Women, you're her third choice!

Professional crier Kate Michelman felt the need to share ("What I Really Wanted To Say To Chris Matthews" -- you sort of picture her tossing and turning unable to sleep as she relives it) that with John Edwards out of the race, her new pick, Barack Obama, is about qualifactions.



Strange qualifications, apparently, since she rates Hillary Clinton "very good." Just not good enough to be the first pick or the second. But presumably Clinton would be her third pick, unless Mike Gravel showed a surprising skill on the field.



See, 'feminist' Kate thinks even "very good" women aren't good enough for the Michelman first round draft choice, nor the second. But when only two others are left (Clinton and Gravel), she might go with Hillary. Maybe.



That's cry baby Kate for you. You can never make her useless because she'll always beat you to it.

Philip Roth, stuck on stupid

Speaking with Germany's Der Spiegel, author and magpie Philip Roth shares that he's supporting Barack Obama for presidnet. It isn't, however, enough to leave it there:



SPIEGEL: What made you interested in Obama?
Roth: I'm interested in the fact that he's black. I feel the race issue in this country is more important than the feminist issue. I think that the importance to blacks would be tremendous. He's an attractive man, he's smart, he happens to be tremendously articulate. His position in the Democratic Party is more or less okay with me. And I think it would be important to American blacks if he became president.

[. . .]

SPIEGEL: The discussions around Obama remind us of your figure Coleman Silk, the hero of "The Human Stain," who is black with unusually light skin and then invents a Jewish biography. What we mean is the questions of belonging, of right and wrong behavior. Is Barack Obama black enough?
Roth: I know this discussion goes on, but I think it will disappear if he gets the nomination. The reality of his running will wash that away. Anybody who's half white and half black is considered black anyway. That's one drop of blood.
SPIEGEL: For whites to consider him black, yes. But the question is whether the blacks consider him black.
Roth: They will once the election goes on. If he gets the nomination.



Philip Roth, guaranteeing that the "Ugly American" stereotype will live on in Europe. Oh for the days when he focused on masturbation.

Katrina vanden Heuvel kind of remembers she's a woman

And when she does, it's her moment to speak out, in anger and in sorrow, at those snarky sexist men at MSNBC, and others in our media (think of the right wing ranters like Limbaugh and Savage) who traffic in misognynist and demeaning commentary on women and their children.



Queen Bee Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote the above on Friday ("Does MSNBC Stand for 'Most Sexist Nasty Boys Club'?") and you can rejoice and see it as what can happen when a Queen Bee gets called out or you can grasp that it's nothing but sop tossed out by a woman who regularly features the writing of a man twice busted for attempting to set up sexual encounters with underage females online.



We're waiting, Katrina, for the day you "to speak out, in anger and sorrow," against Pig. We doubt it will ever come. We doubt you'll even stop running his scribbles.



When the reports of the arrests came to light, that was it for Pig and the MSM. Lucky for him a lot of women weren't bothered by his arrests or the fact that he was arrested for being an online predator targeting young women. Katrina's only one of many. But of course, sincerity wasn't the motivator for the Chris Matthews regular, just fear that Hillary might take the nomination after all.

[Illustration of vanden Heuvel from Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts, "From the kitchen of the Peace Resister."]

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.

"The tears of a clown -- named Cathy Pollitt" -- Cathy Pollitt is a drag and a drip (art imitates life!) but she's also an unintentional wealth of informatin (ibid). Don't miss the latest in Betinna's world!

"Chief Pesto in the Kitchen" -- Marcia wanted us to note that Trina never tries to fancy it up or play gourmet, "she's interested in helping and this may be my favorite thing she's ever written."

"the need for a feminist revolution right about now..." & "a revolution right about now" -- Rebecca charts the problem with weak sisters tagging themselves as 'feminists' to justify their weakness. This is a powerful two-parter and Rebecca says she'll pick up next week as well.



""Idiot of the week" and my interview with Marcia" -- Mike interviews Marcia and you don't want to miss it. (Check out this week's "Idiot of the Week" as well.)

"the 'fighting' kucinich" & "Dennis Kucinich puts impeachment off the table" & "About impeachment . . ." -- Did you hear about Dennis Kucinich deciding impeachment can wait? He did. He declared that on Air America Radio and it's hilarious to visit impeachment sites and watch how they bend over backwards to not cover that. Rebecca, Ruth and Kat didn't blink. They noted reality. Guess others were trying to 'protect' the people from the truth. Maybe that's why one 'impeachment' site features a chatty boy who can't shut up about his love for Bambi? He's a joke and a jerk.

