top Democrat on Sunday.

Last Tuesday, the president raged about the “out of control” and “woke” Smithsonian Institution in a post on Truth Social, complaining how its museums only focused on how “horrible our Country is” and “bad Slavery was.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) scoffed at Trump’s suggestion that there was any upside to depict about slavery as he spoke to Dana Bash during a stop by CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There is no good aspect of slavery, and so Donald Trump is once again behaving like a racial arsonist,” he said, adding that it was “extraordinary that he would make such a historically ignorant statement.”

Putting his full support behind the institution, Jeffries said, “The Smithsonian should continue to hold the line and make sure that this very painful part of American history is not erased, but is understood by everyone across this country and throughout the world.”

 

Hakeem Jeffries?  Yep, he's a stronger leader and a smart leader than Chump.  And, yes, Donald, we all see it and we all know it.  Kanika Saini (INQUISITR) notes:

 

Donald Trump ignited debate on a topic that nobody expected or probably wanted to be scrutinized. But here we are, discussing the very foundation and concept of the museum. Recently, Fox News contributor Clay Travis joined the debate as he went on a bizarre rant, likening the history of slavery to plane crashes while siding with Trump’s unhinged attacks on the Smithsonian Institution.

Last week, Trump ranted about how museums in the United States focus excessively on “how bad slavery was,” while implying that it needs to be changed from hereon. 

Trump wrote in his social media post, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

 

Slavery was awful.  And yet Black people survived it.  

 

Donald, that nagging thought in the back of your head is accurate, you never could have survived slavery.  You're just not strong enough.  

 

Last week, a highly racist conversation took place between two well known racists but Elaine's the only one we've found who bothered to note it ("MTG and Megyn Kelly: A Couple of Racists Sitting Around Talking"). The key moment of the trash Megyn Kelly broadcast was when she and the other racist took it upon themselves to debate whether or not Jasmine Crockett is Black.

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene insisted Jasmine wasn't (she is) and stated, "So she claims to be, you know, from her people.  She puts on this image that she understands the Black American struggle.  But let's face it, the girl went to private school.  She went on to, you know, I don't know what college and law school.
 

First off, "the girl" is 44-years-old.  Calling Jasmine a "girl" is no different than calling a 40-year-old Black man a "boy.''

 

Second, she did attend private schools, they were private religious schools.  Does MTG really want her constituents to know that she was insulting private religious schools? 

 

Third, she went to college in Memphis (Rhodes College) and she attended two law schools (Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law and University of Houston Law Center).

  

Fourth, shocker for MTG but Black children have been going to private schools in this country for nearly 300 years.  The first one for Black children was establishes in 1760, Virginia's Williamsburg Bray School.  

 

Fifth, Black people have been going to college in the US for nearly two hundred years.   In 1835, Ohio's Oberlin College became the first US college to admit Black students. And the first college for Black student came along two years later with the Institute for Colored Youth which became the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. 

 

Sixth, going to private school, going to college and going to law school?  Black people can and have done all of that for nearly two centuries now in this country.  In fact, let's educate MTG, Judge Macon Bolling Allen?  He was the first Black attorney (licensed attorney) in this country and that was back in 1844.  He went on to become a judge.  

 

It's only in MTG's starving brain, where facts are forbidden but conspiracies run free, that a Black person can't know "the Black experience" if they've gone to law school.

 

Megyn offered her own racism including, of Jasmine Crockette, "She's a complete fake.  She's as fake as her eyelashes.  She's as fake as her hair --"

 

We'll cut her off there but we will note that Megyn wears extensions (fake hair) and has a lot of make up on (because she's got a wonky eye and one side of her face looks caved in). 

 

Mainly though, we'll note that racist Megyn was a Blackface defender and that got her fired from NBC.

 

So Megyn, a friend of Glenneth Greenwald's, is a racist who wants to dress up as a Black person.

 

Glenneth's jealous of women and it manifests itself as sexism.  Megyn wishes she was 'authentic' and could be Black and that manifests in her as racism.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

Keep all the above in mind.   

 

David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:

 

MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk called on the NAACP to give President Donald Trump a nonexistent "Man of the Year" award for sending federal troops into Washington, D.C.

[. . .]

According to Kirk, Trump proved "you can stop Black-on-Black crime."

"In fact, President Donald Trump should be getting the Man of the Year award from the NAACP," he argued. "President Donald Trump should be awarded at the Black Entertainment Television Awards for what he is doing here. President Donald Trump should be given the Hero Medal of Freedom equivalent in the Black community."

 

Racist Charlie Kirk -- defender of Blackface.  Again, factor that in.  Factor in how he feels small and inauthentic and wishes he was Black but can't be so he turns it into racism.

 

BET Awards?  Those go to musicians, people in film and TV and athletes.  None of which, Albino Charlie, is a category for Donald Chump.  

 

There is no Man of the Year NAACP Award.  Mainly because there are no NAACP Awards.  The awards  handed out by the NAACP are The NAACP Image Awards.  Those awards?  Man of the Year is not a category and never has been.

 

Many of us often wonder how, in the 21st century, you can still have racists in the United States?

 

In the past, it was ignorance taught in schools and encouraged in the press.  

 

Now? 

 

Now it's about butt hurt White people like Megyn, Chump, Charlie and Marjorie whose jealousy of Black people manifests itself as racism.

 

If you pay attention, they do reveal themselves.  

 

Roundtable

 Jim: Roundtable time.  Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and you can also use common_ills@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; 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); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;  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. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript. 

 

Jim (Con't): So I think Stephanie Ruhle said last night on MSNBC that Chump's now been president for 218 days.  Anybody else wonder if we're going to survive it?

