Monday, September 28, 2020

Truest statement of the week

 

The Supreme Court is supposed to be the issue that ends all arguments. The fact that the Democrats mishandled this situation so badly is one of the reasons they have deified the late justice Ginsburg. They have to divert attention from the mess they created. The federal courts would not play such a large political role if the Democrats were serious about winning and keeping legislative majorities. When Barack Obama was president they lost more than 900 seats in state legislatures, the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The loss of the Senate was particularly devastating. Ginsburg should have stepped down when Obama still had the Democratic Party control needed to nominate a replacement. Instead, the 80-year old who had already been diagnosed with cancer was supremely arrogant. In 2014 Ginsburg was dismissive of prudent calls for her to retire and said so publicly . “So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?” Thanks to her hubris, Democrats are now caught in a mixture of panic and overly deferential mourning.

 

-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: The Democrats’ Supreme Failure" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).

 

 

 

 

 

Truest statement of the week II

 The recent Dump Trump, then Battle Biden piece written by Noam Chomsky, et al and signed by a few dozen liberal activists and authors, who recycle this twaddle every four years, makes many logical, factual, and rhetorical errors.

Arguably, the main error is that no matter how terrible is a Democrat candidate for POTUS; no matter how many wars he supported; no matter how many women/girls he publicly molested; no matter how many cops went un-prosecuted; no matter how many immigrant families were separated at the border; no matter how many billions of dollars were transferred from the poor to the already wealthy; no matter how much corruption and pork barrel politics have been tied to him; and no matter how far he has gone in a state of mental decline; etc: THAT HE OWNS OUR VOTES.

 According to the letter, the signers are not in love with Democrat candidate Joe Biden, but it seems their only “beef” with him is that he is “beholden to the elites.” He IS one of those political elite and has been a profound part of the decadence and violence of the U.S. political establishment for decades and an architect of many of the paths that led the U.S. straight to a Trump regime.

-- The Ineffectual and Dangerous Concept of Lesser-Evilism by Cindy Sheehan 

 

 

A note to our readers

 Hey -- 


Early Monday morning.  At last. 


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? 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace,


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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial: The US' buddy Turkey

 The US government refuses to stand up to Turkey.  They refuse to call it out.  For years, for example, the Turkish government has been bombing northern Iraq and killing civilians.  It's sent ground troops into Iraq.  And, yet, the US government refuses to call out Turkey.


Why is that?


It's worth noting this Tweet from Hassan Sajwani:


Turkey is fighting / in conflict with: Iraq
Flag of Iraq
Kurds UAE
Flag of United Arab Emirates
Syria
Flag of Syria
Yezidi Israel
Flag of Israel
Libya
Flag of Libya
Egypt
Flag of Egypt
France
Flag of France
Cyprus
Flag of Cyprus
Greece
Flag of Greece
Armenia
Flag of Armenia
Saudi Arabia
Flag of Saudi Arabia


Again, why is the US so reluctant to call Turkey out?



Media: The Jane Fonda Horror Show

In TO DIE FOR, Nicole Kidman's character declares, "You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV. On TV is where we learn about who we really are. Because what's the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody's watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person."  Who knew a two-time Academy Award winning actress would take those lines to heart? 

 


 

Jane Fonda has a new book that appears to exist solely to excuse her latest media blitz.  Fonda has assembled books in the past (THE JANE FONDA WORKOUT) and actually written one before (MY LIFE SO FAR).  Neither will prepare you for WHAT CAN I DO? MY PATH FROM CLIMATE DESPAIR TO ACTION.

 

Action or at least media attention.

 

We grasp that we aren't the intended audience for Jane's book.   Ellen Knickmeyer (AP) explains:


She said her target audience now is people like her who try to cut their plastic use and drive fuel-efficient cars, for instance, but otherwise “don’t know what to do and they feel helpless,” she said. “We’re trying to encourage people to become more active, across the age spectrum.”

 

When she was at THE WASHINGTON POST, Knickmeyer did the earliest and best reporting on the US War Crimes in Iraq -- specifically the gang rape of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her and her family by US soldiers Steven Dale Green, James Barker and Paul Cortez, "Details Emerge in Alleged Army Rape, Killings."  At one time, when she was promoting WOMEN'S MEDIA CENTER, Jane spoke of Abeer; however, she never felt Abeer or the Iraq War was important enough for a book.


