Tuesday, May 09, 2023

Truest statement of the week

And it’s worth noting right here that the Supreme Court has been one of the largest players in changing the definition of what corruption is, demanding that we talk in terms of quid quo pro corruption, which is a really narrow definition. That’s the Supreme Court’s doctrine in recent decades.

But I think under your question there is this question of how is it possible that Clarence Thomas is ruling on the loan forgiveness case, that Harlan Crow’s wife has a — gives to an organization, the Manhattan Institute, that has an amicus brief in that case, and that, as you say, the argument seems to be “personal charity for me, so my grandnephew can go to a fancy private school, but not for thee, all of you who need debt relief.” So, this is really like a layer cake of misconduct. And at every single layer of the cake, it is astonishing that Justice Clarence Thomas, who clearly has vested interests in every level, does not recuse.

--  Dahlia Lithwick, "Can Anyone Hold Justice Clarence Thomas to Account for Secret Dealings with Billionaire GOP Megadonor?" (DEMOCRACY NOW!).



TV: No, MARVEL movies do not make stars

The Water Cooler Set?  A pack of mules that stumbles around together.  They can't tell art from their own asses. 

We've long realized that but it was especially clear after viewing HBO's LOVE & DEATH starring a miscast Elizabeth Olsen.
 
3 JESS

Olsen rode to fame on THE AVENGERS franchise.  She came on weak as Scarlet Witch's Wanda.  We don't know which was worse -- Scarlet as a delicate flower or that thick accent Olsen insisted upon using for the character.  After several films as Wanda, she ended up in the hideous MARVEL series WANDAVISION -- a sexist storyline, a sexist approach and yet because women were involved behind the scenes and these women told the press that they were 'tweeking' anti-women tropes, the sexist show was passed off as 'enlightened.'

Again, The Water Cooler Set.

That barely watched characterization hit a wall of criticism when it was carried over to DR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS.

We couldn't stop laughing as various critics declared their horror that Scarlet Witch was bad and that, as usual with a female superhero, she couldn't handle her powers.  

Exactly where did they think WANDAVISION was leading?

This is why we objected in real time.

B-b-b-but Elizabeth didn't object!

She's an airhead.  A little bimbo who attends The Met gala each year because she's mistaken herself for a model. 

Having viewed LOVE & DEATH, we're happy she spends a lot of time trying something other than acting.


If 2023 sees any name celebrity deliver a worse performance, we'll be shocked.  

It's not just the bad southern accent.  She can't do accents, someone should really bring that point home to her, but that's the least of the problems.

She's playing accused killer Candy Montgomery.  In real life, Candy wasn't convicted in part due to passing a polygraph.

Absorb that for a moment.

Now look at Olsen's 'performance.'

It's too broad, it's pitched too high, and she can't stop gesticulating.


Did she forget she was acting for the camera?


She's too broad for the stage.  

She really needed a director who could reign her in.  Instead, she's left to explore all her 'choices' and they're all wrong, every single one.

Have you ever had a polygraph?  Have you ever tried to pass a polygraph?  You need to be calm and still -- everything that Olsen's Candy Montgomery is not.

Quentin Tarantino received push back last winter when he noted that MARVEL films did not make stars.  

He was right.

Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Pratt?  They were stars before they appeared in MARVEL films.

Chris Evans?  One flop after another.  Elizabeth Olsen?  Same.  

These people you may accept as a superhero (or may endure a superhero film for) but they're not stars.  They can't deliver an audience.  

If Elizabeth isn't playing Wanda, people aren't paying money.  I SAW THE LIGHT couldn't make $2 million in North American ticket sales.  INGRID GOES WEST brought in $3.3 million in North American ticket sales.  WIND RIVER teamed her with fellow Avenger co-star Jeremy Remmer and made $33 million at the North American box office.  No, that's not a hit.  And, no, she's not a film star.

She could be a TV star.  But exactly how long people are going to indulge her is the question.  As people now hear her whine about what was done to Scarlet Witch (what she did to the character), they are realizing that, no, WANDAVISION was not a feminist work.  She participated in the destruction of that character and that is on her.  This will not age well for her.

And age.

At 34, it's a bit late for her to try to learn how to act.  Maybe if she'd spent less time at Met galas -- sporting too much skin -- socialites don't usually dress like hookers (Baby Jane Holzer's sixties phase notwithstanding) -- and actual time studying her craft, she could deliver an impressive performance.


She rode her twin sisters' name to fame and never actually worked at her craft.  By being pathetic, she got Joss Whedon to cast her as Wanda.  Reality, she didn't do the best reading and the studio didn't see any appeal.  But the other two actresses who were almost cast had ideas about the character -- one even called the written conception "rather pathetic" (she was right) not realizing Joss had written the pathetic script.  But Elizabeth just smiled and looked around and giggled as she read her lines.

She couldn't act then and she can't act now.  So she's doing a crime drama now and delivering her idea of acting -- the kind of performance that would be perfect for a remake of SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE but one that's a joke when she's playing a possible killer.  Some may feel sorry for her.  We don't.  She's had over a decade to study acting.  Instead?  She devoted that time to pick out teddy outfits to wear in public.  Life is a series of choices and, she's about to learn, we're all responsible for our own choices.


Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)

1summerread

 

We're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community.  Ruth's "JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF" went up Sunday.  It's a book about folk singer and activist Joan Baez. Elizabeth Thompson wrote it.  You didn't like it, Ruth?


Ruth: I did not.  I felt it could have been so much more throughout.  I have read Joan Baez's autobiography AND A VOICE TO SING WITH.  I did not read Ms. Baez's DAYBREAK, however, her first attempt at an autobiography.  I thought I would find some fresh items and new discoveries but I found nothing.  It also failed the GOOGLE check, by the way.


How so?


Ruth: Joan Baez claims that her album HONEST LULLABY was harmed due to a conflict with the CBS head.  


Wait.  You mean she claims that she was dropped from the label.


Ruth: No.  She claims she had a fight with the label head whom she does not name --


Walter Yetnikoff.


Ruth: Elizabeth Thompson 'presumes' in the book but does not know for sure.


It was Walter.  Now the reason I'm stopping you is I don't like people who lie and I think we're going to get into Joan's current lies in a minute.  But you're saying that Joan is now claiming HONEST LULLABY did not get the promotion it needed because of her conflict with Walter over Israel?


Ruth: Yes.  Why?


She has always used that conflict -- a single conversation -- as the reason she was dropped from the label, she's said that in interviews, she wrote it in her book AND A VOICE TO SING WITH.  And now she's claiming it's why the album didn't get promoted?  The album was released long  after that conflict.


Ruth: That was the GOOGLE test I put it too.  July 1979 was when the album was released.  The story she tells in the book is that she was supposed to perform live in Egypt but learned Israel was illegally occupying the area and so she cancelled her performance.  Then, the day the album was released, she called the CBS president to discuss various things about the release and mentioned in passing what she had done and that this caused him to bury her album.  This concert?  It was cancelled the year before.  THE JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY reported on its cancellation August 14, 1978.  So her claim that she was speaking to the CBS music president in July of 1979 and mentioned in passing that she had just cancelled a concert was true.  And the man was Jewish and the president of CBS -- over her label PORTRAIT -- so I am pretty sure that when Jewish outlets were reporting on the cancellation in 1978, he would have known about it.


Agree.  I don't doubt that Walter refused to promote that album.  I'll even say he's the reason Joan wasn't invited to sing on "We Are The World."  But her sense of drama and inability to stick to reality rob her of a lot of sympathy she would otherwise receive -- and that is the story of her life over and over.


