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 Gaza Freaks. You may know one. They're Americans who pretend to be concerned about the Palestinians. But they really aren't as their actions -- or inaction -- demonstrate over and over. Take the movement's self-proclaimed leader Dave Zirin. Dave writes for THE NATION and THE PROGRESSIVE and what he often lacks in intelligence or even basic skills, he often makes up for with passion that he channels into misguided avenues.
Dave's got a new piece at THE NATION. We're not linking to it. Search it if you want but THE NATION and their paywall nonsense gets on people's nerves. It's a paywall that Nation Builders do not agree with. (Nation Builders keep the magazine-website going by donating thousands each year and they're really not cool -- we did a polling -- with the idea that an election year finds THE NATION limiting the amount of articles someone can read.)
Dave's piece isn't worth anyone wasting a free click. If you feel it is, search for it, it's entitled "Behind the Harris Campaign's Quest for the Mythical 'Cheney Democrats'." If you're late to the party, former US House Rep Liz Cheney, a Republican, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president and has spoken with the Democratic Party's presidential candidate at campaign events. Dave is freaking out.
What's causing the meltdown? Realizing how ineffective he is and how ineffective his life has been.
Dave was one of those who jumped on the Occupy Wall Street craze. We call it a craze and not a movement because where is it now? Or take Camp Casey. Both started out with basics we could all agree on and support. And then they got co-opted by crazies before they could make any real difference. That's because we surf fads. People talk about Neo-liberalism shipping jobs overseas but who knew movement building was one of those jobs?
Movement building is hard work and it doesn't have overnight. There's no quick fix.
It's something that escaped The Gaza Freaks.
After decades of living under apartheid and being slaughtered, the Palestinian people truly captured the world's attention in the last 12 months. And sympathy for and identification with the Palestinian people had never been greater. There was talk of the need for a cease-fire to end the genocide the Israeli government is carrying out.
Longterm observes of the situation knew a cease-fire was little more than a needed band-aid. If that's all that took place, the slaughter would continue -- as it had in the many years before October 7, 2023 -- and it would do so in smaller numbers to avoid worldwide press coverage. Longterm observers knew there was a lot of work to do and were proceeding to roll up their sleeves and work for a truly better world for the Palestinian people.
And then there were the Daves. Surfers who hop onto a craze. You know, the way CODESTINK always does. They'll hitch a ride on a cause for a few months and then, when press attention moves elsewhere, they'll find a new cause that can gather attention for themselves because isn't getting press coverage much more important than working for -- and bringing about -- actual change?
2024 is an election year.
Since July, The Gaza Freaks have insisted they're not voting for Kamala Harris. They wrote her a letter detailing what they wanted for Christmas and then they threw their tantrum.
Using a questionable poll by CAIR, they convinced themselves that they had the numbers when they didn't. They trashed her. They used their outlets: COMMON DREAMS, THE PROGRESSIVE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, etc, etc -- to try to destroy enthusiasm for Kamala and her presidential campaign.
Donald Trump is not going to be a better choice for the Palestinian people and only a liar says he would be. If you actually cared about the Palestinian people, you wouldn't be urging people to vote for Jill Stein who is yet again running for president on the Green Party's ticket and is financed with Republican dollars and Republican attorneys working for her campaign for free. Why? Because they hope she can steal enough votes from Kamala to put Trump back in the White House.
Now the lying Greens (not all Greens are liars but the ones who pretended to care about Palestine are) are as frustrated as non-Democrat Dave Zirin. They're getting so frustrated that they're getting their lies mixed up. Take Building A New World who has been all over the internet in recent weeks insisting that if you care about the Palestinian people, you cannot vote for Kamala and must instead vote for Jill.
Building A New World let it slip on Sunday with this comment, "Getting Green to 5% is the most valuable thing you can do with your vote."
See, it was never about the Palestinian people.