Reading WHAT CAN I DO, you quickly grasp that she hasn't written a book on climate change either.  The book's apparently aimed at herself and exists as a glorified datebook, detailing the superficial remarks that she and her friends have given at Firedrill Fridays.  Those actions took place to draw attention to climate change and to Jane herself.  As she notes in her book, she had wanted to do teach-ins but was told that they'd be better done away from the podium.  

 

So the real work wasn't at the press events known as Firedrill Friday but that's what she focuses on in her book, the press events.  This leaves you with a book that builds to nothing.  Superficial statements to a large crowd from this celebrity or that do not make for education or enlightenment.  The one word review for this book would be "shallow."

 

Shallow also describes Jane's attempts to promote the book.  

 

On HBO, she called for Democrats in Congress to stand up to President Donald Trump on any Supreme Court justice to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- a stand that was stronger than anything in her actual book but, sadly, a stand she took on Bill Maher's show.


Jane's supposed to be a feminist.  Supped to be?  We didn't find that nonsense that she and Gloria Steinem pulled with Stephen Colbert on COMEDY CENTRAL funny -- and we called it out in real time.  What's a feminist doing sitting down with Bill Maher?


She's also supposed to be enlightened -- or at least somewhat enlightened.  Would a truly enlightened person appear on Bill Maher's show?  He hates Muslims and Arabs.  He's a racist.  We find it hard to believe that, in 1972, Jane would have made nice with a TV host who hated the Vietnamese people.  But apparently aging stars can make horror movies (Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, for example) late in their careers or they can just become horror shows (Jane in her current incarnation).  


Equally disgusting was watching her on THE TODAY SHOW making nice with Bully Boy Bush's daughter.  Remember back in January of 2007, when she spoke at the rally against the Iraq War declaring that "Silence is not an option" and that "we'll continue to be here for as long as necessary"?

 

She never gave a speech about the Iraq War again and never participated in another Iraq War action.  But she can go on TV and make nice with Bully Boy Bush's daughter?

 

Her desperate need for attention resulted in an infamous NEW YORK TIMES profile which made clear that she's no feminist.  Flesh peddler?  She apparently is that.

 

Fonda told NYT's Maureen Dowd that she knew how to get Donald Trump interested in climate change, "I will find four of the most beautiful, sexy, smart, climate-interested women I can, and we'll go in, and we'll kneel and we'll plead and beg."  That is beyond pathetic.  Jane is a true horror show now.  She's going to peddle flesh (Pamela Anderson and Sharon Stone are two women she name checks) to Donald.  She has no position of power, she's just a flesh peddler.  

 

She's supporting Joe Biden -- a man Tara Reade has credibly accused of assault -- so possibly she doesn't care if women are assaulted, raped, harmed?  

 

We make that point because, while we don't believe every woman that has come forward talking abuse and assault by Donald, we have stated that some of them are very credible.  

 

And Jane Fonda's 'grand idea' is to provide four women to Trump, to kneel before him and plead and beg?  

 

Set aside for a moment the weakness and pathetic nature of her appeal, grasp that she's putting women before -- serving them up to -- an alleged sexual predator.


That's disgusting.


When Jane first became a feminist, she trashed her work with Roger Vadim, disowned it.  But what she proposed to do with Trump was far worse than anything put on film by Vadim (who truly was a great director).


She told Maureen Dowd that she spoke to Jared Kushner -- "Jared or whatever his name is" -- and he referred her to Ivanka Trump whom Jane found unhelpful: "I told her my idea and she laughed and I never heard from her again."

 

Most women not in their 80s would laugh.  It's an absurd idea that puts women in victim status and peddles their flesh.  It was a disgusting idea.  An idea as lacking in feminism as Joan Baez's Vietnam 'protest' poster of women say yes to men who say no (to the draft).  Flesh peddler.

 

Again, we wish Jane were making horror movies right now instead of becoming a horror show.

 

The book itself is way too easy going to alarm or awaken anyone.  

 

There is so much that is genuinely awful about the book.  Certainly, that includes Eve Ensler.  Jane uses the book to promote her friends -- not actual causes.  If we need to be made aware of the women in Juarez, we need to hear from them and not from a White Anglo-American woman who has no skin in the game and who is best known politically for using sexism to attack Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency.  Time and again, Latino issues are raised by . . . non-Latinos.  It's so much that you want to yell, "Stop shoving Anglo Whites down our throats.  If you can't find Latinas in your surroundings that is on you -- at this late date, that is on you!"