Ruth: And what offended me even more was that Elizabeth Thompson goes over Joan Baez's activism in the next chapter at length -- Civil Rights, Vietnam, etc. and then, boom, she is talking about the 1978 concert cancellation.  So she knew, the author knew, Ms. Baez was being dishonest in her tall tale.  I also hated the author's homophobia.  She notes GULF WINDS had a song entitled "Stephanie" on it and she writes, "It's often been suggested that the affair recalled here is a gay one -- but the song's title refers to Stephanie Barber, the legend of Lenox, whose Wheatleigh mansion near Tanglewood was a home from home for many musicians."  Huh?  First off, the book notes how things are hidden in various songs -- if it is about a man and a woman having sex.  But suddenly if it's about a same-sex relationship, it can only have on meaning, one reference point?  What a load of garbage.  And that is, by the way, that single sentence, pretty much it when it comes to Joan Baez and women.  


In fairness on that -- or maybe clarification -- Joan's walked back her bisexuality.  She doesn't want to talk about it anymore because it threatens other lies that she's told.


Ruth: Really? In 1973, when she came out as bisexual, I had a lot of respect for her.  What happened?


I don't think -- this is C.I., by the way, I know Joan and have for years -- she thought it was never going to be probed the way it was.  And if it had just been her sleeping with women -- and, yes, there was more than one despite her recent lies to THE GUARDIAN -- she probably would have been fine with it.  But it actually threatens the lie of Joan & Bob: Great Lovers.  Bob was never as enthralled as she was.  And one of the reasons was because she was sleeping with others.  He wasn't a fool.  And others included women.  And when people are writing about Janis Joplin and discovers -- as most already knew if they wanted to -- that Joan and Janis Joplin shared a lover -- Peggy Caserta -- and fought over this lover, the deluded who bought into THE GREAT LOVERS BOB AND JOAN nonsense suddenly realize -- hey, Bob was with Suze Rotolo throughout his dalliance with Joan; and Joan was sleeping with a woman -- Kim Chappell -- whom she had a multi-year relationship with throughout the Dylan dalliance.  Joan's whole pretense about how important this affair with Dylan was and how devastated she was falls apart when people know the reality.  That's why Joan's walked away from reality.  It's pathetic and it makes her look even more pathetic.  But she knows that the tale of herself and Janis being in love with -- and having sex with -- the same woman is a story that people would grab onto.  It would overtake 'virgin' Joan victimized by 'bad' Bob Dylan and become the defining story of her romantic life.  It might also lead to people discussing the affair she had with Janis and that explosive nature of that would bury 'virgin Joan.'


Ruth: I'm glad you added "or clarification" because there is no excuse for an author to deliberately lie and avoid a topic in a book.  But Elizabeth Thompson did and she also proved to be a racist.  I remember Joan chuckling in 2005 when she used the word "Negro" for an African-American person and so Ms. Thompson's racism did not surprise me.  She typed this sentence, "In that Charleston church in summer 2015, President Obama had stood as comforter-in-chief, crying with his people and singing the age-old spiritual."  "His people"?  What the hell?  Forget that Barack Obama is biracial.  I do not care if both of his parents had been Black, to say "his people."  Is that supposed to be a step above "you people"?  Elizabeth Thompson does not come off well in this book.  She's a liar and she's an idiot.  And on that last one, she actually wrote this sentence, "Joni Mitchell occupies a pedestal as a songwriter, probably the most influential women songwriters, but as a singer and an instrumentalist -- as a musician -- she can't hold a candle to Baez."  Even with so much of her voice gone, Joni Mitchell can still deliver a song.  Joan Baez cannot.  Ms. Mitchell can move you today with her voice live.


Agreed.  Let's also note "instrumentalist" and "musician" would include the guitar.  It's not Joan Baez who blew Jimmy Page away with her guitar playing.  It was not Joan Baez who popularized open tuning on the guitar in popular music.  It was not Joan Baez who ROLLING STONE magazine picked as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time -- it was Joni.  Elizabeth Thompson sounds like a stupid idiot with a school girl crush on Joan Baez.


Ruth: And that should be the pull quote for the book -- JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF written by a woman who sounds like a stupid idiot with a school girl crush on Joan Baez.

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

Previous book discussions this year:
 






2023 passings

Lisa Presley -- Elaine noted her passing.


Christine McVie -- Kat covered her passing.

 

Adam Rich -- Marcia noted his passing.

 

Jeff Beck -- Kat noted his passing.

 

Lance Kerwin -- Rebecca noted his passing.


Barrett Strong -- Ruth noted his passing.

 

Lisa Loring -- Rebecca noted her passing.

 

Burt Bacharach -- Rebecca noted his passing.

 

Raquel Welch -- Elaine noted her passing.

 

Stella Stevens  -- Rebecca noted her passing.

 

Richard Belzer -- Ruth noted his passing.  

 

Kevin Alexander Gray -- C.I. notes his passing.

 

Pat Schroeder -- Kat noted her passing.

 

Lance Reddick -- Mike notes his passing.  

 

Darcelle XV -- Elaine notes his passing.

 

"Mark Russell" -- Ruth notes his passing 

 

"Elizabeth Hubbard" -- Trina notes her passing.

 

"Mary Quant and more Peabody nominations" -- Elaine notes a passing.

 

"Harry Belafonte" -- Kat notes a passing.


"
Gordon Lightfoot" -- Kat notes a passing.




 

 

 

Tweet of the week

 

Books

1summerread

 

"Mafia Wives (Susan Williams' WHITE MALICE)" -- C.I. reviews this book.

 

 "The Sewing Circle" -- Marcia reads Axel Madsen's THE SEWING CIRCLE.

 

 "Ellen Sander's The Lifestyle That Classic Rock Unleashed" -- Trina reviews this book.


"Phyllis Diller 1917 – 2012: News, Quotes, Interview" -- Ann reviews this book.


"Call Her Heroic (Ava and C.I.)" -- Ava and C.I. review this book.


"Boze Hadleigh's Hollywood Gays" -- Marcia reviews this book.

 

"Robert Sellers wrote a book of garbage" -- Kat reviews HOLLYWOOD HELLRAISERS.   

 

 

"SCREAM VI and THE BOYS" -- Stan reviews Ron and Clint Howard's THE BOYS.

 

 

"the world according to joan" -- Rebecca reviews this book.

 

 "Elton John and Whitney Houston" -- Kat reviews Elton John's autobiography and a biography on Whitney Houston.


"DON RICKLES: THE MERCHANT OF VENOM" -- Isaiah reviews this book.

 

"Crispy Calamari in the Kitchen" -- Trina reviews  AIR FRYER COOKBOOK FOR BEGINNERS: EFFORTLESSLY GRILL, ROAST AND BAKE HOMEMADE MEALS: YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS WITH QUICK, TASTY & HEALTHY RECIPES.

 

 "Vincent Price and Universal" -- Marcia reviews John L. Flynn's 75 YEARS OF UNIVERSAL MONSTERS and Vincent Price's I LIKE WHAT I KNOW: A VISUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

 

"3 books to skip" -- Kat reviews  Bertill Nordahl's CAT SEVENS, CARLY SIMON AND LEONARD COHEN AND ALL THE OTHERS, David Redford's NEIL& JONI: 2 LIVES, 21 ALBUMS and Ellen Sanders' ROCK AND ROLL WOMENHOOD: CASS ELLIOT, GRACE SLICK, LINDA RONSTADT, FANNY AND MORE.

 

"THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY" -- Mike reviews Elizabeth Kolbert's THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY.


"Paul Kupperberg's DIRECT CONVERSTIONS: TALKS WITH FELLOW DC COMICS BRONZE AGE CREATORS" -- Isaiah reviews this book.

 

"JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF" -- Ruth reviews  this book by Elizabeth Thomas.

 

 

 

Ruth reviews Elizabeth Thompson's JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF

Ruth reviews a book about Joan Baez:


JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF

Elizabeth Thompson has written a book entitled JOAN BAEZ: THE LAST LEAF.