Isaiah: I worry about that every single day.  He is destroying our country.

Kat: We should win the mid-terms by a landslide.  But I think about the 2020 election and how he was pressuring governors to deliver him X votes after the votes had been counted. I think about that and then I wonder about his scam where he's asking for voter rolls from states right now and I wonder if that's some stunt he plans to pull to overturn elections.  I wouldn't put anything past him.  He's the closest thing to Satan on this earth.

Jim: I hadn't really thought about that.  It's something to be concerned about.

Cedric: I'll note that I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, think he's scum but even I'm surprised by how outright evil he has become.  And this is the man who led an insurrection against the government.  But I've never seen someone so hateful and so joyless and so determined to destroy the American people.  Kat's right, he's the closest thing to Satan that we have on earth. 

Trina: People like him tend to destroy themselves.  By that I mean, look at him, his skin's rotting, he's taking on water in the ankles, he's morbidly obese and can no longer walk a straight line.  He is a stroke waiting to happen.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had to step down because he became physically and mentally incapacitated.  I also wouldn't be surprise if he had a fatal stroke and passed away.  And I wouldn't shed a tear for a number of reasons but in terms of medical the main reason I wouldn't cry is that his administration has devalued and defunded preventative care.  He, as a patient, is also rejecting preventative care.  So he will have brought any health problems on himself.

Jim: Trina's a nurse.  Can anyone think of a previous president so determined to attack half of the country, half of its citizens.

Ruth: Let me grab that.  No.  I did not care for President Ronald Reagan, for instance.  And I think he did real damage on issues like the homeless and AIDS; however, I would not say that his policies were about attacking the Americans who did not vote for him.  He also did not spew hatred every time he opened his mouth.  I have had it with The Convicted Felon and members of his cabinet constantly attacking former President Joe Biden.  There is no excuse for it.  And it makes our entire country look dysfunctional on the international stage.

Jim: What's been the biggest disappointment in the last 218 days?

Wally: Republicans in Congress.  They've always claimed to have ethics.  They have none.  They vote that Big Bulls**t Bill that destroys America -- for example, destroys medical insurance for so many Americans -- and then they make it worse by going into their districts and lying about what the bill will do.  And then they have a whiney fit when their constituents refuse to go along with them and their break from reality.  That's what the second Chump term is: A break from reality.  A psychotic break. 

Dona: Grace Hall (MIAMI HERALD) cites Pew's latest poll which found his job approval rating has fallen "to 38%" and it was 47% at the start of his second term in January 2025."  It would appear that a large number of Americans are tuned into what he's doing.

Marcia: Yes, but that's not registering with Republicans in Congress -- like Wally pointed out earlier.  And they control both houses of Congress.  So it's hard not to feel as though we're screwed for the rest of this year and next.

Betty: And we've got a corrupt Supreme Court.  Don't forget that.  And let's never forgive John Roberts, Chief Justice, for bringing us to this point.  He is part of the problem.  And he will be remembered in history for presiding over the Court that the American people lost faith in.  For decades, we had seen the Supreme Court as a trusted body.  Now we see it for a collective of right-wing partisan hacks. It doesn't represent the American people and it doesn't even attempt to pretend that it does.  This is a very sad and very risky moment in American history.  And I think we're seeing how little democracy means to a number of people -- some of whom hold elected office.

C.I.: Worth noting, in April, 52% of Americans polled by Public Religion Research Institute agreed with the statement, "President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy."

Jess: That's a majority.  A majority is what Chump didn't get in the 2024 election.  He got 49% to Kamala's 47%,

Ty: It's a majority saying Chump needs his power limited because people have caught on.  Chump is a menace, a threat to democracy.  

 

Betty:  It is prayer.  That's all that's getting me through these days.  He is rejecting even the Supreme Court these days.

 

 

Elaine: Exactly.  He announces that he's got an executive order that now will put anyone burning a flag into prison for one year.  This despite the rulings of the Supreme Court that flag burning is a form of free speech.   Or his attempts to fire Lisa Cool from the Federal Reserve Board -- a move that a Supreme Court verdict earlier this year said he did not have the power to do. 

 

Rebecca: As Ruth and Mike both noted last week, Chump needs to learn his lane. He thinks being president of the United States means he can dictate our medical rights, that he can dictate what's on TV and what's not, that he can dictate what cases attorneys take and do not take, that he can misuse the Justice Dept. to go after his political enemies, that he can dictate what colleges teach, go down the list.  He's out of control.

 

Mike: And while he does all of this, our economy is tanking and our democracy is fading.  He is the worst president this country has ever seen.  

 

Jim: Ever?

 

Mike: Ever, ever, ever. And he doesn't even have one decent appointee in his administration.  He may have the administration that he deserves but it's not one that this country deserves.

 

Jim:  Ann, Stan we need to wrap up.  What disturbs you two the most?

 

Stan: For me, it's the media coverage.  Too much of the media fails to address what is going on and fails to call it out.  You can't both sides Hitler without embracing and backing Hitler.  That's the reality.  You're supposed to be on the side of democracy.  Someone attacks democracy, they've become the enemy and the press needs to grasp that.

 

Ann: And he's certainly attacked the press.  The thing that bothers me is even his attempts to take over business -- to dictate to business -- even this doesn't result in a flurry of press outrage.  The editorial board of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, for example, did come out against that.  But talk to people you know and you'll learn that much of the press has still not even reported on it, let alone weighed in against it.  

 

Jim: And that's going to have to be the last word.  This is a rush transcript.  Ava and C.I. took notes for this transcript.