In the 1970s, Jane came under criticism from Native Americans who felt she had gone beyond championing their cause to attempting to speak for them.  Among the many criticizing her efforts was Native American singer-songwriter Buffy St. Marie who stated that Jane "has unintentionally blown a couple of our most important issues by not really understanding them."  That was among the kinder of the critiques from Native Americans.  You'd think Jane would have learned a lesson but, then again, you wouldn't expect her to become a flesh peddler at this late date.

 

Her shallow book reads like a journal leading us to point out that at least Joan Rivers' DIARY OF A MAD DIVA was funny.  The 'book' brings to mind Paul Rudnick's comments -- as film reviewer Libby Gelman-Waxner: 

 

In STANLEY & IRIS, Jane Fonda wears a rubber snood and works in a factory that produces baked goods.  I got the feeling that once she finished this movie, Jane thought, "Okey-doke, I polished off Vietnam in COMING HOME, feminism in 9 TO 5 and the nuclear threat in THE CHINA SYNDROME, and now I've taken care of all the working-class women with colitis; I think I'll head for that ozone layer next --  if I don't do it, it won't get done."

 

Well check it off the to-do list, it's done.  It doesn't accomplish anything, but it's done.

 

Maybe it wasn't supposed to accomplish anything? Or maybe it wasn't supposed to accomplish anything with regards to climate change -- just to get her interviewed in print and on TV ahead of the election?

 

Jane told the truth about Justin Trudeau a few years back and faced fall out over her remarks.  Did that scare her?  Did it scare her off?  

 

Or does she just really not care about the issues she claims to be vested in?  At one point in the book, she insists that you can enrich your stock portfolio by stepping away from fossil fuel investments.  We hope that's true.  We remember when Tom Hayden hijacked a good portion of her fortune during the divorce settlement and how he did so by blackmailing her with the threat that he'd go public with what 'activist' Jane Fonda actually had in her stock portfolio.  

 

But is the whole thing just a pretense?

 

We ask for good reason.  Bernie Sanders is the politician who ran on the platform she believes in.  And she supported him . . . on March 20, 2020.  Up until then, she'd supported a number of others running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  We see nothing wrong with her support of Elizabeth Warren and even can look the other way on Kamala Harris since Harris is 'local' (California).  But we have a hard time justifying the other candidates she supported -- including Amy Klobuchar.  Amy had no climate plan, didn't support Medicare For All and had that troubling past as a prosecutor who wrongly imprisoned people of color -- including children of color.

 

Despite Bernie standing for everything she claims to believe in, she didn't endorse Bernie until March 20th, when he was the only candidate left in the race who wasn't Joe Biden.

 

Despite her claims to want to end climate change, her book is filled with the same people who organized the attack on Michael Moore recently.  Of the two, we like Jane better (we really do like Jane and take no pleasure in writing this piece).  But our dislike for Michael Moore does not mean that we justify the climate lobby attacking him.  Between the film Moore produced and the book Jane's promoting?  Only one of them will make any real difference -- and it's not going to be Jane's book.

 

One of the book's real purposes seems to be "Look, I'm a good person!"  Jane is a good person, we won't argue with that, but she's written a lousy book.  Good person that she is, she's not a climate leader.  Her reliance on politicians is appalling.  Especially when she briefly writes of meeting with Democratic Party senators who agree with her on climate but, as she discovers, won't actually do anything.  That meeting? It should have been the opening chapter of the book and should have led to a radicalized critique with real suggestions.

 

 Instead?  We're told to get out and vote to save our climate.  We're given crap like what we can do the day after the election.  That's nonsense.  The wold didn't need this book, the country didn't need it, we don't think even Jane's ego needed it.

 

We wanted to like it.  Reading it, we kept saying, "It's got to get better."  It never did.

 

Her tale of being in jail, for example, is borderline racist if not actually racist.  She's in jail with a group of women of color.  She wants to explain who she is to them so she goes with?  MONSTER-IN-LAW because she figures they'll know who Jennifer Lopez is.  Really?  If she'd written this in the 70s would she have decided to go with CALIFORNIA SUITE under the assumption that Black people would know Richard Pryor -- and only Richard Pryor?  Does she think people of color have no access to basic cable and have never seen basic cable staples like 9 TO 5 or ON GOLDEN POND -- among others?