Joan Baez came up on the folk scene while I was in college.  A number of us put a lot of faith in her right away when she was singing folk songs, before she discovered Bob Dylan.


The book does a semi-good job of capturing that time period.  Semi because it is over in the blink of the eye.  Ms. Thompson is eager to get Ms. Baez with Mr. Dylan.


You might even say that Ms. Thompson has a homosexual panic.  I would say that because there is no acknowledgement of Joan Baez's affairs with women.  This despite the fact that Ms. Baez has written about it herself (AND A VOICE TO SING WITH) and came out as bisexual in 1973.  

As I read through the book, I was repeatedly disappointed because there was no real person there, just some fixation that Ms. Thompson labeled "Joan Baez."

Ms. Baez, like myself, is an elderly woman, a grandma, and at some point -- sooner than later -- we will both be gone.


Ms. Baez deserved a better book.  So did readers.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, May 5, 2023.  Who do you trust, how do you characterize and categorize -- a lot of topics inspired by USEFUL IDIOTS' latest video.


Running late this morning, sorry.  Let's start with a video that went up a little while ago.




1)  "CODEPINK, you can't say enough about them."  Worthless?  Aaron, you can say that they're worthless.

Susan "Medea" Benjamin accomplishes nothing.  

CODESTINK is not helping.  They can't focus.  They fundraise on aims and plans that they don't follow through on -- they took a lot of our money in 2006 for that interaction with Iraqis that they dropped days before it was to start because the press was paying attention to Palestine.  They angered many Iraqis who risked a lot to build that event and get the word out.  So let's stop pretending there.

Then let's note that Julian needs attention.  Julian Assange is being persecuted.  I know it.  If you're here reading this, you know it.  But what if you're new to this?

What if you're catching that clip on the news.  You're going to think, "Who is that crazy lady."  

Her actions are not helping anyone but herself.

Foolish people like Aaron Mate will rush to praise her for her nonsense.

At some point, when you've been doing the same thing over and over, you have to ask yourself, "Is this working?"  Susan will never do that.  It's much more important to her to get publicity for herself. 

Aaron and Katie decided to cover this.  And they don't know the name of the woman who was also part of the protest.

Susan needs to step down from leadership because she's not accomplishing anything.  And she needs to step down because the only real life in that organization is the young members.  But Susan was the female figurehead in 2003 and she still is.  Apparently, like Dianne Feinstein, she's going to die in office.

Are we really that pathetic?

If CODESTINK isn't just for Susan's vanity, then they should have long ago replaced her so that the organization could grow.

That said, were I a young woman in my 20s or 30s, I don't know that I'd want to be in charge because there are so many lies.

A feminist organization?  Created by women?

They've web papered over reality in many ways but anyone who wants to do a real deep dive -- even online -- can find that they're not really what they pretend they are today.

And these early lies are why Susan Benjamin can feel comfortable sharing the stage with convicted pedophile and registered sex offender Scott Ritter.  It took the rank and file of CODEPINK calling her out for that to keep her off the stage.  She is that out of touch with young women.  She needs to step aside and let the young lead. 

I am sick to death of the Dianne Feinsteins, Susan Benjamins and Gloria Steinems who refuse to leave the stage.  And I'm sick of the lies involved in all three.  DiFi is a reactionary politician and always has been throughout her too long career.   We've already talked about Susan.  Been awhile since we talked about Gloria.

She can have her snit fits with THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE NEW YORKER and -- Well, everybody.

She is no longer useful and people don't feel like lying for her anymore.

She was CIA and outlets -- news outlets -- are no longer going to play.  

I didn't speak to Susan Faludi about Gloria for BACKLASH.


But if I had, I would've given a variation of what Susan wrote.  It's what we were told in real time.  And we didn't have the internet back then.  

I would've said, Gloria, in college, helped on an international project and didn't realize that there was CIA funding.  That was a mistake on her part.  Most universities were taking funding from the CIA for various projects and activities -- often filed under "student life."

That's what she told me.  That's what she told Marlo Thomas.  

I didn't live in NYC and was not plugged into that community.  I did get a heads up from Ellen Willis that Gloria's version was "creative writing."  I filed that away and didn't make public comments for that reason.  Ellen was plugged into the NYC scene and she did know a lot, lot more than I did.

Kathie Sarachild and Gloria came into conflict because of this.

The women's movement had been a powerful force.  Along comes Gloria.

She and her friends elbow out Betty Friedan for being 'too old' -- yet Gloria would hang onto leadership (self-appointed leadership) many decades older than Betty -- and the women's movement peters out.

Go to THIRD and look there I'm not in the mood to spoonfeed on this.  I'm tired and struggling to breathe.  

Kathie and others in The Redstockings did research and asked questions and did so publicly.  And Gloria used professional connections -- including to other CIA spooks (Clay, that's all you were).  She silenced it.  The media walked away from it.

Early on, when I started online, we would get e-mails from people saying this or that about Gloria.  I would spit back out what I thought was accurate.  What the media had told us.  But I can be wrong.  I'm wrong all the time.  I don't remember Bob's last name -- starts with an F and then too many letters for a dyslexic like me -- but he wrote several e-mails to us at THIRD and I always dictated a response through Ty and I told Bob he might be right, that there were other things I had to focus on but I wouldn't let it drop and I would continue to look into it.  

Ruth Rosen told me she stood by what she wrote in THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN.  It was not the airbrushed portrait that Gloria always shopped around.  Marilyn French was far more specific.  

I asked Marilyn how Gloria got away with it?  "People wanted a leader and wanted to believe we had an honest one."

We did not have an honest one.

Bob was right and if he wants to e-mail, I'll give him credit for forcing me to look for the truth.  

The kindest explanation for Gloria's incompetence is that she is stupid and caught up in victim mentality.  That would explain how feminism under Gloria in the US peters out.  We're no longer challenging, we're begging.  We're no longer strong, we're pathetic.

But Gloria was CIA.  And it went beyond her time in college.  But that time in college was not what she claimed.  She was actively spying on and compiling lists of dissidents and those lists were handed over by the US government to the countries the dissidents lived in.  People were harmed and, yes, people died because of Gloria's actions.

That's reality.

It's also reality that she continued to work for the CIA as late as 1968 she was working for a cut-out.

This was not a mis-step in her youth.  And, thanks to the internet, we now can see clips that were long buried.  Gloria was a high profile journalist -- but not yet a feminist -- proclaiming her work for the CIA, her love for the CIA, how she and the CIA shared the same goals.

That stuff wasn't available when Kathie Sarachild and others were demanding answers.

Gloria misled the movement.

We would not have accepted her in any position had we known she was CIA.  I should clarify that.  Those of us who were not CIA would not have accpeted her.  I word it that way because there are a lot of women who propped Gloria up and, as Marilyn French detailed to me, these women had a lot to hide as well.  Gloria brought them in.

And maybe they did care about women's issues.  But they were part of Gloria's watering down feminism.

Earlier this week, a snapshot almost included a mocking of Max Blumenthal.  But I pulled it at the last minute.  In it, I was mocking him for just discovering what a 'left hero' really was like.  As I noted in that dictated spot, Max, that man broke my heart in college when I discovered what he was.  Why did it take you so long?

There are a lot of people who act like leaders but are not, in fact, leaders.  They are misleaders.

And to those who can't face the truth about Gloria, let's just note that -- CIA or not -- she was ineffective and she should have stepped down a long time ago.

The same is true of Susan with regards to stepping down.  (There have always been rumors about Susan and the CIA.  I have no idea on that.  I spent many years vouching for Gloria only to find out I was an idiot.  I'm not about to make that mistake with regards to Susan.)  Why is one woman the focus of a group?  And why is one woman the 'leader' for a third decade?

That's not a political group, stop kidding yourself.  It may be a cult, it is not a political group.

She needs to step aside and let young women take the stage.  If she can't do that, then everything I've said about her ego is true.