No, it was about whoring and lying. And here's some truth for the dirty whores: The Green Party isn't getting 5% of the vote. They couldn't do that in 2000 when they had a real candidate (Ralph Nader). They got 2.7% -- and that was with the help of Patti Smith, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, The Indigo Girls, Phil Donahue, Paul Newman, Eddie Vedder and many more stumping for the campaign. Jill has previously gotten 0.4% of the vote (2012) and 1.1% (2016). So, yeah, they're lying when they pretend that they're within reach of 5%.
It's a dead party and that's why it's nominated Jill for the third time. They're unable to grow the party and they make clear that they have nothing new to offer.
When we looked at the CAIR poll and found all of its problems -- it's a junk poll -- we were surprised by the reaction. We expected condemnation but didn't get it. Instead, people who checked our findings (glaring imbalance in gender among those responding and sample size too small too represent everything CAIR insisted it did and much more) found that the poll was seriously questionable. Last week, more polls came out and they didn't back up the claim the CAIR poll had spread -- the false claim -- that Jill had all this support.
The CAIR poll didn't pass the sniff test when it originally got some press attention. But it was popularized by the Gaza Freaks. And they spread the lie hoping the lie would become truth. That didn't happen.
And now Dave and the rest of The Gaza Freaks are feeling powerless and impotent.
He's having a hissy fit that Kamala's not catered her campaign to him and that she's not going to because he doesn't have a lot of support. The CAIR poll being exposed as a lie -- and no other polling backing it up -- left the Gaza Freaks out in the cold -- as though Carole King was singing to them when she sang, "Now, girl, take a tip from one who knows, If you open a new door, You may find the old one's closed" ("Out In The Cold").
That's certainly what happened to Dave. Now, mere weeks out from the election, he and the Gaza Freaks realize that they have no input. So he comes along to lie again -- this time insisting that 'the base' has more voters than there are Cheney-types who might vote for Kamala.
He doesn't even have a CAIR survey to back up his lies this time.
And facts don't work for him. All you have to do is look at the numbers that Nikki Hayley got in the GOP primaries this year. That's a significant number. Bringing some of those over to Kamala could swing the election.
By contrast, nothing she has done has been good enough for The Gaza Freaks. Nothing. A nuanced speech at the DNC was either ignored or attacked by stupid people who honestly thought a viable candidate for president is going to give a speech in the midst of a campaign proclaiming that they will terminate a long standing alliance with another country.
If Kamala's elected president, there's a chance we can pressure her on the Palestinian issue. Donald Trump? Not a chance.
The
smart thing to do would have been for Dave and his fellow unwashed
freaks to have made clear that they were giving Kamala conditional
support to get her into the White House and then would be pressuring her
seriously on this issue.
The Gaza Freaks -- who make us such a large part of independent media and such a very
small part of the actual left (and none of the center-left) -- have done
nothing week after week but try to defeat Kamala Harris. They've done
everything to destroy enthusiasm about this historic run. Pick up any
issue of THE NATION this year and compare it with 2020 if you're not
getting just how poorly they treat Kamala. And if you're White, you
probably need to stop a moment to think about because Black people get
it. Black people are very clear that Kamala's been spat on.
The Gaza Freaks, in their tiny bubbles where everyone echoes everyone -- even the token person of color who only got into the bubble by echoing the others -- you don't encounter reality. But we do. Speaking around the country, we do. Crowds around the
country are outraged over the way Kamala's been (mis)treated by
so-called 'independent' media (THE PROGRESSIVE, COMMON DREAMS, DEMOCRACY
NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, THE NATION, etc). They have every right to be
outraged. Joe Lieberman wasn't treated this poorly in 2006 by this
media (that's when he lost to challenger Ned Lamont and Joe left the
Democratic Party).
And, honestly, what has been the point?
The Gaza Freaks never really cared about the Palestinian people.
'Ava and C.I., that is your claim!'