 

That brief section is awful for so many reasons including Jane whining that she's served a bologna sandwich on white bread with a sugary drink.   Jane, you've written about nutrition.  That's the standard 'dinner' at the jail you're at and you can't take a moment in your book that you're writing to note how high carb it is?  To note how jails and prisons regularly serve inmates meals that are not just bad for them but, due to medical conditions, can also be harmful?  No diabetic inmate needs the meal that was offered.  This is really the only part of the book that deals with incarceration and it is clearly a problem across the country but Jane ignores it.

 

For those who care about the issue, you can refer to Kim Kelly's "The Climate Disaster Inside America's Prisons: Inmates are among the most vulnerable populations on our warming planet -- and among the most ignored" which ran at THE NEW REPUBLIC in 2019 and opens:
 

Global warming far and away is the most pressing issue facing the United States (and the rest of the planet). The fast-approaching climate reckoning is bigger than the presidential election, bigger than our imperialist forever wars, bigger even than the virulent fascist threat that’s taken root in the White House and spread its tendrils across the globe. It is no longer an exaggeration to say that the world is dying. Time is running out to pull back from the point of no return before it swallows us all whole. 

For millions of Americans, that point is already here—and unlike the majority of people, they have no way to escape its horrors. When natural disasters hit, incarcerated people are often the first to be abandoned; as the climate crisis worsens, so will their suffering. The specter of climate change is a hazardous fact of life for the prisoners forced to labor in sweltering Texas fields, the ones fighting wildfires for pennies in California, and those recently left trapped in the path of Hurricane Dorian when South Carolina prison officials declined to evacuate them ahead of the storm. 

And yet incarcerated people have been largely left out of the conversations around ambitious climate justice proposals like the Green New Deal, which neglects to engage with decarceration, prison abolition, or demilitarization. Nor do its lead advocates say much to specifically address what’s already happening inside the country’s prisons. The top demand in 2018’s national prison strike was to create “immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.” A year later, not only are those basic demands left unmet, but the number of incarcerated people who’ve died preventable, climate-related deaths have continued to increase. 

“When we think about the increasingly genocidal climate crisis, it’s important to understand that prisoners and detainees are literally on the front lines,” says prison abolitionist and organizer Jay Ware. It’s the imprisoned who suffer the greatest blows of climate-related catastrophe, he notes, “whether this is families fleeing climate change in the Global South being detained and separated into immigrant detention facilities or other black, brown, and poor white prisoners from typically toxic neighborhoods ecologically who are held in toxic prisons.”

Climate vulnerabilities continue to intensify as paralyzing natural disasters multiply and occur with greater frequency, all while the U.S. government does nothing to curb the breakdown of the climate. “Every single day is a climate, weather, and environmental related disaster for people in prison,” said a member-organizer of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) who requested anonymity to minimize their risk of retaliation from prison officials. IWOC is a prisoner-led section of the Industrial Workers of the World that coordinates inside and outside of prison walls to support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and abolish prison slavery.

 

 

Time and again, you will gasp in horror at this book.  Save a tree, and certainly save your money, is our recommendation.  We didn't, we actually paid for it.  And when it arrived in the mail and we took our copies out of the box, we were really horrified. Why in the world would someone think the world needed a glossy paged book on climate change?  Every page is glossy.  Were they not aware that coated pages are not biodegradable?  Again, everything about this book and its promotion has been a horror show.


 

Roundtable

 Jim: Roundtable time again. .  Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@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; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.




Roundtable


Jim (Con't):  So this is sort of a clarifying roundtable.  Elaine, it was your idea, so let's start with you.


Elaine: September 8th, "I don't believe Goldberg" went up.  Hours after it did, I corrected it.  I was tired when I wrote it and I slipped and started calling Goldberg Turley.  I corrected it, noted the correction and noted it in my next post "Turley and Ronald Bell" as well.  Despite this, I am getting e-mails claiming I hate Jonathan Turley.  I do not hate him.  I love his writing, he thinks a great deal like C.I. does, they both analyze the law in a similar manner with similar conclusions.  He's the most cited person at my website this year.  I do not hate him, I do not dislike him.  I don't know how else to clear that up.


