The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
The Iraq War continues. The deaths continue. ISIS continues.
US troops remain on Iraqi soil. US troops continue to die in Iraq.
What part of "the Iraq War has not ended" confuses some Americans?
The Iraqi people suffer. The protests have dropped off -- they continue but they are smaller -- due to the coronavirus threat. But if economists predicting hyperinflation for Iraq are correct, the large protests that began last fall will be even larger.
Too many Americans ignore what has happened in Iraq, what continues to take place. Some of those idiots are rushing to praise Bully Boy Bush and reinvent him as someone worthy of praise. Bully Boy Bush deserves only condemnation.
Right before the United States invaded Iraq, 65% of the country supported a secular government.
During the occupation of Iraq the United States
•Fired 500,000 Iraqi state workers
•Attempted to privatize state companies
•Turned reconstruction over to US companies 1/5 Local democracy was suppressed. Elected leaders were replaced with handpicked US candidates. Only 15,000 Iraqis were hired by US companies to rebuild their own country. After the first 6 months, a majority of Iraqis (70%) supported Islamic law as the basis of the state. 2/5 4 million Iraqis were forced to leave their homes. About half the population was left without clean drinking water. Less than 40% of children attended schools, in a country where the pre-war literacy rate was 89%. Not to mention over 150,000 civilian deaths. Abu Ghraib. 3/5 We imposed a new constitution on Iraq by force. The old constitution had been drafted in 1970 and was perfectly workable, it had just been ignored by Saddam Hussein. This is what Moqtada al-Sadr cited when he formed the Mahdi Army AFTER peaceful protests yielded no results 4/5 Rehabilitating George W. Bush or even comparing him favorably to the current president seems myopic. Nothing this president has done measures up to the devastation visited upon Iraq. Don't mistake this for Trump-praise (not destroying a country is a low bar to clear). 5/5
NETFLIX has had many misfires but finally it has a must-watch. This happens as Al Franken becomes the poster boy for every guy who thinks groping should be okay.
Starting with NETFLIX, HOLLYWOOD is a huge improvement of Ryan Murphy's last NETFLIX series THE POLITICIAN. With the earlier one, Jessica Lange delivered and the rest pretty much just smiled for the cameras. This go round, Ryan has cast much better. He's also written a much stronger and more involving storyline.
Let's start with that, the storyline. This is one of those tributes to the MARVEL comic WHAT IF as HOLLYWOOD attempts to fantasize what might have happened if the first African-American actress to be nominated -- and to win -- an Academy Award for Best Actress had won in 1948 and what if, instead of Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres making news for attending the 1997 White House Correspondents dinner together being the 'public display' that got many talking, it had been a 1948 hand holding outside the Oscars -- and a kiss inside the ceremonies -- between actor Rock Hudson and screenwriter Archie Coleman? In fact, what if long before Dawn Steel and Sherry Lansing ever reached pre-K, a woman, Avis Amberg, was running a film studio in Hollywood?
What if those things had happened in real life as they do in the series? A lot of people would have had better lives, would have known of possibilities and had more options. It would have been a better world.
More care appears to have been taken with casting this go round. Only two roles are miscast -- and they are horribly miscast. As Avis' husband Ace, Rob Reiner reminds everyone he's a director, not an actor. He was never much of an actor to begin with, a one-trick pony. Here, he nearly destroys every scene he is in. David Corenswet plays aspiring actor Jack Castello and when Jack does his first screen test, he's yelling at the actress opposite him. Those watching the test think it's some of the worst acting they've seen. Did they not see Rob Reiner's scenes? Rob does nothing but yell. In fact, if this were a radio play, maybe it might work. But it's not. All Rob knows to do as an actor is yell and quicken the pace of his speech. You never believe he's Ace, you always see Rob Reiner.