Yes, it is. But the facts back us up. Kamala is not the president of the United States. Joe Biden is. He'll be president until January 20th. What have the Gaza Freaks done since July? We're not seeing any demands made to Joe. We're not seeing any protests of Joe. We're not seeing any action at all.
But they do flap their gums and work their keyboards to tear apart Kamala.
And their actions bother us. They used to also worry us. But then we started going around the country speaking to groups on Kamala's behalf and what we found didn't match CAIR's poll or the claims of the Gaza Freaks. They tried to impose fantasy on reality. But their lies are lies and there lies are being exposed.
A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter
shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war.
[. . .]
The
25 Islamic religious leaders who signed the letter, which comes a year
after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war, argue that
Muslim voters have a duty to think logically about their voting
decisions and that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other
options."
“She
is a committed ceasefire candidate too and is the best option for
ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon,” they wrote.
The imams argued that former President Donald Trump is a threat to their community.
“Knowingly
enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by
voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral
and a strategic failure. Particularly in swing states, a vote for a
third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the
elections,” they wrote.
“Given
[Trump’s] well-documented history of harming our communities and
country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and
Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our
high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment,” the letter
reads.
Sorry, Dave and The Gaza Freaks, the imams are going to have a lot more impact on voters than you're deluded fantasies.
Dave was born in New York City as was Carole King. And we bring her up not because she endorsed Kamala -- though she did -- but due to a track on her albums SPEEDING TIME
Oh, whatcha gonna do when time runs out on you
Run down, ghost town
Barren pastures all around
How y'gonna explain it to your grandkids
Where did the mountain go
How y'gonna tell them you sold it
Where did the mountain go
Didn't turn out quite the way y'wanted
How were you to know
Boom town broke down--what a let down
Where did the mountain go
Yeah, Dave and The Gaza Freaks, what are you going to do? So much is at stake in this election -- reproductive rights, education, overtime pay, workers rights, federal regulations, equality, even our very planet -- and you chose to spend two months leading up to a presidential election slamming the candidate that could address these issues. Lao Tzu is thought to have originated the phrase, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." All Dave Zirin and The Gaza Freaks wanted to do was to take that single step. They're not made for a journey, certainly not one of a thousand miles. They need instant gratification and they lack historical context. As a result, they've done a lot of damage this election cycle. A lot.
In 2024, we're yet again constantly being told that corporate media is over, on the ropes, dead or dying. We've heard the lie before. Part of the reason is keeps getting repeated is because people don't understand the difference between reporting and commentary and they don't understand the difference between a news program and a talk show. There's so much that is misunderstood. Last week's claims of reporting and censorship only made that more evident.
Ken Klippenstein is a journalist who has published with a variety of outlets including THE NATION, THE INTERCEPT, SALON and THE DAILY BEAST. Senator JD Vance is Miss Sassy, Donald Trump's charisma-free running mate.
Though it defies logic, the Trump campaign did vet JD Vance before Donald made him his running mate. And the proof of that has been the report the campaign prepared. That report has been offered to some news outlets who declined to cover it. There is an allegation that the material may have been hacked. Whether it was hacked or not, it is information of value to the public. Vance could end up Vice President of the United States as a result of the November election -- early voting has already started in some states.
Ken published the report on his SUBSTACK. Uber creep and Donald Trump groupie Elon Musk immediately banned Klippenstein on TWITTER (X? We don't work for Elon, we'll call it what the people still call it: TWITTER. You 'new Coke' whores keep swinging that ass for Elon.)
And a back-and-forth has ensued that pretends this is a journalistic battle of the biggest form.
We disagree.
Like Matt Taibbi's TWITTER FILES 'reports,' there's no reporting being done here. We called Matt's work "The Twitter Dumps" and that's what Ken has done.
Reporting is not releasing documents. Releasing documents is releasing documents.
We applaud the releasing of documents -- The Pentagon Papers, WIKILEAKS' work, etc.