Jim: Stan, you had a similar issue, but with THE GOLDEN GIRLS?


Stan: Yes.  It started with "THE GOLDEN GIRLS" where I again noted that I'm sick of table reads.  They're not entertainment.  And I said that if Tracee Ross and the rest would do an actual reboot of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, I'd love that and I'd watch.  Somehow that became that I am offended that an all Black version of the show was being produced.  I'm African-American.  I write about the need for diversity.  This wasn't someone misunderstanding what I wrote, this was people actively distorting what I'd written.  I explained that in "One more time on THE GOLDEN GIRLS" and how tired I am of this nonsense.  If you disagree with me, fine.  I don't get upset over that.  I often write posts about how people disagree with me and they may have a point.  But I do get upset if you lie about what I wrote.


Jim: Understood.  And I agree it is awful.

 

Stan: And it's awful that Elaine corrects her post  and notes in the next post that she corrected the previous post and people still can't grasp it.

 

Jim: Ruth, you cover a lot at your website.  Among your topics -- regular topics -- would be General Michael Flynne.

 

Ruth: I believe the general was railroaded by the FBI.  POLITICO had a story last week that I did not have time for at my site where they noted that General Flynn had an FBI agent who did not feel the general was trying to cover up an involvement with Russia and that:

 

A 13-page summary of an interview with Flynn case agent William Barnett, made public in a court filing by prosecutors just before midnight Thursday, also revealed that the veteran agent harbored deep doubts and skepticism about the merits of the investigation into Flynn’s potential ties with Russia — at least in its early stages — and questioned the Mueller team’s tactics in the broader probe of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians, known as Crossfire Hurricane. 

 

 Ruth (Con't): Again, I feel the general was railroaded.  


Jim: Trina, no recipe last week at your site.  


Trina: No.  I wrote "Why does Oliver Stone lie?" instead of my usual recipe post and I did so because I am sick of Oliver Stone's sexism.  COMING HOME was a successful film.  It made twelve times its budget -- domestically, it did that.  It was a top 15 box office hit for 1978.  Despite Oliver Stone pretending THE DEER HUNTER was a huge hit, it wasn't.  WIKIPEDIA lies as well and claims that TDH was a top ten hit of 1978.  No, it wasn't.  It made almost no money in 1978.  It made it's money in 1979 and came in number 11 for that year's box office.  And I'm really tired of his efforts to strip Jane Fonda of credit that she's earned.


Jim: Jane Fonda.  Ava and C.I. have a rather explosive piece this edition calling out Jane and her book.  Want to talk about how that evolved?


Ann: We didn't plan to write it.  We were going to cover the TV show FILTHY RICH.  Dona asked us to participate in Book Talk for this edition.  We said we would.  We spoke to her about Jane's book for about three minutes.  Dona?


Dona: And I stopped them.  I said, "You know what, this already seems like an article you need to write and not a transcript piece."  They had the whole thing.  It seemed silly for me to use it for a Book Talk.  


Jim: TV, Mike, you're writing about an AMAZON show now, "THE BOYS."

 

Mike: I really like the show, I like it a lot.  I like season two even better than season one.  I miss Elisabeth Shue, but otherwise season two is a lot stronger.  And, Stan and I have talked, we like the show better as a weekly release.


Stan: Exactly.  I prefer a new episode each Friday.  For one thing, it gives me something to look forward to.  And, in the midst of a pandemic, that's no minor thing.  


Marcia: I felt that way when BLINDSPOT was airing its last season this summer on Thursday nights.  There's not been a lot of new content on TV.


Ann: I'd include BLINDSPOT, ABC's UNITED WE FALL sitcom, MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD, AT HOME WITH AMY SEDARIS and THE ALIENIST and that's it.  It would have been nice to have had TV as a distraction.  But that didn't really happen.  And I'm with C.I., table reads are not entertainment.


Jim: Agreed.  Isaiah, you're going to do a comic that you've talked about.


Isaiah: I was holding off on the whole Nancy Pelosi maskless hair scandal because I thought she was working on a stimulus.  But it's been a few weeks now so I'll probably draw that Sunday night or Monday morning and it'll go up Monday night.  No, I wasn't trying to give her a pass but I did think there were other things to focus on.  Now, it's obvious that there were not other things to focus on.