 

 

 

 

 

ann stan 

The WILL & GRACE Game (Jess)

So far, Jim's played "The WILL & GRACE GAME (Jim),"   Dona played "" and Ty played "The WILL & GRACE game (Ty)."  Marcia kicked it off with "Sitcom with the most name guest stars: Will & Grace (and I can name 133)."  After Marcia played it others followed -- see Stan's ''HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1 ," Rebecca's  "have you tried to list all the guest stars on 'will & grace'?" and Kat's "Prayers for Ann Wilson and my try at the WILL & GRACE game."  Now it's Jess' turn.

 

 

1 David Foley

2 Veronica Cartwright

3 Beau Bridges

4  Brian Jordan Alvarez

5 Demi Moore

6 Cher

7 Eileen Brennan 

8 Nicole Sullivan

9 Emily Rutherfurd

10 Andrea Martin

11 Matt Damon

12 Rosie O'Donnell

13 Britney Spears

14 Janet Jackson

15 Will Arnett

16 Jennifer Lopez

17 George Takei

18 Kevin Bacon

19 Parker Posey

20 Tim Curry

21 John Cleese

22 Alec Baldwin

23 Andy Garcia

24 Joel McHale

25  Macaulay Culkin

26 Wanda Sykes

27 Candice Bergen

28 Joan Collins

29 Bernadette Peters

30 Suzanne Pleshette

31  Samira Wiley

32 Debbie Reynolds

33 Alan Arkin

34 Geena Davis

35 Sara Rue

36  Mary McCormack

37 Ed Burns

38 Eric Stoltz

39 Harry Connick Jr.

40  Woody Harrelson

41 David Schwimmer

42 Chelsea Handler

43 Sharon Stone

44 Molly Shannon

45  Natasha Lyonne

46 Jeremy Piven

47  Billie Lourd

48 Wendi Jo Sperber

49 Glenn Close

50 Blythe Danner

51 Sydney Pollack

52 Steven Weber

53  John Slattery

54 Jon Tenney

55 Cheyenne Jackson

56 Taye Diggs

57 Gregory Harrison

58 Patrick Dempsey

59 Michael Douglas

60 Tracey Ullman

61 Edie Falco

62  Chloe Sevigny

63 Sharon Osborne

64 Lily Tomlin

65 Buck Henry

66 Madonna

67 Barry Manilow

68 Elton John

69 Clark Gregg

70 Ben Platt

71 Max Greenfield

72 Al Roker

73 Matt Lauer

74 Katie Couric

75 Minnie Driver

76 Ellen DeGeneres

77 Neal Patrick Harris

78 James Earl Jones

79 Kristen Davis

80 & 81 Hall and Oates

82 Jason Biggs

83 Seth Green

84 Patti Lupone

85 Chita Rivera

86 Michelle Lee

87 Jack Black

88 Bebe Neuwirth

89 Lee Majors

90 Sandra Bernhard

91 Victor Garber

92 Richard Chamberlain

93 Piper Laurie

94 Orson Bean

95 Roscoe Lee Browne 

96 Dylan McDermott

97 Rip Torn

98 Hal Linden

99 Brandon Routh

100 Rosanna Arquette

101 Sara Gilbert

102 Chris Penn

103  Camryn Manheim

104 Nicolette Sheridan

105 Mira Sorvino 

106 John Edwards

107 Bruce Campos

108 Tom Skerritt

109 Judith Ivey  

110 Nick Offerman

111 Stacey Keach

112 Leslie Ann Warren

113 Lanie Kazan  

114  Dan Bucatinsky

115 Ken Marino

116 Leslie Jordan 

117 Luke Perry

118 Demi Lovato

119 Matt Bomer

120 Andy Richter

121 Jane Lynch

122 Andrew Rannells 

 

 

Do the country a favor, tell a dumb Bondi joke

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes" 

 Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "."  AG Pam Bondi explains, "Some people call me Pam Bimbo and that's just not fair.  Bimbos are much smarter."  FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is ready with Bondi jokes, "Why did the Bondi get fired from the M&M factory?  For throwing out the Ws."   Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS. 

  

Let's all let AG Pam Bimbo Bondi know that we are a democracy and we will mock anyone who tries to harm our democracy.  We see you, Pam.  So do the country a favor and tell a dumb Bondi joke this week. 

 

We'll lead by example:   What did the Bondi say after glimpsing a box of Cheerios?  "OMG! Doughnut seeds!"

 

 

2025 passings

 

In 2025, we'll continue to note passings that we see as significant -- as we did previously "2024 passings" and  "2023 passings."

 

"James Dobson has left to run to the arms of Satan" -- Ann notes a most welcome death.

"Terence Stamp" -- Kat notes the passing of an actor. 

"A racist and homophobe dies" -- Kat notes the death of a fake 'athlete' in a fake 'sport.'

 

"julian mcmahon" -- Rebecca covers the passing of an actor.

 

"Michael Madsen" -- Stan covers the passing of an actor. 

 

 

"Shrimp Salad Rolls in the Kitchen" -- Trina notes the passing of a musical genius. 

 

"Teeny bopper and man tease Bobby Sherman has passed away" -- Stan notes the passing of a teeny bopper. 

 

"Jimmy Swaggart has finally joined his beloved in hell" -- Kat covers the passing of a monster.

"David Lynch" -- Stan notes the passing of a director.

"Joan Plowright" -- Marcia notes the passing of an actress 

"Movies and Leslie Charleson" -- Stan notes the passing of daytime actress Leslie Charleson. 