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "State of Misunion" -- Isaiah captures 'bipartisanship' perfectly.

"Amy Goodman's Lie & Homophobia report" -- Marcia calls out Goody on her silence over the Bambi campaign's use of homophobia.


"Letter to an Old Sell Out" -- "That may be the most e-mailed on post I've ever written," says Elaine. Read it and see why. We're sick of the sell outs. This is a must read.


"Banned from Democracy Now!" & "THIS JUST IN! KICKED OFF THE DN! SET!" -- When Goodman presents a roundtable of four and three are Bambi supporters and the other doesn't root for Bambi or Hillary, it's another wobbly table built by Goody.

"Iraq snapshot" -- C.I.'s Wednesday snapshot which was requested non-stop in e-mails to this site that Ty read. Read it and grasp why. There are several sections that could qualify as "Truest statement of the week."

"THIS JUST IN! STONERS FOR BAMBI!" & "Bambi wraps up the roll your own vote" -- C.I. picked this and thought it was among Wally and Cedric's best. We agree. Bambi doesn't like the 60s but some sellouts from that period are happy to tongue bathe him.

"Hillary" & "Hillary predicted win for Big Mass!" -- Kat and Mike on Hillary's wins on Tuesday night.

"The Nation and Rachel Maddow caught lying" -- If you're advertising a product, shouldn't your facts be correct? Rachel Maddow and The Nation don't practice truth in advertising as Ruth demonstrates.

"Flanders remembers the LGBTs ... for a moment" -- Closet case Laura Flanders (closeted with straights, open to the gay press) just gets more ridiculous every day. Marcia explains why.

"I Hate The War" -- C.I.'s "I Hate The War" remains the most requested highlight each week.

Note

Features will post late today. We have seven edited and typed up. The two missing include the transcript to the roundtable which was nearly completed and is now lost. We're going to sleep on whether or not it's worth it to us spend significant type retyping the notes. (Audio from it will be included in Hilda's Mix this week regardless.) For the regular readers, Ava and C.I. have completed another epic. Dona thinks if we don't retype the transcript (she's against retyping), Ava and C.I.'s piece is strong enough that if we also bump a feature into an editorial, it'll be a strong edition. Check back after 8:00 pm EST.

Ty just read an e-mail to us. A semi-regular reader asks, "When you're late, do you really have anything finished?"

Uh, yeah. And we'll go ahead and post some things in draft form (typos especially). We'll come back tonight and offer more. Wait, that's me (Jim) talking. Dona says, "Just post Ava and C.I.'s piece. That'll shut him up." So that's what we'll do. Come back after eight tonight and you can find out about Philip Roth, a professional crybaby, 'independent' media and much more.

Truest statement of the week

DOLORES HUERTA: Yeah. There was a big issue, if you will recall, where we had a woman who--in Chicago, Elvira Arellano, who refused to be deported, and she was undocumented. She was in sanctuary for twelve months, for an entire year, right there in Chicago, where Obama lives. The people who did that campaign, these were the same ones that organized the big marches in Chicago, went to see Obama to get some support for Elvira Arellano. He not only refused to help them, but he didn't even bother to go see Elvira. I went from California four times to be there with her. We had a large delegation from Mexico from all the political parties that went to see Elvira. Five ambassadors, they all flew to Washington, D.C. to plead on her behalf. Obama never, never lifted a finger to help her, as he never did when we had two Latinos that had been unjustly incarcerated for a murder that they did not commit. Again, a big campaign to free these two young men from prison. They were ultimately freed. But when they went to see Senator Obama, he refused to help them. I have been a civil rights activist like this all of my life, and I have been to Chicago many times for many different campaigns that the community there--the Latino community was there. I have, to this day, to meet Mr. Obama. I have never encountered him in any of these big campaigns that we have done in Chicago on different issues. And, as I say, I have never yet to meet the man. And so, I don't know about his--

AMY GOODMAN: Did Senator Clinton weigh in--Dolores Huerta, did Senator Clinton weigh in in either of those cases?

DOLORES HUERTA: Well, let me--yeah, let me just say this, that this is a--we're talking about Chicago. We're talking about the third largest Latino area outside of Mexico City, right?


Dolores Huerta attempting to get some reality into the conversation on Friday's Democracy Now! Notice how Amy Goodman cuts her off to ask about Clinton. "We're talking about Chicago." Only Amy Goodman's confused by that remark.