The other lousy performance comes from Mira Sorvino -- a woman who seems bound and determined to destroy her own career a second time Here, she's supposed to be a successful film actress named Jeanne Crandall. Mira's 52 and looks 59. So sleeping with Ace or not, there's no way she'd be cast as the lead in a film if she wasn't a star. But, here's the thing, poor Jeanne has never made the leap to star, she's never had that role that would carry her to stardom. Do you believe that garbage? No one else does, especially with Mira's performance. A star commands attention. Mira? She plays Jeanne as a woman forever cowering, forever lowering her head -- when offered a role that should make her a star, she can't even project confidence then. And when presenting at the Oscars, she's a horrible mess. No one would be able to turn that into a star. The looks are gone -- she agrees with Ace on that, after complaining about all the work being done to soften her looks on her new film -- and what's left is just a weak, little simp. You wouldn't cast Jeanne as a background player, let alone as the star of the film. And Mira's back to doing those weird voices -- you know, the thing helped destroy her career in the first place.
And with that, we're done with the negative portion of the critique. Everyone else shines -- in all the roles, big and small.
Dylan McDermott, for example, has the supporting role of Ernie and he runs with it and brings it to life. By the end of his story arc, he's moved you to tears more than once. Patti LuPone can sing, everyone knew that. She can also play a straight role (no singing) and does here as Avis. This is a meaty role and one that a number of actresses probably wanted. We can't picture anyone doing more with the role than Patti has. This should be an Emmy nominated role for her.
Queen Latifah, Jim Parsons, David Corenswet, Darren Criss, Laura Harrier, Michelle Krusiec, Jake Picking, Jeremy Pope, Holland Taylor, Samara Weaving . . . Everyone does an incredible job with their role and with bringing something new and real to the screen.
The seven episodes move far too quickly in retrospect because you wish there were more of them.
When will David Axelrod be over? Apparently, he's a floater that the world just can't flush down. Sadly. Tara Reade has credibly accused Joe Biden of assault. Along comes David last week to insist that Joe passed Barack Obama's vetting -- David wasn't part of the vetting process but finds it strange that Tara didn't go to those vetting Biden. Is that not the stupidest thing you've ever heard? How would anyone know who Barack had put in charge of vetting Joe Biden? Second, she wasn't ready to come forward then and she's already noted several times that she supported Barack Obama.
More to the point, Barack's vetting team didn't do a very good job. Forget Joe Biden, just look at Van Jones. Van hails from our area. We weren't surprised that he was forced out, we were just surprised that he was ever let in to begin with.
For those who've forgotten, let's go to POLITICO for Fred Barbash and Harry Siegel's September 6, 2009 report:
The White House, in an unusual pre-dawn announcement Sunday, said its “green jobs czar” Van Jones would resign after fierce criticism from Republicans about some of his statements and associations prior to joining the administration. While the job itself is not that high-profile — special adviser on
green jobs — Jones’ departure from the position is the first real scalp
claimed by the Republican right, which stoked much of the criticism of
Jones. Jones was under fire
for his past affiliation with the 9/11 conspiracy “truthers” and for
calling Republicans “a**holes” in a video before he was appointed to the
Obama administration. [. . .] And in 2004 he allowed his name to be put on a letter requesting an
investigation into whether the Bush administration allowed 9/11 to
happen as a “pre-text to war.” Jones said Thursday he never believed in
this so-called “Truther” movement, issued an apology for his past
remarks, and said in a statement that his involvement with 9/11
conspiracy theories "does not reflect my views now or ever." [. . .] "Resigning was the right thing to do," said Dana Perino, former press secretary to President George W. Bush. Perino, in a post at POLITICO Arena,
said she was "curious how he made it that far into the administration
when a Google search could have told you he believed that the Bush
administration had allowed 9/11 to happen. It'd be like the Bush White
House having a former Klansman or Holocaust denier in the West Wing."
We don't hold his involvement in the 9/11 movement against him. But we were shocked, in real time, that it didn't appear to be a problem for the White House. Forget GOOGLE, Dana Perino, this was all known to anyone in our area.