"Roberta Flack" and "Roberta Flack was one of a kind amazing" -- Kat and Elaine reflect on the art of Roberta Flack. 

"Gene Hackman" -- Stan covers the passing of a two time Academy Award winner.

"Shattered Love: A Memoir" -- at the start of the year, Marcia reviewed Richard Chamberlain's autobiography.  He passed away at the end of the March and a lot of readers e-mailed to say Marcia's review works as a good obit.

"Angie Stone" -- Betty covers the passing of the queen of neo soul.

 

"Jay North" -- Kat covers the death of a child actor from the 50s. 

 

"Clem Burke" -- Kat covers the death of a drummer. 

"MATLOCK, REACHER, MID CENTURY MODERN, Val Kilmer" and "More on Kilmer and ABC killed SHIFTING GEARS"  -- Stan covers the passing of an actor.

 

"Pope Francis has passed" and "The Snapshot" -- Trina and C.I. note the death of Pope Francis. 

 

 "David Souter, former Supreme Court justice" -- Betty notes a passing.

 

 

 

Video of the week

 

 

 

 

Jim's World

 

There's no book talk this edition.  Hasn't been one since the first of July.

 

What's going on?

Two things.

 

First, Ava and C.I. came up with that as a quick feature.  But they're already doing the media coverage and are honestly exhausted.  Sometime editions this year, that's all we've had -- their piece.

 

Second, along with being tired, some of the choices of books involved coverage of people they know and some weeks they're just not in it.  They didn't sign on to analyze their friends. 

 

So we'll continue to do a book list in future editions but the book talk is probably over at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rebecca's take on a book

julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology

today, marcia and i do our annual summer book read.

we've never gotten this close to labor day.  but the book we read?  we hated it.  it was dull and plodding.

so we chose a new book friday of last week after we compared notes.  we wanted to do a biography about cesar romero but it's actually not out yet.

we're sure that would have been a fun book and we both plan to read it.  but what we then selected last week was a much applauded book we'd heard of but never read. 

it was even a tcm podcast by that ugly looking toad ben mankiewicz whose friends with the anti-trans idiots of 'the young turks.'

tcm really needs to kick his ass to the curb if only for doing a season's podcast with sexist b**ch julie salmon.

that piece of work wrote 'the devil's candy' about the shooting of the box office bomb 'the bonfire of the vanities.'  and that's also what tcm and ben made the podcast about.

in her book, julie sucks up to every man - even the sexist pig richard sylbert.

she presents it as charming when he says barbra streisand is so old and ugly you'd have to put a sack over her head to f**k her.  excuse me, 'box,' you'd have to put a box over her head.  'she's an old jew,' he snarls.  barbra was 48 y.o. at the time this well know pig made those comments.

that the sylbert brothers were legendary sexist pigs - richard & paul.  i knew them both (through c.i.) and as a blond with big tits, i knew just how disgusting they were.  i'll leave it at that since they're both dead.

but know this is the type of person julie chooses to embrace and celebrate.

however, she goes to town on melanie griffith.

there are horrifying sections of this book and that a woman wrote it?  appalling.

there's the whole attacking melanie griffiths looks.  3 men - none director brian depalma - attack melanie's looks for the lines under her eyes.  and this is presented as funny by the b**ch named julie salamon.  she can be judgemental - when it comes to melaine.  she can editorialize when it comes to melanie.

like when she mocks melanie for being with the hair dresser on the last day of filming to discuss hair.

please note that assistant director and director are going over things in this last scene with tom hanks who has a great deal to do in the scene.  

what does it matter if melanie - before she's called to the set - is talking to a hair dresser?

julie salamon mocks her - and mocks the fact that the hair styles being discussed aren't even for the film.

let's be really clear here that melanie shows up when she's called to the set and let's be really clear that melanie's not made up and her hair's not done when she shows up and that there's a reason for that: in the scene - her final moment on camera - that's about to be shot, the camera will be on tom hanks for everything but 1 shot of melanie - 1 shot of her foot pressing down on an accelerator.  only her foot is in the scene.

but the b**ch authoress makes fun of melanie and mocks her.

so let's not pretend that the author has a problem editorializing.

but she giggles over the attacks on melanie's face by 3 men in a lengthy discussion.

bruce willis has to leave the shoot on a designated date as does morgan freeman but the author has a real tone and attitude about melanie not being there when the shoot starts - even though every 1 knew melanie was shooting 'pacific heights' and wouldn't be done until a specific date before melanie was signed to the film.  and melanie is there on that specific date. 

i know melanie casually, by the way.  she and c.i. are friends.  i've never known her to be anything to be sweet.  the only thing that ever really irritated me about her was that she had a relationship with steven bauer. they were married.  now i think antonio bandreas is hot - who melanie was also married to - but steven bauer was gorgeous onscreen and, in person, he was even hotter.  i will not pretend that when she was steven i wasn't jealous.  he was something (he'll still attractive to me but in his prime i don't think there was a man on the planet who was as hot he was.  and as hot as he looked onscreen, he was even hotter in person.  the camera did not do him justice.)

julie salamon takes even the most innocuous moment with melanie - 1s i can picture playing out because i know melanie - and always presents them as evil and heavy handed.

that's christian bale, on the set of 1 of those terminator films, blowing up because some 1 was walking in his sight line - his line of vision - as he was preparing for the scene they were about to shoot.

now actors are having to dredge all sorts of feelings to play a scene and it may seem a simple or straight forward scene but you don't know what they're building from - it might be a very painful memory, for instance.

i understood people being shocked by the outburst but, having been on many film sets, i didn't take it as a problem for more than a moment.  every 1 got back to work, no 1 got fired, christian apologized for his outburst.