Back to the video.  For "Republicans suck" Katie Halper offers Republicans on abortion.  And they are awful.  The American Taliban.

And if it doesn't apply to you and you're a Republican, let it roll off your back.  I don't have time or energy to do "*" to statements right now. I'm just trying to power through each day.

But here's my issue.  Katie, you're promoting Marianne Williamson.

Kat's entry from last night -- and I'll note the end with "------"


Marianne Williamson kind of supports abortion
















 


 

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Matt Gaetz Wet" from up last night.




Abortion.  Have you read Marianne Williamson's mealy-mouth words?  C.I. refers to it in today's snapshot.  I know she's under the weather (she's had a bad cold) so I called Elaine (they work out together in the morning while C.I.'s dictating the snapshot) and asked her about it.  She said C.I. was asked to link to the student's report and did so gladly (she always supports colleges, especially the ones she speaks at and with - with meaning on zoom conferences).  But she thought she'd be able to praise Marianne and instead found this:


Williamson said that while she is pro-choice, she is not in favor of late-term abortions, calling them “misnomers,” or false cases used by those who are pro-life to ban abortion. 

Appalling and shameful.  Marianne, you're too weak ass to get my vote. 

And this is an issue we have the support on.  So much so that Republicans with sanity are pumping the brakes on the abortion issue. Poppy Noor (GUARDIAN) reports:



In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near total abortion ban introduced by their own party. In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban subsequently tanked his own bill. On the federal levela Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could meaning “losing huge” in 2024.


As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.

Divisions most clearly started to show last week in the deep red states of South Carolina and Nebraska, where Republicans roundly rejected further attempts to curtail abortion rights last week.

In South Carolina on Thursday, all five female senators – three of them Republican – led a filibuster that ultimately blocked a bill which would have banned abortion from conception with very few exceptions.

That was the third time a near-total ban on abortion has failed in the Republican-dominated senate in South Carolina since Roe was overturned last summer.



So is there a reason that Marianne can't show leadership on this issue?  What's the female equivalent of a cuck?  Seriously, I am appalled by her and she's damn lucky the statements she made caught C.I. unaware and on a morning when she was so congested, she could barely speak.  I can't believe it.

I think Marianne's spent too much time hanging with toy radicals and has forgotten what basic voting issues are.  She better get on her game and she better stop this 'abortions are icky' nonsense or she's going to polling worse than she already is.



-----------

End of Kat's entry.  So USEFUL IDIOTS wants to call out Republicans but we're supposed to be embracing Marianne for her nonsense?  For her use of right-wing talking points?  How is her stance on late-term abortions any different from forcing women to carry to term -- the thing Katie was pointing out?

It's not. 

Buy a clue.

By the way, Kat could have called me.  I get a cold and everyone worries I'm dying.  Which is why I'm late this morning.  I have a new bed arriving today.  I'm not dying but I'm not going to go out never having had a bed I actually wanted.  After college, I'd given everything away to charity and lived in a crash pad and we threw mattresses on the floor.  After that, I always let the man I was sleeping with pick because sleep has never been that important to me.  (Lifelong insomniac going back to early childhood.  My parents didn't believe in TV but got me one when I was three to keep me in my room at night because otherwise I would pop the screen off the window, hop out and walk down a few streets to my grandfather's house.)  When a friend moved from the house she loved in the 70s to a nicer home, she drove the UHaul herself and I understood why.  Point being, I wanted to get the bed springs, mattress, etc downstairs.  Great staircase for parties and big entrances but it's not fun hauling furniture up.  The new bed, mattress, et al will be hauled up by the people delivering it in a few hours.  They're also going to haul off the old stuff.  I wanted to get that all downstairs.  So I woke up early this morning and was going to do it myself.  Mike heard me and helped -- and I knew he would have if I'd asked -- but that's why the snapshot's late.  And with my congestion, it probably didn't help.


Okay, back to the video above.  "Great job, Hollywood."

What is your point, Aaron Mate?

Do you honestly think that the Met gala was in Los Angeles?

What the honest f**k?

I'm not in the damn mood.  I generally never use the term "Hollywood."  I think it's a misnomer and I think people using it don't know what they're talking about it.  The friend I mentioned earlier -- with the U-Haul -- gave a great definition of "Hollywood" to PREMIERE years ago.  She's an award winning actress and had to use a ton of words to describe it.

People like Aaron seem to think they saw Ginger on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND so they know all about "Hollywood."

We don't do the Met gala.  Those of us in the entertainment industry in California.  

I don't like the NCY crowd to begin with.  And I would never go to a Met gala.  


Do we have big events in California?  We do.  Usually for UCLA or a medical issue or what have you.  

A friend, in fact, called me whatever night the gala was to laugh at E! which was providing live coverage and claiming it was part of their "Hollywood" coverage.

A few actresses who need to work on their craft instead of selecting princess gowns that push up their breasts attended. 

You'll find bimbos and fashionistas in every grouping.  But don't pin that on "Hollywood," Aaron.  I've had a nice career and I've been very political.  My friends don't go to events like that and are appalled at the amount of wealth flaunted -- borrowed wealth in most cases.

It's cos play for a lot of starlets as they wear jewelry that they don't own.

Any pretense that this is about celebrating art was long ago ripped to shreds.  This is a NYC event for the shallow and the stupid who don't have the brains to grasp how much poverty is in this country.

Those of us in the entertainment industry in California take enough flack.  Don't pin your greedy NYC events on us.

Honestly, what the actual f**k?

In the video above, Katie makes the point that The Twitter Files revelations do not require that you be a fan boi of Elon Musk.  She is correct.  So Aaron, stop dragging my industry into your problem with the glitterati in NYC.  Take it up with them, don't drop it on my doorstep.

And certainly don't drop it on my doorstep when you're so pathetic that you're calling Tucker Carlson 'anti-war.'  He's not and he's never been.  He was for the Iraq War.  His insults of the Iraqi people are offensive.  How dare you tell the world that this man is anti-war?

Doing that erases their suffering.  

It's not happening and you can't make it happen.  You can destroy your own image by continuing down this road.

Glenneth Greenwald, your buddy, and Jimmy Dore, your buddy, have both limited their own reach and you're going to go down that road to, Aaron, if you don't wake the f**k up.

Tucker is a racist  Tucker is a sexist.  Tucker is not to be applauded.  Are you going to applaud Bill O'Reilly next?  He had on Janeane Garofalo to speak out against the Iraq War.

That doesn't mean we praise Bill and we shouldn't be praising Tucker.

"He did bring on people who disagreed with him," Aaron rushes to insist.

How stupid are you?

That's what the outlets are supposed to do. Your critique of MSNBC not doing that?  Bob Somerby's being making that critique for over 15 years -- maybe even 20.  You clearly do not know what you're talking about.


I don't suffer fools and I especially don't suffer fools who justify a racist, transphobic, sexist pig.

You're inability to know the critiques that came before you got pubes?  Do the work.

Here's the man whose balls you're tongue bathing.



That's how he spoke of Iraqis.  Do not pretend that he is anti-war.  Do not praise him unless you agree with what he said about the Iraqi people.  And if you do agree with what he said, state so openly so we can all know how bigoted you are.  

There is no defense for the comments he made about the Iraqi people.

You know, back in college when ______ set me up for what I thought was a lunch date, I wondered about it but went on it only to discover he had set me up with the CIA.  A remarkable college professor admired then and now -- Aaron, your buddy questioned that admiration this week -- and I didn't know how to process that.  He had done -- and has since -- many wonderful things.  But he was recruiting for the CIA.  And while I might have stayed through dessert for his lonely friend if it were a date, when I found out what it actually was, I made the biggest scene.  I was offended.  I don't support the CIA's work.  They have killed millions around the world.  They work in secret, they lie, they destroy.  

But what did that mean about the professor?