Truest statement of the week II

Those big conglomerates may be laughing all the way to the bank with their loot but clearly many of you are unhappy with what this means for democracy. Several studies have measured your frustration. Two-thirds of you simply do not trust the media's campaign coverage. Eighty-eight percent say we focus too much on trivial issues. And seventy-seven percent of you want us to get more serious about just where the candidates stand on the issue. There is something to be done about this. Congress and the FCC could require the big media companies, on a rotating basis, to provide candidates free air time each week to debate face to face -- no journalist playing middle-man. These companies are fined for obscenities. Why shouldn't they be asked to give back some of the airwaves we've let them use for profit? Public broadcasting too. We've used our prime time too little to enable the candidates to speak freely and hold each other accountable. That would be a far better use of these air waves than another series on the British monarchy.



-- Bill Moyers from the January 25th broadcast of PBS' Bill Moyers Journal. (Ruth transcribed the above in "Bill Moyers on election coverage" -- it doesn't make the program's actual transcription but if you can listen or watch online, you can enjoy it.)

A Note to Our Readers

Hey --
A little bit early and if Flickr hadn't switched over to a new format, we'd have posted everything an hour and a half earlier. (Dona says, "We are three hours earlier than the norm, not 'a little bit early'.") A long edition but hopefully one that produced a few things worth reading.

Here's who participated on this edition as well as Dallas who locates links, acts as a soundboard and much more::

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and 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,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.


Truest statement of the week -- Dolores Huerta stating the obvious to all but Goody.

Truest statement of the week II -- Bill Moyers. Ty and I (Jim) looked for this last Sunday at the website and couldn't find it. Ruth transcribed it last Monday and we're including it this week.

Editorial: Florida, Florida, Florida! -- Florida and Michigan. We actually had another piece either as a stand-alone or merged with this but everyone was tired (is tired) and wants to go to bed. (C.I.'s falling asleep sitting straight up as I type. Dona says I've got three minutes or she's opening a pack of cigarettes -- another pack.) This is important and, if you're a long term reader, you know we've covered this all along. All listed above worked on this.

TV: Nah-nah-nah, Hey-hey-hey, Goodbye -- The title was killing me, coming up with one for Ava and C.I.'s latest. I hope that will work, not sure. But what did work was their review of the State of Union address and the 'Democratic' response. It's funny. Prepare to laugh your asses off. And Mike can talk more about this on Monday, I'm trying to get done before everyone's asleep. Now C.I.'s back up but Jess has nodded out.

Roundtable -- Marcia's blogging now. We wanted to do an interview with her but Dona pointed out we couldn't do an interview with her and a roundtable and a book discussion. The last two take a long time -- and are edited -- this week more so and more based on the fact that we were all tired of typing. So we went with the roundtable. We're addressing a number of topics. We would have liked to have had Florida in there. We would have liked more on the illegal war (Ava addresses it once) but we were trying to stick to a reasonable time frame.

1 Book, 5 Minutes -- Long promised, book discussion on Naomi Wolf's amazing The End of America. That's how tired we all are -- I typed "The End of" and stopped. What's the name of the book? Huh? Was the reply from the sleepy gang. C.I. said, "America! Aren't you done yet?" No. Because there are some who see the book as 'controversial' (we got e-mails when we announced we'd be discussing it), we tried to deal with issues coming up in the e-mails pre-the usual discussion. We did that by assigning those issues a number and having people guess a number. The ones who guessed the number of an assigned issue got it. We really thought we needed to touch on the conclusion near the start. So it's different than our usual format.

Which endorsements matter? -- Which do? Because Amy Goodman's happy to note this politician and that politican -- if they're endorsing Obama -- but she doesn't seem to give a damn about the unions.

Thanks, Amy Goodman???? -- You know what, if that's what you're going to offer, after months of silence, maybe you shouldn't even bother. If you're offering something so brief and can't even get your facts right, maybe you shouldn't even bother.

A contest, Super Duper Tuesday -- The Green Party of Suffolk is holding their yearly contest and Super Duper Tuesday includes Green candidates running for office.

Ralph DiGia (1914-2008) -- Press release sent in to the public account of The Common Ills. We noted it in full because we think it was a life not wasted where every action counted. There should be more like Ralph DiGia in the world.

Highlights -- Kat, Cedric, Elaine, Betty, Wally, Rebecca and Mike wrote this and picked the selections unless otherwise noted.

And that's it, we'll see you next week.


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