i bring it up because melanie doesn't like people in her sight line.  many actors don't. they're preparing to deliver a performance, they have to be focused.  jane fonda - on the sets of 'klute' (where she gave the best performance by an actress in the 2nd half of the 20th century) and 'fun with dick and jane' (a hilarious and underrated comedy) was darting off to pay phones every second she wasn't filming to work on various political causes.  when they needed for filming, she would take a moment, take a breath, and she was ready.  that's great.  that's how she works.  but not every 1 has her training (she studied the method with strasberg) or her concentration skills.  some people need to key in on moods or emotions.  goldie hawn on a comedy set is playful and having fun and if you watch her you realize that various funny bits she's doing are going to be brought into the performance.  every 1 has their own way of working.

but julie salamon slams melanie for not wanting people in her sight line and wanting the set cleared of any 1 who doesn't need to be there at that moment to film the scene.

julie salamon slams her for this.  slams her for not wanting addition people on the set when she's disrobed and about to film a love scene.

what kind of f**king b**ch is julie salamon.  she is the reason 'me too' had to happen.  she is an enabler.  she wrote a book that ridiculed and mocked an actress, that treated as normal men wanting to hang around and see her naked, that treated as normal men grabbing melanie's ass (i'm not talking about a scene being filmed, i'm talking about on the set).  

melanie's looks are mocked.  her age is mocked (she was 'old,' sorry, i did not realize that 33, her age at the time, was 'old').  she feels the need to share that melanie griffith had a boob job.  every thing is mocked.

now please note that bruce willis has paint or powder being used - depending upon the day - to cover his bald spot. and he was 35 at the time.  and this bald spot was a lighting problem.  and the powder was worse because when he took off his glasses that he wore in scenes, the powder would get all over everything.  but he's not mocked.  his age is never made an issue in the book.

her acting and her acting process is mocked.  at no point is this academy award nominated actress treated or portrayed as talented. 

julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who made life worse for all actresses with her lousy book that has been overly praised for decades.  a reappraisal is desperately needed.

and there was no excuse for 'turner classic movies' to do a podcast in 2021 on this sexist garbage.  by 2021, it should have offended 90% of the people who read this trash.

and don't get me started on how julie salamon also goes to town ridiculing melanie's mother.

marcia and i are both posting right now.  so a second or 2 after this goes up, i'll have a link right here to marcia's review so you can read her take.  'A really bad book' is marcia's review.  be sure to check it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcia's take on a book

 

A really bad book

 

The Devil's Candy is a bad book by Julie Salamon.  It's been praised for years.  I have to believe a lot of the praise is by people who didn't read it.   

It's had three printings, by the way.  It's original and then in 2001 on the 20th anniversary and then on the 30th.

Why is that an issue?

I'm sorry if you're reprinting garbage maybe it's too much for you to read it?

Is that it?  

Is that the excuse for all the factual errors?

The book is about turning Thomas Wolfe's racist book The Bonfire of the Vanities into a film.  Brian de Palma is the director.  The cast includes Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Kim Catrall. 

Early on, it's feared that Melanie Griffith is too old -- at 33 -- to play Tom Hanks' mistress.  Tom was 34 at the time.  But there's a push to give the part to Uma Thurman -- then 20 years old -- before filming starts.  

Bad writer Julie Salamon tells us Uma was hot off her film debut in Dangerous Liaisons.

Do you see the problem?

Because no one's bothered to correct it.  Three reprintings over 30 years.

Uma Thurman first film was Kiss Daddy Goodnight.  She made two other films before she made Dangerous Liaisons -- making DL her fourth film -- not, as Julie types -- her film debut.

There are errors like that on one page after another.  Gross factual errors on page after page.

Again, did the people who praised this crapfest over the years actually read it?  

Here's a passage from the bad book:

But when the book was published and became an instant literary and sociological phenomenon, a great many people wanted to find a through line. Suddenly Bonfire seemed very desirable. Still, nothing happened. No one could completely overcome his or her doubts—not until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987 and put in a call to Jeff Berg, chairman of Wolfe’s literary agency, International Creative Management. 

The book was published, Salamon types, and was a success but "still nothing happened" and wouldn't happen "until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987."  

Wow.  What a long, long wait. 

The publisher shows the release date to be November 1, 1987.  The New York Times reviewed it October 13, 1987.

Late autumn?  That's generally considered to be November.  "Still, nothing happened."  Weeks after the book's published and  then makes the best seller list is not a great length of time.

But facts don't matter to this author. 

It's a boring book, it's a book with non-stop factual errors and -- Rebecca's zooming in on this -- it's a very sexist book.

We're both posting right now.  A second or two after this goes up, I'm adding a link here to Rebecca's review.   Okay, Rebecca's "julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology" and it's an epic.  You'll enjoy it, be sure to read it.

 

Deep album cut of the week

 

 

From Diana Ross'  1971 album SURRENDER, "And If You See Him" was written by Ashford & Simpson (who also produced the album). 

This edition's playlist

 

 1) Diana Ross' THANK YOU.

2) Beyonce's COWBOY CARTER.

 

3) The Rolling Stones' HACKNEY DIAMONDS.

 

4) Sam Smith's THE THRILL OF IT ALL.


5)  The Mamas and the Papas' THE PAPAS & THE MAMAS. 

 

6) Joni Mitchell's JONI MITCHELL ARCHIVES -- VOL. 3: THE ASYLUM YEARS (1972 - 1975).

  

7) Green Day's  'SAVIORS.'