It's a question I could struggle with.  Or I can just accept the fact that he is not actually on my side.  


When you endorse Tucker, you appear to be making it clear that you are not on the side of the Iraqi people.  If that is the case, how about you say it plainly?

I don't admire you.  You're not a hero to me.  But I'm sure you are to some people.  So get honest and don't cause the pain that the CIA recruiting college professor did to me.
   



The following sites updated:





Kat reviews Judy Garland's THE GARLAND TOUCH

Kat reviews another Judy Garland album:


Kat's Korner: THE GARLAND TOUCH

Kat: I happen to like New York.

Well . . .

I don't.  California born and bred.  But when Judy Garland sings Cole Porter's "I Happen To Like New York" on THE GARLAND TOUCH, I'm at least interested in it.  Bobby Short did the definitive version of the song.  Or so I thought for years before hearing Judy's version.


garland



"Comes Once In My Lifetime" is a nice revelation of Judy just joyfully going along with the music.  Upbeat songs and Garland?  We expect that when she's singing in a film.  The soundtrack will contain a plaintive song or two [see SUMMER STOCK which features "If You Feel Like Singing Sing" and "(Howdy Neighbor) Happy Harvest" early on] but it will also include (usually early on) an upbeat number that reminds you she wasn't just America's finest torch song singer, she was also something big on the upbeat (not just the downbeat) of jazz singing.  


But she was the finest torch singer.  She was.  Not even Frank Sinatra came close, not even during his brilliant recordings of the fifties.  And she drives that home with "Judy At The Palace Medley" -- a studio recording which opens with the special material written by Roger Edens for her 1951 engagement at The Palace in Manhattan -- her Tony award winning engagement, a twice-a-day performance that went for 19 weeks:



I played the state,
The capital,
And people said
Don't stop,
Until you play the Palace,
You haven't played the top.
For years I had it preached to me,
And drummed into my head,
Until you play the Palace,
You might as well be dead.
A team of hoofers was the headline,
At the Majestic, down in Dallas.
But they canceled the day,
Their agent called to say,
You can open the bill at the Palace.
So, it became the Hall of Fame,
The Mecca of the trade.
When you had played the Palace,
You knew that you were made.
So, I hope you understand my wondrous thrill,
'cause Vaudevilles back as the Palace,
And I'm on the bill.



After that original material, the medley features "Shine On Harvest Moon," "Some Of These Days," "My Man" and "I Don't Care."  And she's amazing.  


Even more so on "Sweet Danger" as she brings to life "There is danger in my loving you."  And is rude to point out that she gives so much love, tenderness and humanity to Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's "Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe" because she's clearing thing of her former lover -- as opposed to a more recent recording which found an actress-singer stumping for Joe Biden and delivering her worst vocals since BITTERSWEET WHITE LIGHT?  


Sorry, Cher, but on that album -- the worst of your career artistically -- you covered 11 songs, nine of which were  performed by Judy Garland and it was wretched.  For those who don't remember, before Cher made that album, she'd been in America's homes every week doing these and similar torch songs on THE SONNY & CHER SHOW and doing them in amazing voice and selling them.  What happened on BITTERSWEET WHITE LIGHT?  (My guess is Sonny's poor production which found Cher off-key at times and buried in gunk at others.)  


"More Than You Know" is one of those songs Cher failed with on that album.  (Again, she did it fine on TV -- click here for one example.)  And Judy does it wonderfully here.  Here?

Here and there.  But, sorry Beatles fans, no everywhere.


I recommend THE GARLAND TOUCH.  I praise much of it.  But this studio album released in 1962 by CAPTIOL isn't all new material.  This version of "More Than You Know" was already available on 1958's JUDY IN LOVE -- this same version.  Same with "Do I Love You."  Both are here and both were there.


This is a good time to bring in Buffy Sainte Marie.  We were talking about 2017's MEDICINE SONGS in the roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin.  And I got e-mails Friday and Saturday about that:   How much did I pay?  Used copies are outrageous.  And there are no new copies.  


Yes, there are new copies.  I bought a new copy.  I've told you before that when AMAZON is sold out and TOWER is sold out and everyone is sold out, I gave up.  And whined later to C.I. who said, "Kat, I'm sure it's not sold out at WALMART."  And it wasn't.  (That's also how I got my Nick Jonas' vinyl copies but, warning, they're out of Nick Jonas now.  When I mentioned that last time, everyone snapped them up, I guess.)


But why I want to bring in MEDICINE SONGS is because it's Buffy's most recent studio album.  And she did something she's been doing on other albums.  She does new songs and she does her old songs.  These aren't the same recordings -- the way the two on THE GARLAND TOUCH are.  No, these are new recordings.  And my point here is, by re-recording them, she gives them new life.  She reminds us of these songs -- Buffy's not a radio star (see LBJ and Nixon for how they banned her).  But more than reminding us of these earlier songs (like "Little Wheel Spin and Spin" and "Universal Soldier"), she also makes the new songs like "The War Racket"  and "You've Got To Run (Spirit of the Wind)" more powerful because the ones she includes touch on the same themes as her newer material like "No No Kenshagesh" (which first appeared on 2008's RUNNING FOR THE DRUM).


The reason I bring that up is Carole King.  While Buffy is celebrating her work, Carole's degraded her own for nearly 20 years now -- and, no, I just don't mean the way she 'sweetened' (destroyed) "Sweet Seasons" to serve politicians -- as opposed to serving the song or the people who loved that song.  As a performer, she's had 20 songs make the top forty in the US on the pop or adult contemporary charts (or, in most cases, make both the pop and the ac charts).  Only four of those were from TAPESTRY but, over and over, on new live albums and live albums newly issued from the vaults, she has emphasized TAPESTRY at the expense of her other 16 hits.  She'll include songs that she wrote for others but didn't record herself but she'll ignore, for example, "Only Love Is Real" to the point that most people no longer know it exists and it's one of her finest songs.  I've written about this several times before.  Didn't plan to write about it again.


But at the end of this month, or maybe right now, she will have, or does have, a new album.  Why the confusion?  Supposedly it was released April 26th but anywhere you go order it tells you it will be out on May 26th.  It will be a double disc vinyl release entitled HOME AGAIN and it's a recording of her Central Park concert from May 26, 1973.  


Only seven tracks are songs from TAPESTRY -- one song, "You've Got A Friend," shows Carole's awful judgment by appearing twice and sadly this is no the first of her live albums to feature two performances of "You've Got A Friend."  One time in a concert, I'll enjoy it.  Second time, I'm picking apart all of its faults.  Seven tracks is a lot -- and, please note, the seven do not include "I Feel The Earth Move" (a song Carole always needs to include to ensure the audience isn't falling asleep -- as a solo artist, she didn't do a lot of fast songs) or "So Far Away";  however, there are 25 tracks so she's only going to the stagnant well for about 1/3 of the album.   Or so I thought.  Apparently, AMAZON has the tracks wrong.  I'm going to assume that Carole King's own online store has them right -- in which case "You've Got A Friend" only appears once.  And there are only 18 tracks -- five of which are from TAPESTRY.


Because she's promoting 1973's FANTASY, you get the hits from that album "Corazon" and "Believe In Humanity."  You also get her non-FANTASY hits "Sweet Seasons" and "Been To Canaan."  The rest of the album is all the tracks from FANTASY.  Yes, boys and girls, in the 70s some artists felt the need to perform the full album when they went out on tour to plug a new release.


2019's LIVE AT MONTREUX 1973 is from the same Carole King tour but, obviously, not the same concert.  On that release, she has seven songs from TAPESTRY (including "I Feel The Earth Move") and 12 from FANTASY.