Jim: Anybody else relate?


Rebecca: It's always making choices when you blog.  Sometimes you choose a topic and look like you were ahead of the game, sometimes you don't.  You never know.  

 

Betty: True.  And I did only one "Science post" last week because there were topics that I felt other people wouldn't grab.  I'm glad I grabbed those topics but, looking back, I do wish that I had done at least one more science post.


Jim: Climate change?  Betty covers it, Rebecca covers it -- both of them cover it regularly.  Do we have any hope in the current election?


Ann: Only if you're voting Howie Hawkins.


Jess: I agree with Ann.  Ann and I are Greens, we both have parents who are Greens and we were raised Green.  While Joe Biden is selling fracking, Howie is opposed to it and has a Green New Deal.  If you care about the climate, you're voting for Howie.  


Jim: Kat, where's the Alicia Keys review?


Kat: I knew you were going to put me on the spot.  I knew it.  I was going to do it a weekend ago but the the RBG news left me too depressed to write it.  Then I was going to do it this weekend but I was just so tired and also just in a Joni Mitchell mood.  She's all I listened to this week.  Her entire collection except for her first album.  CLOUDS through SHINE was my weekend.  Maybe next weekend.  


Jim: Okay.  Cedric and Wally, you posted "Sometimes a crook marries a crook" and "THIS JUST IN! DIFI'S CROOKED HUSBAND!" on Friday.  The college admissions schedule now includes Board of Regents Richard Blum who violated the rules.  Blum is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein.


Cedric: He's a crook.  It's that simple.  The rules he broke -- he admits he broke them but insists he did nothing wrong -- have been in place the entire 18 years he's been a regent.  If Lori Loughlin has to face jail time, then Richard Blum needs to be held accountable.  


Wally: Here's PEOPLE magazine on the scandal -- PEOPLE magazine:

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband Richard Blum was named by the state auditors office for playing a "particularly problematic" role in the college admissions scandal, which has brought charges against celebrities, business leaders, college coaches, and wealthy parents alike.

The report by California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle released this week cites a university Board of Regents member, who the Associated Press confirmed was, in fact, Blum.

According to the state audit, Blum, 85, was among the university officials who played a role in helping students get accepted into the University of California school system. The audit report also claims students were “inappropriately admitted" based on personal connections while more qualified students had applications rejected.

In one instance described in the state audit, Blum sent an "inappropriate letter of support" to UC Berkeley's chancellor, advocating for one student on the university's applicant waiting list, according to the audit, which reported that the student had a 26-percent chance of being accepted.


Cedric: Dianne's a disgrace.  


Jim: She really is.  Okay, this was a quick roundtable and it's a rush transcript.  Thank you to Ava and C.I. for taking notes.




 

Tweet of the week

Jonathan Cook Tweets:

Two former senior officials of the National Union of Journalists say 'we are incredulous that the present generation of journalists is ignoring this critical travesty' as the US and UK use the Assange trial to demolish the foundations of press freedom








The attacks on Howie Hawkins

 Reposting Ann:

Whores at Resilience attack Howie Hawkins

 

 

 Have you ever heard of Resiliance?

"Three Ecosocialists Reflect on the November Election" is the article in question.  No link, Google if you want to read it.

It's a piece of crap article from a piece of crap online outlet.  They're smearing and attacking Howie Hawkins and pretending that they're Greens.  Why, goodness, they tell us, even "civil rights activist and labor leader Dolores Huerta," supports Joe.


Bitch, please!

 Dolores is a whore and a liar.  

She and that trashy America No One Watches Me actress flat out lied about what happened at a Bernie Sanders rally in Nevada.  Flat out lied.  Even Snopes called them out.  She's a damn liar.


She's also a WHORE. 

I'm supposed to care who Dolores wants us to vote for?


Hey, Resilance, you whorish rag, who did Dolores support in the 2008 Democratic Party primary?


Oh, yeah, Hillary Clinton.


So shove your recommendations based on Dolores up your WHITE ass.


I love how White people think they can tell the world what to do.


I'm African-American and I'm a Green.


And it's not my job to vote for Joe Biden.


If they'd gone with Bernie, I would have considered it.  But not Joe, never Joe.


You should all be ashamed of yourselves at Resilience, you're nothing but whores.