 

8) Ben Harper's CALL IT WHAT IT IS.

9) Harry Styles' HARRY'S HOUSE. 

 

10) Alicia Keys' HERE.

 

 

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.
 

"Chump's illegal war on immigrants" -- most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site. 

 

"Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes"" and THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes" -- Isaiah's latest comics.

 

 

"A really bad book" and "julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology"  -- Marcia and Rebecca do their summer book read. 

 

 

"The Snapshot,"  "The Snapshot,"  "The Snapshot," "The Snapshot," "The Snapshot," "Idiot of the Week,"  "Can Donald Chump learn his lane?," "Chump's making his reservation for a long (eternal) stay in hell,"  "Some Senate races," "That disgusting Glenneth Greenwald," "Taco Bell," "Chump should be charged with stolen valor,"  "Dr Phil and Chump -- fakes and frauds," "Epstein -- pal of Maxwell and Chump.," "target fooled around and now gets to find out," "chump embarrassed the country on the world stage," "crazy nuts,"  "Chump and his non-Christian base (they're Saulians)," "Junior betrays the staff in the department he is supposed to lead,"  "MTG and Megyn Kelly: A Couple of Racists Sitting Around Talking,"  "Marjorie Taylor Crook,"  "Chump and his boy Junior,"  "Chump's stupidity is only matched by his desperation,"  "Chump has too much time on his hands,"  "No, Chump, you are not going to heaven," "Chump has declared war on voting,," "Everyone has caught on to Chump," "What happened to the kid in THE SIXTH SENSE?," "Racist Chump is allergic to the truth," "We've all lost confidence in our corrupts Supreme Court," "Liar Chump continues war on science," "The fools are all here: Trampy Melania, Pam Bondi Bimbo and Pete Hegseth and his overused (gaping) anus," "James Dobson has left to run to the arms of Satan," "A good ruling from Judge Fred Biery," "Male cheerleaders," "Pete Hegseth did WHAT with a subway sandwich?," "The freaks of the Chump administration," "DC follies and disgraces," "THIS JUST IN! THAT WACKY D.C.!," "Like his administration, Chump's flesh rots in public," "Stupidity is the common theme of the Chump administration," "Dumb Bondi, Fat Chump and Plastic Surgery Addict Noem," "Pam Bondi inspires Dumb Bondi jokes," "THIS JUST IN! CHUMP, BONDI AND NOEM -- 3 IDIOTS 3," "The administration has a contest to declare who's the most stupid in their group" and "Immigration is a concept the court of Queen Chump doesn't really understand" -- news coverage in the community.

 

 

"New England Style American Chop Suey," "Pork Chops with Apples and Onions in the Kitchen." "Air Fryer Spicy Shrimp Crispy Rice in the Kitchen," "Chicken Tetrazzini in the Kitchen" and "Red Potato Salad in the Kitchen" -- Trina serves up some recipes. 

  

"joan collins, nicholas clay, luke macfarlane,"  "RELAY and fall TV,"  "PARAMOUNT's assets are overestimated, PEACEMAKER season 2 has started,"  "ALIEN EARTH and the revival of KING OF THE HILL,"  "Chris Pratt doesn't realize he's over," "Weekend box office,"  "Terence Stamp" and "Cartoons" -- TV and film coverage in the community.  

 

"Doja Cat, Little Nas X, Heart, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys,"  "Garbage, Oasis, Robbie Williams, Devo," "Losers Dean Cain and Michael Franti" and "Oasis, Rick Springfield, Devo, Blondie" -- music coverage in the community. 

 

 

 

Media: Two spectacles America really didn't need

Some things make no sense.  For instance?  KING OF THE HILL on HULU or Donald Chump back in the White House.

 

 

Both are flaming out. Valentina Kraljik (FICTION HORIZON) reported:

According to Parrot Analytics’ Streaming Economics data, King of the Hill has brought in nearly $100 million in streaming revenue since the first quarter of 2020.

That puts it on the same level as “American Dad!,” which is still producing new episodes, and far ahead of Mike Judge’s earlier hit, “Beavis and Butt-Head,” which has earned just over $50 million for Paramount+ since 2020, including its reboot.

For Hulu, these numbers show why it made sense to revive “King of the Hill.” Bringing Arlen, Texas, into the modern world is a smart move for a platform looking for proven shows that keep viewers coming back. “Fans have been waiting for years for new episodes, and that creates a huge initial spike in interest,” industry analysts say.

But they didn't bring back KING OF THE HILL.

Brittany Murphy is dead as is Tom Petty.  Singer-songwriter Petty had played Lucky, husband to Luanne.  Luanne, a character with the show from the first season back in 1997 was very important to the show.  She was Peggy's niece but she was more than that, she was the show's voice of hope.  Brittany Murphy played her and when the talk of a KING OF THE HILL revival first started, many wondered how they could do the show without Brittany Murphy.

Spoiler: They can't.

The revival already suffers bad word of mouth over the animation.  

That's not a minor thing for an animated show.  And Mike Judd whining that they aren't able to do the art the way they once were?  Really doesn't cut it.  

But nothing about the show cuts it.

Supposedly, it's the return of the Hill family.  They've tried to make Bobby look a little cuter but you've got Peggy talking and forcing you to wonder what's wrong with Kathy Najimy's voice?  Is she trying to make Peggy sound older?  Hank?  Did he come back with the revival?

Yes, there's a character named Hank Hill but he makes no sense.