David really needs to go away. He can take the hideous Kurt Eichenwald who took to TWITTER on Saturday to announce he had been raped -- yes, ugly men can get raped too -- and then use his new identity as The Most Important Rape Victim ever to argue that Tara Reade was lying. (See "How lucky, as women, we are to finally have a man explain to us what rape's really like").
And this is what we're stuck with? Sam Seder's nonsense below?
For those who've forgotten, Sam Seder allowed neoliberal Simon Rosenberg to get away with one talking point after another on THE MAJORITY REPORT when it was on AIR AMERICA RADIO. Janeane Garofalo was off that night. His co-host was the equally craven Bill Scher. Days before, Rachel Maddow had stood up to Simon on air on UNFILTERED. But Sam couldn't. And he couldn't deal with the message board for the show being filled with people calling him out.
Were they right to call him out? Sam's a failed comic and a failed actor. On top of that, he's not very good at political analysis.
He's not the only one playing the 'poor' Al Franken card. And everyone doing it loves to lie. Al-should-have-been-left-alone. Oh, hell no. Not only were the number of women coming forward mounting but there was the infamous picture. More to the point, White Boy Sam, there's John Conyers. A month before Al resigned, John had been forced to resign with far less proof. And once a legend was forced to resign, there was no way Al was going to be safe. Once an African-American legend was forced out of Congress, there was no way funny-boy Al was going to stay. (Al actually announced his 'intent' to resign two days after Conyers was forced out but he did not resign until a month later.)
Unlike John Conyers, Al supported the Iraq War -- he was part of a meeting in 2002 where he argued those in Congress should vote for it to avoid being defeated in the 2002 elections. He went on to host an insipid talk show where he attacked anyone -- Meg Ryan, moments after she was off the show -- for calling for US troops to leave Iraq. Then he got into the Senate and did . . . nothing of value. And Al had a long history at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- Laraine Newman ignored it because she herself was always grabbing Al's ass and Jane Curtin ignored it because she hated John Belushi and her whole purpose in life today is taking down John Belushi (and praying no one ever digs into the trouble she made for Susan Saint James -- a story that would really harm her I'm-just-a-woman-who-supports-women pretense).
It's so typical of the male mind-set to present Al Franken as the victim. Al was a sitting US Senator. He had all the power. Unlike Conyers, he was not about to be up for election (Al would be facing re-election this November if he had stayed in Congress). Equally true, in 2019, another woman came forward. Al's 'defense'? He told THE NEW YORK TIMES he couldn't believe that he'd done things to make women uncomfortable. Here's a tip for Al and his supporters like Sam -- groping women makes women uncomfortable. Keep your hands to yourself. People who can't understand that are the whole reason a show like HOLLYWOOD has to exist.
Ruth: Friday, more attacks were aimed at Tara Reade. I ended up writing "Ken Olin is disgusting trash" very early in the day. It was only later that I remembered a new episode of THE BLACKLIST was airing on NBC. At that point, I e-mailed everyone asking if anybody needed someone to guest blog? Ava and C.I. asked me if I just wanted to cover the episode, an important one as I had explained in the e-mail, at THIRD? My answer? Absolutely.
Friday's show was entitled "Brothers" and it was written by Sean Hennen. The basic plotline? From WIKIPEDIA: In flashbacks to 1995, Ressler's police officer father is set up by his
corrupt partner Tommy Markin and murdered. Ressler, a troubled teen,
learns the truth and confronts Markin, shooting and apparently killing
him. His brother Robby cleans the crime scene and while burying Markin
finds him still alive. This sets Ressler on a law enforcement path and
the man he would become. In the present, the Ressler brothers dig up
Markin because the field is to be developed, but their car with the body
is stolen by the Albanian mob who Robby owes money too. In exchange for
the body, the Albanians want Ressler to get them information on an
undercover agent, but Ressler decides to come clean instead, Robby
reveals that Markin survived the gunshot and Robby killed him to protect
his brother. Ressler and Robby come clean to Liz who is reluctant to
help her friend ruin his life; nonetheless, Liz helps Ressler and Robby
take down the mobsters in a sting operation, but Markin's body
disappears. Liz reveals that she got rid of the body to protect Ressler
who is the one person in her chaotic life that Liz can count on.