But we don't confuse that with journalism.
That Ken does makes him appear more than a little out of touch.
271. That's the amount of pages -- that's how long the leaked report is. In what world do most Americans have time to wade through 271 pages. We did. It meant losing sleep time.
Reporting could have been done on the 271-pages.
We'd argue that what emerges is that JD Vance is an angry, little boy who's never grown up and feels he'll never become a man because of Daddy issues related to his father abandoning him. He goes around looking for a Daddy and he has no scope or prism by which to examine any issue beyond his own limited personal view. He can't relate to others or understand them unless they share his grievances and immaturity. He clearly needs help.
We say that as two who trudged through every page -- including the page where his September 1, 2006 speeding ticket is reproduced. The ticket, of course, wasn't issued to "JD Vance." It wasn't issued under his birth name James Donald Bowman. It was issued under his first legal name change name James D. Hall. He would have another name change in 2013 -- around the age of 29 -- when he became JD Vance.
Who changes their legal name twice? Once, okay, but going to court to get a third name? That really goes to his inability to be consistent. His name, like his political positions, are all over the map.
As debate prep for Tim Walz, publishing the 271 pages might have some value. They demonstrate how hollow Vance is and how he'll do or say anything America doesn't know JD Vance.
That is the take way from the 271 pages -- and JD Vance doesn't know JD Vance. He's forever changing and remaking himself, forever looking for a daddy figure to guide him.
He's forty-years-old and, if Donald's elected, he could be president because Donald's so old and so very fat that he could easily die in the next two years from a massive heart attack.
Tim might wonder in Tuesday's debate whether, for example, he was standing onstage with the JD that supported the Supreme Court's ruling legalizing same-se marriage or he was standing on stage with the 2020 JD that had a hissy fit over basic workplace protections that prevented someone from being fired for being gay?
Corporate media refused to release the report or cover it because, some claim, it might have been hacked and it might have been from Iran (the hack might have been done by an Iranian citizen acting alone or by the Iranian government).
While that may indeed be a reason given, we'd argue the larger issue is that they take the position that they've already covered it.
Vetting Vance, for any who don't know, is research that the campaign did on JD. They vetted others as well. Marco Rubio, for example, was vetted as well. (His file has not leaked at present.) But, at that Mother Tucker Carlson's urging, Donald went with JD. Whack job Tucker insisted that the 'deep state' would assassinate Trump if he picked Rubio because they'd want Marco to be president.
Remember, kids, when you need the polling on the deep-state go to Mother Tucker, he's the inside man.
We'll come back to Tucker.
How can the media claim that they've already reported on the 271 pages? Because it's largely their reporting. It's statements that Vance made to the media, it's statements from pieces that Vance wrote for the media. It's also his traffic record (public information), his basic school records (public information), etc
We repeatedly castigated Matt Taibbi for claiming Tweets were reporting. They are not. Nor is publishing a 271-page report. There's an argument that can be made insisting it was journalism and we wouldn't quibble with that. But publishing a 271-page report is, in and of itself, not reporting.
Should the 271-page now published report be banned? No. There's no reason to ban it or to ban Ken. The bulk of it is a collection of quotes from publications like THE WASHINGTON POST.
Elon Musk and his whores insist that privacy was violated. How so? They insist that Miss Sassy's phone number and address were published.
Did Elon Musk carry out censorship? Yes, he did. There's no question that he did. And he's a Trump-Vance supporter and that's why he did it. He deserves to be called out.
So do the whores supporting Elon. Especially one whore: Matt Taibbi.
Tabbi has called for Ken to be reinstated on Twitter. However, he's gone to great pains to lie that this is not the same thing as when TWITTER previously censored the Hunter Biden laptop. He's tried to say that the difference is private information. That wasn't private information. An e-mail from Jill Biden to Hunter on his laptop was private information (and most outlets have presumably avoided reporting on it for that reason), the photos of Hunter and others nude would be private information.