In the first scene, he's now the angry grandpa trying to navigate a world with Uber.  But far worse than the world having past Hank by is this character voiced by Mike Judge that seems nothing at all like Hank.  We cringed over Hank having to defend himself for watching CNN -- didn't really seem like an issue that should matter to his friends Boomhauer and Bill.  It might matter to Dale Gribble, it might not.  But Bill and Boomhauer?

What would matter to them -- and should have matted to Hank -- was leaving the United States.  Forget the US, in what world does Hank leave Texas?

Mike Judge thinks it's a great move (plot device) but heavy pot smokers often think something's far out when it's really nothing.

Hank Hill would not move to Saudi Arabia.  Hank Hill would not live there for years, finally return to the US and think about returning to Saudi Arabia.

Judge likes to insist that many people leave Texas for Saudi Arabia.  

We're sure a few do each year.  We're also sure that they aren't the super-patriots Hank is.  

Judge thinks it's a great move (plot device) because it's let's you see Arlen, Texas through the eyes of the returning Hank.  

He really is that stupid.

And we blame Austin.

Austin, Texas has many things going for it.  The creative community really isn't one of those things.  Remember ROOSTER TEETH?  That Austin based 'content creator' burned through millions for 20 years before finally shutting down in 2023.  It was so great, so wonderful, so this and so that.

At least if you were White.  And straight.  And male.

They created a lot of crap and a few tolerable programs as well.  However, the content-creators never seemed to be living in the same time as the rest of us and they weren't interested in the voices of anyone who wasn't a straight, White male.  For the 21st century, that was embarrassing.

KING OF THE HILL returns with a similar problem.  All these years later, they finally find a Black character who can appear on more than one episode. Black people might make up over 15% of the population of Garland, Texas (one of three cities that Judge has cited for the fictional town of Arlin, Texas); however, they just didn't exist during the 13 seasons KING OF THE HILL originally aired. 

Women -- of any race -- barely existed.  

Having lost one of the major character -- LuAnn -- and her having been a her, you might think that they worked hard to create a new female character.

You would be wrong.

A long with the new Black male character (who lived in Hank and Peggy's house while they were in Saudi Arabia), you've also got Bobby's boss and Bobby's boss' son.  And you've got Bobby's co-worker.  

But no real effort has been made to create a replacement for LuAnn.  In the fall of 2023, Johnny Hardwick passed away.  He had voiced Dale Gribble.  Dale's one of the worst characters on the show -- we'll get to why in a second -- but they hired a replacement (Toby Huss) so that the character could continue.

Why is Dale so awful?  A storyline that's not really cute and should have been wrapped up long ago.  Dale is married to Nancy (Ashley Gardner) who has a child Joseph (voiced by an Anglo White actor until the revival and now the character's voiced by Tai Leclaire who actually is Native American).  Why does that matter?  Dale is not the boy's father, Native American John Redcorn is the child's father and for 13 seasons, the joke has been that Dale doesn't know.  

How is that funny?

Dale still doesn't know in the revival (season 14) and, worse, neither does Joseph. 

Jonathan Joss took over the role in season two when the original voice actor Victor Aaron passed away.  Problem is, Joss was murdered back in June.  So the voice actors for John Redcorn and Dale Gribble are dead.  Dale's recast for the revival.  As is Joseph.  

But this storyline should have been cleared up long, long ago.  

When you watch, you mainly grasp that Judge doesn't know how to be a show runner -- not a good one.

Here's one example.  Unlike in the original show, Bobby no longer lives at home with his parents.  He has an apartment with Joseph. The show did not need to be more spread out.  And are we all forgetting season three of HAPPY DAYS?  Episode one?  "Fonzie Moves In"?  The whole point was to get Fonzie closer to the Cunninghams and make the action tighter so Fonzie moves in with the Cunninghams.  It probably would have been smarter to have moved Bobby back in with the Hills.  It would have made the show move smother and work better.  

KING OF THE HILL didn't do send up and spoofs the way Seth MacFarlane's programs so often do.  They generally had a main story and supporting story.  And they followed them through in the manner that THE SIMPSONS and BOB'S BUGERS do.  Unlike those shows -- or AMERICAN DAD -- KING OF THE HILL did not produce many classic episodes.  There's "A Beer Can Named Desire" and that may be it.  The writing was never bad but it was never focused.  With Bobby living in an apartment, the show becomes even more scatter shot.

Back to HAPPY DAYS, season five, episode three was entitled "Hollywood: Part 3."  But it's remembered as the episode where water skiing Fonzie jumps a tiger shark with the phrase "jumping the shark" deriving from that episode -- it's the moment that's supposed to kick off a decline.

We bring that up because of Friday when Convicted Felon Donald Chump had his jump the shark moment in Alaska as he met with War Criminal Vladimir Putin.

Chump, based on his statements repeatedly last week, thought he was going to Russia.  As Ruth noted Saturday, "Chump spread his legs for Putin" -- so clearly Chump had many things on his mind going into that date.  Still, give him props for going blonder with his hair color -- we're guessing it was his equivalent of Marinly Monroe's platinum blond look for when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President JFK.  He might not have known where the plane was dropping him off but he knew he wanted to look pretty for his man.  Giddy might have been the reason for Donald repeatedly misspeaking (lying) in the lead-up to the meet-up.

This might also explain how documents got left unattended and forgotten.  Naomi LaChance (ROLLING STONE) explained:

 

Guests at a hotel in Alaska found eight pages of documents from President Donald Trump's meetings Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a printer, NPR reported Saturday.

The documents show the schedule of the summit with times and locations. They also show the lunch menu, the lunch seating chart, and the phone numbers of three of Trump administration staffers. The documents were found in a printer at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel in Anchorage that is near the military base where the summit took place. 