FANTASY is not my favorite Carole album by any means.  (After TAPESTRY, it's WRITER, THOROUGHBRED, TIME GONE BY, WELCOME HOME, CITY STREETS, SPEEDING TIME, COLOUR OF YOUR DREAMS, RHYMES & REASON, WRAP AROUND JOY, ONE TO ONE and PEARLS -- and any album that didn't make the list is one I don't like.)  But thank goodness, Carole's latest blast from the past will include something other than TAPESTRY, TAPESTRY, and more TAPESTRY.  She's reduced a career of over sixty years into one album in the minds of most people and that's because she keeps going to the TAPESTRY well over and over.  On 2017's LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR, for example, every song she sang was from TAPESTRY with the exception of "Up On The Roof" (the old Drifters' hit). 2017's BEST OF LIVE IN LONDON 1975 also contained only TAPESTRY songs plus "Up On The Roof."  2017 also saw the release of CAROLE KING LIVE! THE LIVING ROOM TOUR ESSENTIALS ONE WAY -- a twelve track live album -- twelve tracks and six were from TAPESTRY.  Please note, this is a cheapo best of from her 2005 live album THE LIVING ROOM TOUR -- that was a double album with 8 tracks featuring TAPESTRY songs but with 21 tracks in all.  Time and again, Carole keeps putting out TAPESTRY and that's all she's going to be known for as a singer because she does nothing to promote her other work.  Again, only four of the 20 hits she had as a singer are from TAPESTRY.   Do we need to note 2013's live album IN INTIMATE PERFORMANCE which finds Carole performing six tracks from TAPESTRY and one non-TAPESTRY track (you know it, come on, say it with me, "Up On The Roof").  Strangely enough, when TAPESTRY was new and an actual hit, Carole King performed at Carnegie Hall -- in 1993, the concert was released as THE CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT: JUNE 18, 1971.   Back then, she performed 19 songs.  She was promoting TAPESTRY, her newest album, but she still managed to perform 9 songs that weren't on TAPESTRY.


I fear that, in fifty or so years, someone will have to do for Carole what I've tried to do for Judy Garland in the last years.  The point of this review is the same as the previous reviews I've done of Judy's studio albums on CAPITOL:  - "Kat's Korner: JUDY IN LOVE -- an artistic masterpiece,"  "Kat's Korner: Give Judy her due," "Kat's Korner: Judy does JUDY" and  "Kat's Korner: Judy's good -- but not great -- album."  What's that?  Note the artist.


Judy was a wonderful actress and I'd rank her as one of the ten best film actresses (and ten best film stars) of the 20th century.  Her movies are always on: THE WIZARD OF OZ, A STAR IS BORN, SUMMER STOCK, THE CLOCK, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, FOR ME AND MY GAL, EASTER PARADE, IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, THE PIRATE, A CHILD IS WAITING, I COULD GO ON SINGING, BABES IN ARMS, LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY, PRESENTING LILY MARS . . . On and on. So we are reminded of her incredible contributions to film.


But I grew up with a grandmother who loved music.  And when our grandparents moved in with us and I was a young girl, I heard all the greats but she loved great singing.  So she'd play Frank Sinatra and she'd play Billie Holiday and she'd play Dinah Washington and she'd play Judy Garland and she'd . . .


Stop.  Because of what she played, I assumed Judy's singing was as applauded online as Frank Sinatra's was.  I made an ass out of myself.  The online world is not a fair and equal world.  Check out reviews of any female led TV show or film and you'll see just how much sexism exists.  (A film or TV show that's female led can be criticized without it being sexism.  GHOSTBUSTERS deserved the criticism and deserved criticism that many failed to note: The sexless lives of four adult women.  The original GHOSTBUSTER didn't shy from dating or sex.  But when you've got four women apparently everyone of them selected Doris Day as their role model.)  THE JUDY ROOM is one of the few sites that notes Judy's music albums.  


Again, she's up there with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday.  She's one of her finest torch singers -- and was actually far better than Frank.  Frank had a greater range but Judy had greater skill.  Check out "Why Was I Born?" on THE GARLAND TOUCH before you try to argue with me on that.  


So what I've tried to do with these reviews is give a starting point for a discussion of Judy's vinyl output.  Her musical artistry and accomplishments need to be celebrated but I can find several websites for every minor male talent while Judy is largely ignored and forgotten.  She was an album artist and she became that in her years with CAPITOL.  It's not her fault that the format didn't exist when she started recording.  Then it was 78s and abridged film soundtracks.  The album as an art form was developed by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole and Doris Day and others -- and those others include Judy Garland.  

I grew up loving Judy and think I read my first biography about her when Christopher Finch's RAINBOW: THE STORMY LIFE OF JUDY GARLAND came out in paperback.  It was when the NBC movie based on it was airing so that must have been 1978. See "Judy Garland (the biographies)" and "HEARTBREAKER: TWO MONTHS WITH JUDY" for my reviews of books about Judy.  And the Judy bios cover Judy the actress.  They usually cover Judy the concert performer as well.  But search in vain for the ones that cover Judy the singer.  Search for the anecdotes about when she recorded this album or that album and grasp that there really aren't any in these books.  


So we've got print letting her down and we've got the online world letting her down.


So I'm not just complaining and whining, I'm trying to do my part to make a difference here.  There are two more studio albums (CAPITOL is where she did her studio albums) to review.  I may review her live albums after that. THE GARLAND TOUCH?  I'd give it a B+ for Judy.  I could do without two songs on the album being two songs -- two recordings -- already on a previous album.  THE GARLAND TOUCH is not Judy's best studio album as a result.  But a B+ Judy album is still far better than an A+  album by Mel Torme (if there were such a beast) or any other jazz 'stylist' that really wasn't much of a singer when it came to actually making an audience feel something.



 

Scarlet Witch deserved better than Elizabeth Olsen (Ann)

Repost of Ann's take on Scarlet Witch


Scarlet Witch deserved better than Elizabeth Olsen

I just posted "There is a God: Call Me Kat gets the axe (Ann)" at Marcia's site.  She and her girlfriend have a family reunion.  They weren't going to go because her girlfriend had to work but at the last minute (an hour ago), her boss gave her the rest of the day off.  So they were getting in the car to drive (it's a two hour drive) and Marcia called and I said, "Go for it."  

The bad news?  That was my big post.  I'll probably pull it over here next week.  

Oh, looking at the news I do have something I can write about.


WandaVision was a hideous show.  Credit to Ava and C.I. who called the retrograde and anti-woman show out in real time: "TV: Can anything be worse than fall 2020?" and especially see "TV: The way things are or are thought to be" and one more is "Media: They lie."


 It was insulting and it was insulting to watch critics lie and pretend that it wasn't sexist b.s.


Crazy woman can't handle her powers.  


That's a trope.  It starts with Jamie Sommers on The Six Million Dollar Man and runs to Jean Grey on X-Men and all over the place.


Never happens to the male heroes.


It was insulting.


Guess who's finally whining?  Elizabeth Olson:

 

In a new video feature for Vanity Fair, Olsen sat down to rewatch key moments from her career, but it's her comments about Marvel that are sure to make all the headlines, as she comments on the lack of go-between involving the writers of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and WandaVision, which were filmed at similar times, and having to attempt to tie the two together—except one project was written for her, and the other simply had her in it. In the video, Olsen said:

"It's a similar arc that I had to play in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. There could be parallel stories being told there, of dealing with grief and loss. Well, I proposed that to the writers who wrote Multiverse of Madness. I said 'Do you know what we're doing in WandaVision? Have you seen it?' and no, they had not seen it, because it wasn't finished yet. So I had to try and, I don't know, play it differently, right? I had to attack the same themes in order for it to be interesting for me, I think, and potentially for the audience. I had to come at it from a different point of view so that it wasn't repetitive."


Poor dumb Elizabeth.  Every time she opens her mouth I cringe.  Scarlet Witch was my favorite Avenger in the comic books and it has been depressing as hell to watch that character be ignored and then destroyed.  Elizabeth never fought for the character and let her be useless in her first three films.  