Impeach Pelosi

 Reposting Ruth:


Nancy Pelosi needs to be impeached

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi needs to be impeached.  She is insane.  She talks of impeaching President Donald Trump over nominating a Supreme Court justice?


That is not what impeachment is for.  She is corrupt.  He is following the Constitution.  Do I want him to get another Justice on the Court?  No.  But that does not mean I can illegally stop him.  


Ms. Pelosi is out of control and if you doubt that, read this nonsense:


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday doubled down on her argument that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should not debate President Trump, claiming the Republican incumbent and his "henchmen" have no "fidelity" to facts or the truth. 
Asked during an interview on "Morning on CBS" whether she still believed the former vice president should skip the three scheduled debates, Pelosi said: "Oh, I do. Not that I don't think he'll be excellent. I just think that the president has no fidelity to fact or truth and, actually in his comments the last few days, no fidelity to the Constitution of the United States."


The debates are one way voters get information about the candidates.  Ms. Pelosi does not believe in democracy or informed voters.


As someone that anti-democratic, she should not be in Congress.


She is a joke.  She is a dirty joke.  She did not keep her promise to end the Iraq War.  She does not accomplish anything.


She is a corrupt politician who is destroying the country.  She needs to be impeached.

This edition's playlist

 

 

 1) Alicia Keys' ALICA.


2)  Yusuf Islam's TEA FOR TILLERMAN 2.

 

3) Dionne Warwick's SHE'S BACK.


4) Maria McKee's LA VITA NUOVA

 

5) BRIGHT EYES' DOWN IN THE WEEDS, WHERE THE WORLD ONCE WAS.

 

 

6) Fiona Apple's FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS.

 

7)  Harry Style's FINE LINE.

 

8) Ricky Martin's PAUSA.

 

9) Diana RossSUPERTONIC MIXES.

 

10) Bob Dylan's ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS.

 

 

 

 

 

Highlights

 

a park painting 11


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.

 

 "That deep corruption in Iraq" -- most requested highlight by readers of this site.

 

"Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot,"  "Activist Sajjad al-Iraqi has been kidnapped," "The silence on Julian's persecution," "Julian belongs in Australia," "Eggs and Assange," "Ellen's 'apology' does not go over well," "Sad Sanders,""Kevin Cooper needs an innocence investigation," "Barkley," "Science post," "The ever embarrassing 1619 Project," "Howie," "Twice screwed Bernie," "Reality," "Reason to vote Howie," "Oh, Ralph," "Joe Biden is no one's friend," "Butters, Jimmy Barr, Breonna Taylor," "Stop persecuting Julian Assange," "Free Julian now!," "Richard D. Wolff," "No justice from the grand jury," "Major crime," "RBG was a friend of killer cops, don't forget that," "Hunter longs for the day when it was all about his dildo play," "Cowards do not effect change," "This should happen," "How crazy is Nancy Pelosi?," "liza featherstone on the kennedys," "william emmett lecroy," "genocide enabler rbg," "Recep's a thug," "Oh, Jonathan," "RBG and NETFLIX's awful new show," "Real Issues," "#TheJimmyDoreShow What OBAMA Got Away With.," "Why does Oliver Stone lie?," "Where's Joe aka when does groundhog day arrive?," "Nancy Pelosi needs to be impeached," "why would you write-in bernie sanders?," "Whores at Resilience attack Howie Hawkins," "Julian Assange and media coverage," "America's Mayor," "What I won't miss about 2020," "Sometimes a crook marries a crook," "THIS JUST IN! DIFI'S CROOKED HUSBAND!," "Hiding behind his wife again" and "THIS JUST IN! JOE PONDERS A TACO PIZZA!" -- news coverage in the community.

 

 

 "a judge judy thought or 2," "THE BOYS," "RATCHED and that awful Marvin Gaye album," "One life ends and another begins, little Lindsay," "I support John Lequizamo" and "THE BOYS" -- TV coverage in the community.

 

 "Sam Smith," "Alicia Keys, Jody Watley, Tanya Tucker, Busta Rhymes, Dolly Parton," "ROLLING STONE's naughty and makes a bad list,"  "Five great Fleetwood Mac songs by Stevie Nicks" and "Melanie, Roberta Flack, Laura Nyro" -- music coverage in the community.




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