Let me jump to Agent Donald. Diego Klattenhoff plays the character. On
this week's episode, he was again ignoring calls from his brother. (If
that was his brother. There are times when Donald is not fully
honest.) But that is a detail that they give Donald and others but
never give to Harold. Donald always strikes me as too straight-laced. I
am referring to the character here, not the actor. There are moments
when he actually appears to enjoy pain. I often wonder if he needs to
be the sub in some S&M relationship. You sort of get the feeling
that the only time he can lose control is when he is pain. My
granddaughter Tracey says Mr. Klattenhoff needs to recreate his briefs
scene from MEAN GIRLS but as Agent Donald Ressler.
He loves pain. And he feels like he needs to be punished.
Friday, we found out why. He has been carrying guilt for shooting a police officer, a friend of his father's, because the man killed his father. He learned in this episode that he did not kill the man. He shot him. But the man was still alive when his older brother Robby was trying to clean up the scene of the crime. Robby ended up killing him.
Does this mean that now he will no longer have the need to be punished?
I do not think so. I think, first of all, it is too ingrained in him after all these years and, short of therapy, he is not going to change. Secondly, he still shot the man. He may also feel that he forced Robby to kill the man because Robby only killed the man to protect Donald.
The episode was important for Elizabeth as well. She came to Ressler's rescue. Why? He wanted to know why and she responded that he is the only thing calm and the only thing she could count on in her life. It gave a further deepening to their already strong friendship.
There were twists and turns and it did not do much of anything to advance the overall yearly storyline (Elizabeth's mother and Raymond battling one another). It did, however, do a great deal to deepen the characterizations of Ressler and Elizabeth.
Good for Jake Tapper for asking whore and Governor Gretch The Wretch Whitmar about her hypocrisy. Gretch The Wretch immediately wants you to know that she's read about Tara Reade. Clearly not enough and she also doesn't listen very well -- Jake pointed out that Tara has more contemporaneous support than Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did.
Like many a whore, Gretch The Wretch only believed Blasey Ford because Blasey Ford was accusing an "enemy." That's how it works with the fundamentally dishonest. They can believe anything about a political enemy. But even a valid charge against one of their own sends them into denial.
Not even six months later, she's attacking Tara Reade. Why? She's a whore. She doesn't believe in supporting survivors, she only believes in politics. She's a whore.
Call a whore a whore -- it's truth telling at its finest.
Whores are all over the place these days, rushing forward to try to stop Tara's story from getting out. Some of the whores identify as survivors -- such as child pedophile Kurt Eichenwald. They're whores. Joe Biden goes on MSNBC to respond to charges that Tara's never been allowed to air herself on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, CNN or ABC. And? The whores come out to try to shut down the discussion.
That's what whores do, they serve the power structure, they try to railroad victims, they dishonor survivors.
Times up for Times Up? Hopefully. Fake asses whores shouldn't get funding. Don't give that fake ass group a penny or a breath of support. They are not about helping women.
Emily Zanotti (THE DAILY WIRE) writes: Now, “Time’s Up” the organization developed from the #MeToo movement
and charged with providing financial and legal assistance to women who
accuse high-powered men of sexual harassment and assault has declined to
provide that assitance to Reade. Instead, it’s CEO, Tina Tchen, praised
Biden for his “transparency.” Tchen, of course, worked alongside
Biden as a senior advisor to the Obama administration. She’s been active
in a number of causes since leaving the White House, including Time’s
Up, and even, last year, acted as a go-between, delivering messages from
the family of Jussie Smollett, who was then accused of staging his own
hate crime in Chicago, and the Cook County State’s Attorney, urging
prosecutors to drop the case against Smollett or refer it to the FBI. Reade sought help from Tchen and Time’s Up but was refused, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
That's incorrect. That implies that they refused her right away. They did no such thing. They strung her along because she wanted to go public. They strung her along, leading her to believe that they were trying to help, when all they were really doing was attempting to prevent her from telling her story before Super Tuesday. They were trying to help Joe Biden's campaign. They need to be the target of a federal investigation for their actions. They also need to immediately lose their tax free status.