There was no private information in what Ken published.
But most damning of Matt's claims is this, "No, it’s not the same, unless the FBI had a hand in getting him suspended." It's 2024 and Matt's a deeply stupid person. But does anyone not see the problem with that statement?
Matt claims his TWITTER FILES reporting blew the lid off it all, showed government attempts to suppress the story.
Okay, let's say that's true. That's 2023.
Go back to 2020. What will you find? Matt stating it's censorship. And that was before Matt's supposed proof emerged in 2023.
Matt's a lying hypocrite. So is Glenn Greenwald and if someone wants to go there you could especially pay attention to his GUARDIAN work but we don't have time for him.
Tucker?
The increasingly deranged personality (he was never a reporter and even 'journalist' is a stretch) has told us that corporate media -- legacy media, whatever you want to call it -- is dying. He's apparently thinks he's the rebirth but we'd argue he's the afterbirth.
We bring that up because Glenneth Greenwald makes the same claim as does Megyn Kelly and, last week, Don Lemon started making the rounds as he made the same claim.
So for how long now? Four years at least, these grifters have insisted that they are the new (and improved) media. What story have they broken? They haven't. They've done no reporting that benefited American public interest.
They've had all these years to produce something of value and they've produced nothing. They do their lousy talk shows where they go on and on about what someone else published -- amplifying the research and work done by others -- and then they do interviews with their friends. And they try to pass this crap off as reporting and their talk shows as 'news' when, not only are they not news, they don't even qualify as public interest programs.
Saturday, we got some good news. It came to the inbox from RUMBLE of all people and it was entitled "Did The Alleged Assassin Have Intel on Trump?"
Top 5 Trending Videos
Did The Alleged Assassin Have Intel on Donald Trump? Watch Now
Springfield Footage from March 2024 of Missing Pets Watch Now
NYC Covid Czar Caught Forcing Vaccines Watch Now
Disturbing Details about the Assassination Attempt Watch Now
Will the US require proof of citizenship to vote? Watch Now
Top 5 Trending Creators
Dan Bongino Watch Now
Andrew Tate Watch Now
Donald Trump Watch Now
The Daily Wire Watch Now
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Get it? Get why that's good news?
Glenneth was a failure in corporate media, Tucker was such a failure he was publicly fired, Megyn failed everywhere. They don't do reporting and never really did. They did commentary. But they claim big media, corporate media, whatever you want to call it is failing and that they are the future -- not just the future, actually, they claim that they are the present. But not one of them makes RUMBLE's top five content creators despite having repeatedly attempted to lure people to RUMBLE nor have any of their clips last week made it into the top five.
They're failures. The were failures in the corporate media and now they're failures on right-wing RUMBLE.
Her presence at the convention predictably elicited some racist responses, and I expected a robust defense from her husband, who instead was tepid at best:
“Obviously, she’s not a white person, and we’ve been accused, attacked
by some white supremacists over that … but I just, I love Usha.” It
harked back to the simpering, kiss-the-ring spinelessness of Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz after Donald Trump called his wife ugly.
I
can’t help but wonder about Usha Vance’s reaction each time her
husband’s campaign churns out a fresh wave of racism. How did she react
after Trump’s grotesque comment about Kamala Harris only recently deciding she was Black?
Did she think of her own three biracial children? Did it give her pause
at all about who she was standing with and what she was standing by? I
alternate between thinking of her as a victim and as an accomplice.
Sen.
JD Vance of Ohio joined Trump at a memorial event this month, and one
of the former president’s invited guests was the loathsome 9/11
conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who recently stated that
if Harris wins, “The White House will smell like curry.” This was so
blatant that even Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called it “extremely racist.” How did the senator respond when asked about it on
the Sunday morning talk circuit? He hedged and meandered with a “I make
a mean chicken curry” until when pressed, he finally said, “I don’t
like those comments.”