Trump and Putin have had a hot and cold relationship, with Trump alternately taunting him and praising him. On Friday, the two leaders walked a red carpet together, as they met to discuss a potential end to Russia's war in Ukraine. The meeting ended abruptly without a Ukraine ceasefire deal. Trump told reporters it was "an extremely productive meeting," but they "didn't get there."

 

Tom Boggioni added:

According to Jon Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA who lectures about national security, a government official leaving the documents laying around is a massive security breach.

"It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration," he told NPR. "You just don't leave things in printers. It's that simple."

Love was on the brain but there were also egos involved as Daniel Hampton reminds:

 

A New York Times reporter flagged what she called one "unusual" element of a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — it was awfully quiet.

Trump and Putin participated in a bizarre standoff, with each trying to outwait the other on deplaning in Alaska. As the two walked down the tarmac and shook hands, Times reporter Katie Rogers, who is traveling with Trump, flagged a notable facet of their meeting.

It was like a moment in 1939 on the MGM lot when Laszlo Willinger needed photographs of the three primary stars of THE WOMEN for poster art.  Rosalind Russell shows up late to make a big entrance as she apologizes for being late.  Though late, she's actually the first to arrive because Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer are both circling around the building in their cars, each refusing to go in before the other.  Laszlo has to go outside and flag the cars down to stop the diva behavior. 

 

Divas.

Between  Chump and Putin's sexual tensions, the need to sparkle and, most of all, the incompetence, it's no wonder that Chump embarrassed himself on the world stage and accomplished nothing.  Andrew O'Hehir (SALON) notes:

Donald Trump’s supposed strength lies in showmanship and stagecraft, or at least in shamelessly whoring for attention, which is not exactly the same thing. The fact that “we” — meaning the entire ecosystem of media and public opinion, including you and me — keep giving him attention, like a bunch of aging addicts chasing an unachievable high, says more about us than about him.

But while Trump’s second administration is undeniably nastier and more destructive than his first, it’s not entirely clear who’s driving the bus to dystopia. Because it ain’t him. Trump has always seemed more like a sump pump of received wisdom and reprocessed opinions than an actual human adult, but even by those standards he now appears enormously diminished. His so-called summit meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday was an abject failure (for everyone but Putin), making clear that the president’s performance skills have degraded nearly as much as his already-damaged cognitive abilities.

It seems almost beside the point to report that Trump and Putin failed to achieve a breakthrough in resolving the Ukraine conflict, and that Trump appears to have pivoted back to Putin’s view of the war, at least for the moment, after a brief personal flirtation with the orthodox pro-Ukraine position of other Western leaders. Did anyone genuinely expect a different outcome? It’s not entirely a rhetorical question; a lot of people at least pretended to.

The endlessly disproven notion that Trump is a master negotiator, uniquely skilled at making “deals” (whatever that even means), is like a fading folk belief or sectarian doctrine. For MAGA believers, it’s a received truth that requires no evidence and can never be contradicted by facts. For mainstream journalists, it’s an aspect of the Trump legend that must be treated with reverence, and demands the perpetual suspension of disbelief. Even after all these years, they remain mystified and mesmerized by the Trump phenomenon, and follow him around like a flock of children hoping to learn Harry Houdini’s secrets: Maybe this time, the magic will be real!

It wasn’t real this time either, and the consensus view that Trump was thoroughly pantsed by the Russian leader is correct, or close enough. Putin was welcomed back to the Western world with a literal red carpet, while giving nothing away and making no concessions. Amid the baffled and disgruntled commentary coming in from all directions, I was especially struck by New York Times fashion reporter Vanessa Friedman, who goes straight to the heart of the matter in far more economical fashion than most of her peers. The point of the whole show, she writes, was the photo op depicting Putin and Trump

in complementary dark suits — single-breasted, two-button — matching white shirts and coordinating ties … giving the impression of kindred spirits: just two statesmen meeting on the semi-neutral ground of an airport tarmac to go talk cease-fire, their respective planes looming in the background.

Both men, Friedman continues, understand “the power of the image” and “have made themselves into caricatures through costume and scenography, the better to capture the popular imagination.” What she does not say, perhaps to avoid throwing shade on her colleagues from the supposed grown-up desks, is that Trump’s image-making fell flat during this particular spectacle, and the whole world was watching.

Bobby Ghosh (TIME)  graded Chump similarly:

The Alaska meeting, which concluded without the Ukraine ceasefire Trump had promised, represents the latest chapter in a troubling pattern: the 45th and 47th president’s persistent confusion of stagecraft for statecraft. Where Reagan walked away from Reykjavik rather than accept a bad deal, Trump seems perpetually seduced by the optics of the moment, the handshake photo, the joint press conference that suggests progress where none exists.

Putin emerged from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson having achieved precisely what he came for: legitimacy on American soil, the erosion of Western unity, and a platform to present his territorial demands as reasonable “agreements.” Trump, meanwhile, offered the unconvincing assurance that they had made “many, many points that we agreed on”—diplomatic speak for admitting you’ve been played.

The choice of venue itself revealed Trump’s weakness for symbolism over substance. Alaska, purchased from Russia 158 years ago for $7.2 million, was supposed to be a clever metaphor for American strength. Instead, it became the stage for Putin to pitch his own “land deal of the century”—demanding Ukraine surrender the very territories his forces have failed to fully capture. The irony was lost on Trump, but certainly not on Putin, who understands better than most that in diplomacy, symbols matter only when backed by resolve.

Retired US Army Lt General Mark Hertling graded just as harshly but was a bit more succinct, "This whole thing is despicable."