There are whores like Will Bunch out there. Will, for those who don't know, used every sexist trope in the world to take down Hillary Clinton in 2008. Today? He wants you to know that one woman's accusing Joe of assault versus all these women accusing Donald Trump. And, he insists, "Here’s the deal: I am a feminist. And — based on what we know today -- going into the voting booth and choosing between Biden and his
uncomfortable past versus Trump’s open misogyny and his string of sexual
assault allegations is a no-brainer for me or anyone else who proudly
wears that label." No-brainer, that's pretty much all of your columns you disgusting pig. And real feminists know that it's not a number's game. You don't get a pass because you only assault once. That's not how it works you human s**t stain. Stop trying to act like you're a feminist, we do not forget the non-feminist way you repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton. You're a fake ass, Will, and you're a whore.
Trash like Will Bunch think they can tell you how to vote and what to prioritize. Whores like Debra Messing think they can trash Tara Reade and spit out any lie and it'll be okay. That's how we arrive at moments like the following: A state legislator in New Hampshire resigned Saturday after he posted a
tweet that dismissed sexual assault allegations against Democratic
presidential candidate Joe Biden as unlikely because of the way women’s
bodies are constructed. Rep. Richard Komi, a Manchester Democrat, tweeted that a woman’s
anatomy would make it difficult to digitally penetrate her without “some
cooperation from the female herself.” He said that was why he believed
former Senate staffer Tara Reade’s allegations against Biden were false.
He also accused Reade of “looking for attention.” Biden has denied the
allegations. The tweet, since deleted, prompted House Speaker Steve Shurtleff to
call for Komi’s resignation late Friday over what he described as an
“outrageous and offensive tweet about sexual assault and survivors of
sexual assault.”
Sexual violence experts bashed Komi’s comments as misguided and dangerous. Anthony Zenkus, the director of education for The Safe Center, an advocacy group for victims of sexual and domestic violence, bashed Komi’s tweet as “the definition of rape culture.”
“He was right to resign, but we do not accept his apology,” Zenkus tweeted Saturday. “Blaming a woman for her rape is an old trope. Many still believe this. His words were harmful and put women in danger.”
Where is Joe Biden in all of this? He wasn't going to question Tara's motives but here are his people attacking Tara and he has nothing to say about it?
And he's really not apologizing, by the way. He's made his Tweets protected but noted on his profile that he's now a former state representative and that he is "Unrepentant" -- gotcha, message received.
As survivors, we are paying close attention to who we can count on and who we can't. Fake asses and whores? You're cancelled. You're over. We don't need you anymore
I think the cavalier dismissal of Tara Reade by putative supporters of women and victims is disturbing and risks real harm to progress won for victims of sexual assault. And I think Dems need to prepare a Biden plan B.
Bill Clinton has spoken in a prime-time slot at every Democratic National Convention since he left office, because what he did to multiple women isn’t considered remotely shameful for Dems, let alone disqualifying.
That’s what you’re seeing in their treatment of Tara Reade now.
Rape can happen to anyone. That's why I don't doubt Kurt Eichenwald's
assertion today that he was raped in the 80s. Rape is not about sex.
It's about power and it's about doing harm. Anyone can be raped. Yes,
even a man as ugly as Kurt can be raped.
I also know that some men who are victimized go on to victimize others.
That would explain why Kurt was seeking contact with underage male
prostitutes online. Pedophiles are often grown men who were victims.