As an Indian American woman, I can only imagine that Usha Vance doesn’t like those comments either.
Mike and the gang pulled that together and we thank them for it.
And we are late this week. Mike and Elaine went to Texas to campaign for Colin Allred (running for the US Senate and Texas needs him), while Dona and me (Jim) went to Ohio with Jess to campaign for Kamala Harris, Ty and Kat and Wally went to Washington state, Betty and Ava and C.I. went to Georgia to campaign and it was a very busy weekend so we had nothing on Sunday. Maybe it'll be different this weekend.
If not, that's fine. Our focus is on saving democracy and the only way that's happening is electing Kamala Harris.
Fall TV is like a Jill Stein campaign, it always promises so much but in the end delivers so little.
This fall broadcast networks will start rolling out their new episodes from now through third week of October. Once upon a time, this all happened in September. And they wonder where the audience goes?
Since 2010, broadcast networks have bled viewers and done nothing except flap their gums. For example, what broadcast TV scripted show did you watch new episodes of over the summer? Remember the announcements that streaming meant the networks would now be offering year-round programming to address the loss of viewers? And what summer programming, scripted, did you watch on the network TV this year?
None.
Because they offered none.
You may remember when they briefly rallied and offered new shows during the summer like Halle Berry's EXTANT. They were going to combat losses to streaming, they insisted, by programming year round. That now translates as "We'll take a low rated game show we do in the daytime, toss some celebrities on it and air it in prime time." And as late as 2011, they still programmed occasionally for Saturday night. 2011 being an important year -- that's the last year before NETFLIX offered its first streaming show (LILYHAMMER). They've long since given up on new scripted programming and, worse, they've dropped Friday as well -- unless you're CBS or one hour of programming on NBC (LOPEZ V LOPEZ and Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman's HAPPY PLACE).
There are also less broadcast choices then there were in 2011. For example, THE CW is not a network. You're not a network when this fall you will only offer one scripted show: SUPERMAN & LOIS. That's it. Everything else in prime time? Repeats of ABC's THE CONNERS, repeats from Canadian and British television, repeats of their own PENN & TELLER FOOL US, repeats of shows you can stream on YOUTUBE . . . On Fridays, they're offering WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? That's the show that they never wanted and every few years threaten to cancel but delivers ratings and is cheap to make since it's an improv show.
Let's make sure everyone grasps that: The network that was the home to SUPERNATURAL, THE ORIGINALS, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, ARROW, SUPERGIRL, THE FLASH, BATWOMAN, GOSSIP GIRL, ONE TREE HILL, NIKITA, BEAUTY & THE BEAST, HART OF DIXIE, JANE THE VIRGIN, THE 100, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW and many more is this fall offering one scripted program with new episodes: SUPERMAN & LOIS.
Last June, NBC announced that LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS was losing its house band in a cost cutting measure and then this month, another cost-cutting measure, NBC was reducing THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON to just four nights a week.
They claim that they are losing viewers to streaming and the reality is that they are pushing viewers away. They claim that people only want to watch a la carte -- streaming a show when you want to which they insist is costing them viewers. That really doesn't explain the TIVO and other Cloud programs that let you record a TV program and watch it when you want (and, if you do so within seven days after it aired, you're added to the show's ratings). Nor does it explain the growth in live TV streamers who make PLUTO and FREEVEE TV and others outlets streaming TV programs such a big hit.
And you can't talk things that don't make sense without talking Stein.
The perennial presidential candidate is at it again.
What is a War Criminal? Stein says Benjamin Netanyahu is which Medhi agreed with. But did Stein believe that Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a War Criminal? Does she think Russia's Vladimir Putin is a War Criminal?
Jill Stein hemmed and hawwed while Mehdi asked her to answer the yes-or-no question. And she flubbed it over and over. At one point she tried to turn it on him and he pointed out that he could answer and did answer but that he wasn't the one running for president.