Here's reality.  WandaVision was hideous and started Scarlet down the road that had to end as it did in the Dr. Strange film.


But isn't it telling that Elizabeth Olsen's commitment wasn't too Wanda.  It was to finding something interesting that she wanted to play.  Guess that's why she gave up on explaining what had happened in WandaVision to the people working on Dr. Strange.

Elizabeth's not happy about the Doctor Strange movie.

 

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Friday, May 5, 2023.  Who do you trust, how do you characterize and categorize -- a lot of topics inspired by USEFUL IDIOTS' latest video.


Running late this morning, sorry.  Let's start with a video that went up a little while ago.




1)  "CODEPINK, you can't say enough about them."  Worthless?  Aaron, you can say that they're worthless.

Susan "Medea" Benjamin accomplishes nothing.  

CODESTINK is not helping.  They can't focus.  They fundraise on aims and plans that they don't follow through on -- they took a lot of our money in 2006 for that interaction with Iraqis that they dropped days before it was to start because the press was paying attention to Palestine.  They angered many Iraqis who risked a lot to build that event and get the word out.  So let's stop pretending there.

Then let's note that Julian needs attention.  Julian Assange is being persecuted.  I know it.  If you're here reading this, you know it.  But what if you're new to this?

What if you're catching that clip on the news.  You're going to think, "Who is that crazy lady."  

Her actions are not helping anyone but herself.

Foolish people like Aaron Mate will rush to praise her for her nonsense.

At some point, when you've been doing the same thing over and over, you have to ask yourself, "Is this working?"  Susan will never do that.  It's much more important to her to get publicity for herself. 

Aaron and Katie decided to cover this.  And they don't know the name of the woman who was also part of the protest.

Susan needs to step down from leadership because she's not accomplishing anything.  And she needs to step down because the only real life in that organization is the young members.  But Susan was the female figurehead in 2003 and she still is.  Apparently, like Dianne Feinstein, she's going to die in office.

Are we really that pathetic?

If CODESTINK isn't just for Susan's vanity, then they should have long ago replaced her so that the organization could grow.

That said, were I a young woman in my 20s or 30s, I don't know that I'd want to be in charge because there are so many lies.

A feminist organization?  Created by women?

They've web papered over reality in many ways but anyone who wants to do a real deep dive -- even online -- can find that they're not really what they pretend they are today.

And these early lies are why Susan Benjamin can feel comfortable sharing the stage with convicted pedophile and registered sex offender Scott Ritter.  It took the rank and file of CODEPINK calling her out for that to keep her off the stage.  She is that out of touch with young women.  She needs to step aside and let the young lead. 

I am sick to death of the Dianne Feinsteins, Susan Benjamins and Gloria Steinems who refuse to leave the stage.  And I'm sick of the lies involved in all three.  DiFi is a reactionary politician and always has been throughout her too long career.   We've already talked about Susan.  Been awhile since we talked about Gloria.

She can have her snit fits with THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE NEW YORKER and -- Well, everybody.

She is no longer useful and people don't feel like lying for her anymore.

She was CIA and outlets -- news outlets -- are no longer going to play.  

I didn't speak to Susan Faludi about Gloria for BACKLASH.


But if I had, I would've given a variation of what Susan wrote.  It's what we were told in real time.  And we didn't have the internet back then.  

I would've said, Gloria, in college, helped on an international project and didn't realize that there was CIA funding.  That was a mistake on her part.  Most universities were taking funding from the CIA for various projects and activities -- often filed under "student life."

That's what she told me.  That's what she told Marlo Thomas.  

I didn't live in NYC and was not plugged into that community.  I did get a heads up from Ellen Willis that Gloria's version was "creative writing."  I filed that away and didn't make public comments for that reason.  Ellen was plugged into the NYC scene and she did know a lot, lot more than I did.

Kathie Sarachild and Gloria came into conflict because of this.

The women's movement had been a powerful force.  Along comes Gloria.

She and her friends elbow out Betty Friedan for being 'too old' -- yet Gloria would hang onto leadership (self-appointed leadership) many decades older than Betty -- and the women's movement peters out.

Go to THIRD and look there I'm not in the mood to spoonfeed on this.  I'm tired and struggling to breathe.  

Kathie and others in The Redstockings did research and asked questions and did so publicly.  And Gloria used professional connections -- including to other CIA spooks (Clay, that's all you were).  She silenced it.  The media walked away from it.

Early on, when I started online, we would get e-mails from people saying this or that about Gloria.  I would spit back out what I thought was accurate.  What the media had told us.  But I can be wrong.  I'm wrong all the time.  I don't remember Bob's last name -- starts with an F and then too many letters for a dyslexic like me -- but he wrote several e-mails to us at THIRD and I always dictated a response through Ty and I told Bob he might be right, that there were other things I had to focus on but I wouldn't let it drop and I would continue to look into it.  

Ruth Rosen told me she stood by what she wrote in THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN.  It was not the airbrushed portrait that Gloria always shopped around.  Marilyn French was far more specific.  

I asked Marilyn how Gloria got away with it?  "People wanted a leader and wanted to believe we had an honest one."

We did not have an honest one.

Bob was right and if he wants to e-mail, I'll give him credit for forcing me to look for the truth.  

The kindest explanation for Gloria's incompetence is that she is stupid and caught up in victim mentality.  That would explain how feminism under Gloria in the US peters out.  We're no longer challenging, we're begging.  We're no longer strong, we're pathetic.

But Gloria was CIA.  And it went beyond her time in college.  But that time in college was not what she claimed.  She was actively spying on and compiling lists of dissidents and those lists were handed over by the US government to the countries the dissidents lived in.  People were harmed and, yes, people died because of Gloria's actions.

That's reality.

It's also reality that she continued to work for the CIA as late as 1968 she was working for a cut-out.

This was not a mis-step in her youth.  And, thanks to the internet, we now can see clips that were long buried.  Gloria was a high profile journalist -- but not yet a feminist -- proclaiming her work for the CIA, her love for the CIA, how she and the CIA shared the same goals.

That stuff wasn't available when Kathie Sarachild and others were demanding answers.

Gloria misled the movement.

We would not have accepted her in any position had we known she was CIA.  I should clarify that.  Those of us who were not CIA would not have accpeted her.  I word it that way because there are a lot of women who propped Gloria up and, as Marilyn French detailed to me, these women had a lot to hide as well.  Gloria brought them in.

And maybe they did care about women's issues.  But they were part of Gloria's watering down feminism.

Earlier this week, a snapshot almost included a mocking of Max Blumenthal.  But I pulled it at the last minute.  In it, I was mocking him for just discovering what a 'left hero' really was like.  As I noted in that dictated spot, Max, that man broke my heart in college when I discovered what he was.  Why did it take you so long?

There are a lot of people who act like leaders but are not, in fact, leaders.  They are misleaders.

And to those who can't face the truth about Gloria, let's just note that -- CIA or not -- she was ineffective and she should have stepped down a long time ago.

The same is true of Susan with regards to stepping down.  (There have always been rumors about Susan and the CIA.  I have no idea on that.  I spent many years vouching for Gloria only to find out I was an idiot.  I'm not about to make that mistake with regards to Susan.)  Why is one woman the focus of a group?  And why is one woman the 'leader' for a third decade?

That's not a political group, stop kidding yourself.  It may be a cult, it is not a political group.

She needs to step aside and let young women take the stage.  If she can't do that, then everything I've said about her ego is true.

Back to the video.  For "Republicans suck" Katie Halper offers Republicans on abortion.  And they are awful.  The American Taliban.

And if it doesn't apply to you and you're a Republican, let it roll off your back.  I don't have time or energy to do "*" to statements right now. I'm just trying to power through each day.

But here's my issue.  Katie, you're promoting Marianne Williamson.