But what I don't accept is that Kurt is the voice of all rape survivors
and that his reaction is the reaction that everyone must have if they
were raped.
Sorry, Kurt, just as everyone doesn't have your fat body that somehow
still has a flat, pancake ass, it's equally true that everyone who is
raped doesn't remember the details that you did.
In fact, Kurt, this might be one of those times where a man and a woman experience things differently.
We get it, Kurt. Because rape happened to you, a man, it suddenly
became a real story to you. But long before you were raped, women were
dealing with it. And women haven't needed you once, since time began,
to explain rape to us. Imagine that, a man's word wasn't needed, his
judgment was neither requested nor called for.
I know that's a shocker to you, Kurt.
Poor Kurt. He thought he could come out as a rape victim and that we'd
all then allow him to attack Tara Reade. Not happening. Wouldn't
happen, Kurt, even if you got honest about what you were really doing
online with those boys.
It's equally true that if Kurt actually remembers decades of crying over
his rape, he is a piece of human trash to attack Tara Reade. Being
raped, Kurt, doesn't give you rape-radar that allows you to know who
else was raped and wasn't raped.
Kurt is trash. Kurt was trash before he announced that he had been raped and he's still trash now.
At THE WEEK, Ryan Cooper offers: As I have previously written,
Reade's story about Biden is credible. It would never meet the
courtroom standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," but given that Reade
is now known to have privately told at least five people what happened
at the time or in the years following, it can't be dismissed out of
hand. Biden has a track record of behaving creepily around women, and
has a long history of ridiculous exaggeration and telling bald-faced lies. At bottom, it is quite similar to many other #MeToo stories. The plain fact is that this accusation is going to dog Biden for the rest of the campaign. Trump has already started talking about it.
The right-wing media will cover the story for purely political reasons.
Fox News does not care about #MeToo, but the story damages Biden,
demoralizes Democrats, and makes liberals look like egregious
hypocrites. The sight of nearly every Democratic-aligned women's rights
group queasily keeping silent about the story is simply delicious for the likes of Sean Hannity (though a few have started speaking out). It's also hard to see how Biden could conclusively "address" the
story, as some liberals have advocated. At bottom it is a case of
he-said-she-said, and Biden does not have a record of scrupulous
honesty.
Many mainstream and lefty journalists will continue to cover it. The
Reade accusation is unquestionably news, and outside of the right-wing
press, there is still a broad ethic of covering stories even if they are
politically inconvenient. It is not always honored, but it's still
there. As The Intercept's Ryan Grim writes,
"I decided early in my career that I would never suppress a story if
the only reason I were doing so was concern about its political
implications. If you do that, you're no longer a journalist." However, Biden still has not been officially nominated. The Democratic
National Convention is not until August 17, and before then he could be
pressured into dropping out. If Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, a critical
mass of the rest of other Democratic elected officials, and all the
various Democratic-aligned activists groups all said in unison that
Biden was unfit to be president, and should drop out for the good of the
party, he probably would withdraw. The primary rules regarding candidates who drop out
are somewhat vague, saying that delegates cannot be "mandated" to vote
for someone else, and "shall in all good conscience reflect the
sentiments of those who elected them." But this would seem to allow
Biden to instruct his delegates to support another candidate, and in 11
states there are specific rules for doing so. Realistically, no unclear
legal technicalities are going to prevent someone else from getting the
nomination if Biden refuses to take it.
The AP's Tara Reade story headline appears to now been changed from
“AP Exclusive: Harassment, assault absent in Biden complaint”
to
“Reade: ‘I didn’t use sexual harassment’ in Biden complaint”
That clumsy initial headline appears to be the reason that we appear to have now entered the news cycle of: Tara Reade now says she didn't file a complaint about sexual harassment or assault.
Survivors of violence are watching and we are seeing what AP is doing.
This will not end pretty for the press. They learned nothing from the
gender quake of 1992 or from Hill-Thomas.
Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).