She offered that she had said Putin was a War Criminal "in so many words."
In so many words?
What does that mean?
It means she couldn't let go of her hypocrisy.
Instead, she tried another tactic and began insisting that if she became President of the United States in this election, she would have difficulty conducting talks with Putin if she'd called him a War Criminal. Mehdi immediately asked her how she planned then to have talks with Netanyahu if she were president since she repeatedly calls him a War Criminal. Then she tried to say that there was no arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for Putin. But, as Mehdi pointed out, yes, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin.
And it didn't just happen. The ICC issued that arrest warrant in March of 2023.
She's running to be the President of the United States -- for the third time! -- and she doesn't know this? It's not like Mehdi brought up the issue of arrest warrants. She's the one who brought that topic up in an attempt to defend herself and she didn't even know what she was talking about.
Mehdi's interview and Angela's the week before really just underscored what a lazy and incompetent media we have in the US. Third time. This is Jill Stein's third time running for president and it's the first time she's ever been challenged in an interview. For her two previous campaigns, the media has treated her like a child with a terminal disease in a Make A Wish program whose dream was to run for president. She has gotten one pass after another.
Her cult couldn't handle her being challenged. They trashed Angela and Mehdi for not just sitting across from Stein and fawning over her.
The howls and hisses coming from her cult was something to witness. Or seemed that way until things got even worse. As she slowly grasped just how idiotic she had come out, she took to TWITTER with a Tweet insisting she hadn't been allowed to respond in a "nuanced and serious" manner but now, on TWITTER where nuance and seriousness are all the rage, she wanted to say that, yes, Putin was a War Criminal and here's a list of others.
And then the breast beating, garment rending and howling truly began.
The crazies really came out as Kyle noted in a SECULAR TALK segment.
He missed noting some important crazies. Maybe he was trying to be kind? Maybe the amount of crazies was just so high that many had to be excluded.
You can't exclude one person.
It is unfortunate that elements in the Stein campaign have confused Jill's consistent anti-imperialism by attempting to play to the middle with the condemnation of the empire's favorite enemies. International criminality is coming from one source - the "collective West."
And that Tweet was coming from one source -- the 'collective Idiot.'
Ajamu Baraka Tweeted that. He took time out of his never-ending research on what 'really' brought down The Twin Towers to Tweet:
It is unfortunate that elements in the Stein campaign have confused
Jill's consistent anti-imperialism by attempting to play to the middle
with the condemnation of the empire's favorite enemies. International
criminality is coming from one source - the "collective West."
Ajamu Baraka, for any who don't know, was Jill's running mate the last time she ran for president.
Apparently what we and so many others saw as a Tweet put out by Jill Stein was actually a 'controlled demolition' carried out by others meant to bring down the campaign of Jill Stein.
We don't need a government created commission to look into the matter of whether or not Ajamu is certifiable. No, we think the evidence on that is scattered all around and not across some open field but right there on his TWITTER feed for all to see. And to see his fellow Truthers like PACIFICA's Ann Garrion wanting to know "who wrote statement?"
Apparently, neither Ann nor Ajamu feel that Jill could have written the statement -- either because they think she's too stupid to write or because they believe she's such a push over that you can get her to put her name to anything.
It's bad when people see you that way -- but it's really, really bad when one of the people seeing you like that is your former running mate.
Like we said at the top, a Jill Stein campaign always starts promising so much and always ends delivering very little. While you grasp that, also grasp that for two previous runs our so-called media refused to challenge her and offered fluff that they pretended was journalism.
Try
the Log Cabin Republicans who are working so hard to be in MAGA's good
graces. One candidate after another attacks them as filth -- Mark
Robinson is only one example -- and they just whimper and take it. You
may remember that they tried to portray a visiting 'dignitary' as proof
of their acceptance within MAGA. Squint-eyed Melania Trump showed up
in April to speak to them and it was though they were touched by her
porcelana smeared hand.