Kat's entry from last night -- and I'll note the end with "------"


Marianne Williamson kind of supports abortion
















 


 

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Matt Gaetz Wet" from up last night.




Abortion.  Have you read Marianne Williamson's mealy-mouth words?  C.I. refers to it in today's snapshot.  I know she's under the weather (she's had a bad cold) so I called Elaine (they work out together in the morning while C.I.'s dictating the snapshot) and asked her about it.  She said C.I. was asked to link to the student's report and did so gladly (she always supports colleges, especially the ones she speaks at and with - with meaning on zoom conferences).  But she thought she'd be able to praise Marianne and instead found this:


Williamson said that while she is pro-choice, she is not in favor of late-term abortions, calling them “misnomers,” or false cases used by those who are pro-life to ban abortion. 

Appalling and shameful.  Marianne, you're too weak ass to get my vote. 

And this is an issue we have the support on.  So much so that Republicans with sanity are pumping the brakes on the abortion issue. Poppy Noor (GUARDIAN) reports:



In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near total abortion ban introduced by their own party. In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban subsequently tanked his own bill. On the federal levela Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could meaning “losing huge” in 2024.


As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.

Divisions most clearly started to show last week in the deep red states of South Carolina and Nebraska, where Republicans roundly rejected further attempts to curtail abortion rights last week.

In South Carolina on Thursday, all five female senators – three of them Republican – led a filibuster that ultimately blocked a bill which would have banned abortion from conception with very few exceptions.

That was the third time a near-total ban on abortion has failed in the Republican-dominated senate in South Carolina since Roe was overturned last summer.



So is there a reason that Marianne can't show leadership on this issue?  What's the female equivalent of a cuck?  Seriously, I am appalled by her and she's damn lucky the statements she made caught C.I. unaware and on a morning when she was so congested, she could barely speak.  I can't believe it.

I think Marianne's spent too much time hanging with toy radicals and has forgotten what basic voting issues are.  She better get on her game and she better stop this 'abortions are icky' nonsense or she's going to polling worse than she already is.


-----------

End of Kat's entry.  So USEFUL IDIOTS wants to call out Republicans but we're supposed to be embracing Marianne for her nonsense?  For her use of right-wing talking points?  How is her stance on late-term abortions any different from forcing women to carry to term -- the thing Katie was pointing out?

It's not. 

Buy a clue.

By the way, Kat could have called me.  I get a cold and everyone worries I'm dying.  Which is why I'm late this morning.  I have a new bed arriving today.  I'm not dying but I'm not going to go out never having had a bed I actually wanted.  After college, I'd given everything away to charity and lived in a crash pad and we threw mattresses on the floor.  After that, I always let the man I was sleeping with pick because sleep has never been that important to me.  (Lifelong insomniac going back to early childhood.  My parents didn't believe in TV but got me one when I was three to keep me in my room at night because otherwise I would pop the screen off the window, hop out and walk down a few streets to my grandfather's house.)  When a friend moved from the house she loved in the 70s to a nicer home, she drove the UHaul herself and I understood why.  Point being, I wanted to get the bed springs, mattress, etc downstairs.  Great staircase for parties and big entrances but it's not fun hauling furniture up.  The new bed, mattress, et al will be hauled up by the people delivering it in a few hours.  They're also going to haul off the old stuff.  I wanted to get that all downstairs.  So I woke up early this morning and was going to do it myself.  Mike heard me and helped -- and I knew he would have if I'd asked -- but that's why the snapshot's late.  And with my congestion, it probably didn't help.


Okay, back to the video above.  "Great job, Hollywood."

What is your point, Aaron Mate?

Do you honestly think that the Met gala was in Los Angeles?

What the honest f**k?

I'm not in the damn mood.  I generally never use the term "Hollywood."  I think it's a misnomer and I think people using it don't know what they're talking about it.  The friend I mentioned earlier -- with the U-Haul -- gave a great definition of "Hollywood" to PREMIERE years ago.  She's an award winning actress and had to use a ton of words to describe it.

People like Aaron seem to think they saw Ginger on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND so they know all about "Hollywood."

We don't do the Met gala.  Those of us in the entertainment industry in California.  

I don't like the NCY crowd to begin with.  And I would never go to a Met gala.  


Do we have big events in California?  We do.  Usually for UCLA or a medical issue or what have you.  

A friend, in fact, called me whatever night the gala was to laugh at E! which was providing live coverage and claiming it was part of their "Hollywood" coverage.

A few actresses who need to work on their craft instead of selecting princess gowns that push up their breasts attended. 

You'll find bimbos and fashionistas in every grouping.  But don't pin that on "Hollywood," Aaron.  I've had a nice career and I've been very political.  My friends don't go to events like that and are appalled at the amount of wealth flaunted -- borrowed wealth in most cases.

It's cos play for a lot of starlets as they wear jewelry that they don't own.

Any pretense that this is about celebrating art was long ago ripped to shreds.  This is a NYC event for the shallow and the stupid who don't have the brains to grasp how much poverty is in this country.

Those of us in the entertainment industry in California take enough flack.  Don't pin your greedy NYC events on us.

Honestly, what the actual f**k?

In the video above, Katie makes the point that The Twitter Files revelations do not require that you be a fan boi of Elon Musk.  She is correct.  So Aaron, stop dragging my industry into your problem with the glitterati in NYC.  Take it up with them, don't drop it on my doorstep.

And certainly don't drop it on my doorstep when you're so pathetic that you're calling Tucker Carlson 'anti-war.'  He's not and he's never been.  He was for the Iraq War.  His insults of the Iraqi people are offensive.  How dare you tell the world that this man is anti-war?

Doing that erases their suffering.  

It's not happening and you can't make it happen.  You can destroy your own image by continuing down this road.

Glenneth Greenwald, your buddy, and Jimmy Dore, your buddy, have both limited their own reach and you're going to go down that road to, Aaron, if you don't wake the f**k up.

Tucker is a racist  Tucker is a sexist.  Tucker is not to be applauded.  Are you going to applaud Bill O'Reilly next?  He had on Janeane Garofalo to speak out against the Iraq War.

That doesn't mean we praise Bill and we shouldn't be praising Tucker.

"He did bring on people who disagreed with him," Aaron rushes to insist.

How stupid are you?

That's what the outlets are supposed to do. Your critique of MSNBC not doing that?  Bob Somerby's being making that critique for over 15 years -- maybe even 20.  You clearly do not know what you're talking about.


I don't suffer fools and I especially don't suffer fools who justify a racist, transphobic, sexist pig.

You're inability to know the critiques that came before you got pubes?  Do the work.

Here's the man whose balls you're tongue bathing.



That's how he spoke of Iraqis.  Do not pretend that he is anti-war.  Do not praise him unless you agree with what he said about the Iraqi people.  And if you do agree with what he said, state so openly so we can all know how bigoted you are.  

There is no defense for the comments he made about the Iraqi people.

You know, back in college when ______ set me up for what I thought was a lunch date, I wondered about it but went on it only to discover he had set me up with the CIA.  A remarkable college professor admired then and now -- Aaron, your buddy questioned that admiration this week -- and I didn't know how to process that.  He had done -- and has since -- many wonderful things.  But he was recruiting for the CIA.  And while I might have stayed through dessert for his lonely friend if it were a date, when I found out what it actually was, I made the biggest scene.  I was offended.  I don't support the CIA's work.  They have killed millions around the world.  They work in secret, they lie, they destroy.  

But what did that mean about the professor?

It's a question I could struggle with.  Or I can just accept the fact that he is not actually on my side.  


When you endorse Tucker, you appear to be making it clear that you are not on the side of the Iraqi people.  If that is the case, how about you say it plainly?

I don't admire you.  You're not a hero to me.  But I'm sure you are to some people.  So get honest and don't cause the pain that the CIA recruiting college professor did to me.
   



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