But it turns out that the arrangement was a bit like her marriage, they fork over the cash and she will show up.
Daniel Hampton (RAW STORY) reveals the amount of money the Log Cabin Republicans had to pay to get her to show: $237,000.
Good thing it was an election year and Trump needs their votes; otherwise, Melanie might have really soaked them.
As
we did in 2021 and 2023, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the
community. This go round, we're talking to Marcia about her review "California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas." That's Mama Michelle Phillips' memoir about her time in the classic and legendary rock group. You liked the book.
Marcia:
Correct. I loved it. So there was a band in the sixties called
the Mamas and the Papas and they were huge. It was Michelle Phillips,
Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty and John Phillips. Michelle and John were
married. In the 80s, they both published books. PAPA JOHN is
insufferable and boring. That's his book -- you can ask my wife about
it. Michelle's book was a joy to read full of funny moments and serious
moments. She also had recall of specific events whereas -- maybe it
was all the drugs he did and then ended up selling in the 70s and early
80s -- John honestly didn't seem to remember much of anything. At all.
What were the best parts for you?
Marcia:
Cass. Cass really comes alive in Michelle's book. I greatly enjoyed
Owen Vanessa Elliot's MY MAMA, CASS: A MEMOIR. It was a very moving
book. [See Kat's "MY MAMA, CASS" for a review of Owen's book.] But Cass died when Owen was so young. There are a lot of great
stories in Michelle's book that reminds you how great Cass was -- as a
singer, as a strong woman, as an artist and a mom to young Owen.
Michelle got to know Cass as a friend and a peer. Michelle does a great
job with portraits. My wife said, of the two books, that she didn't get
the impression from John's book that he ever spent much time thinking
about anyone but himself.
A part that made you laugh?
Marcia:
They would turn the plane upside down. They traveled to concerts in a
plane. Private. The pilot would flip it upside down and they'd float
and be weightless. I loved on the island where the four begin to sing
together. I just loved so much of it. My wife said Michelle's book was
more cinematic and really should have been turned into a film. And
let's talk what I did not know. The book notes that "Monday Monday" was
a number one hit and the band's only number one hit. But that's not
really true?
No, it's not.
Marcia:
You, C.I., told me that they had another number one hit and, in fact,
you could argue that number one was more important. "California
Dreamin'," written by John and Michelle Phillips, only made it to number
four on the weekly top 40 -- anyone remember Kasey Kasum? "The weekly
top 40." But it's a bigger hit than "Monday Monday." And I should have
gotten that because "Monday Monday" is a gold record -- which is good
-- but "California Dreamin'" is a triple platinum seller. How did that
happen? Because it was the bigger hit. Though "California Dreamin'"
never made it above number four during the weeks of 1966, it ended up
being, at the end of the year, the number one song on the Billboard charts. Number one for the year. Biggest hit of the year. So, yeah, I
agree with you, "California Dreamin'" needs to be called a number one
hit.
What's your favorite Mamas and Papas song?
Marcia:
I love them all but I especially love "Dedicated To The One I Love." I
bought my first album of the Mamas and the Papas because of that song.
Michelle Phillips had just come on KNOTS LANDING as Ann -- Paige's
mother and Mac's old girlfriend -- and they'd play that song for her
scenes. I loved that song and my parents told me -- this was
pre-internet days, you had to have someone tell you, that it was a Mamas
and Papas hit song. So went out and got the cassette called something
like 16 OF THEIR GREATEST HITS. So "Dedicated" is one of my favorites.
I love everything on that album. After "Dedicated," my favorite song
would be "Safe In My Garden." Third would be "Got A Feelin'." I love
everything on THE PAPAS AND THE MAMAS and I love "Dancing Bear" and
"Snow Queen of Texas" and "I Wanna Be A Star" and "Creeque Alley" and
all of it. I just love them. They were such a great group. And I
recommend Michelle's book CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'.
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).
