Sunday, July 24, 2016

Roundtable

Jim: It's roundtable time again, last week's proved too popular.   Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.  Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess,   and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;  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;  and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.




Roundtable


Jim (Con't):  Ava and C.I. are again not participating.  That's because they want to be done with this edition and are busy writing three pieces for this edition with the hope that we will be done and posted by Sunday night.

Ty: Eleven p.m. something Pacific Time.

Jim: Yes.

Ty: And there are a lot of e-mails objecting to Ava and C.I. not participating in last week's "Roundtable," just FYI.

Dona: First question is what's being read.  Anyone reading a book right now?

Jess: Ava and C.I. are reading Hannah Arendt's THE LIFE OF THE MIND.  I know because Ava's got her copy in our bedroom.

Kat: And they're actually re-reading it.  We were at bookstore last week and they bought a copy of that each.  They're turning to pages at random and discussing them.  Their argument there is they'd rather talk about something of value in their private conversations -- Arendt's philosophies -- than the Republican or Democratic party conventions.

Wally: I'm re-reading Joan Rivers' I HATE EVERYONE . . . STARTING WITH ME.

Stan: I am on record loving that book.

Wally: It's hilarious.

Jim; Betty, you read a lot of books and note them at your site.  Anything coming up?

Betty: I'm finishing up a Shirley MacLaine book and, yes, I will be covering it at my site this week.

Jess: And Ruth, you just noted a book at your site in your post "Book to read this summer CIA & JFK: THE SECRET ASSASSINATION FILES."


Ruth: I love that book.  My friend Treva recommended it.  If you have any interest at all in the topic, you have to read this book by Jefferson Morely.  It is so important, you really have to read it.


Jim: Anybody else?


Marcia: I'm reading Bernhard Hennen's THE ELVEN -- it's sci-fi, fantasy. It has multiple themes including the struggle with spite.  It's a really challenging and strong piece of work.  If you like the genre, please pick it up.


Ann: I'm reading a novel by Camilla Gibb's entitled SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY.  I'm only on page 101 but I'm enjoying it.

Cedric: And I just finished a book that I'll advise everyone away from, Philip Norman's PAUL MCCARTNEY: THE LIFE.  It is a huge book but it sweeps through way too quickly and never explores anything.  It's more gossip than musical critique but it doesn't even do gossip well.  Again, stay away from it unless you get it at the library, that way all you'll waste is your time.  But I bought it on sale for $22.38 so I'm the idiot.


Jim: Alright.  So there are some choices, some new, some older and look for Betty's post at her site later this week on the Shirley MacLaine book.  So what about the politics of last week?  Anybody catch the GOP convention?

Stan: Didn't even realize it was taking place until Tuesday.  Wouldn't have watched it if I'd known.

Jim: And this week's Democratic Party convention?

Stan: No interest.

Jim: Anyone planning on watching?

Elaine: Nope.

Trina: I'm yawning at the thought of it.

Jim: Okay. What about the downfall of Debbie Wasserman Schultz?  WikiLeaks leaked e-mails showing that the DNC, headed by Debbie, was showing favoritism to Hillary Clinton.  They are supposed to be impartial.  Today, Debbie resigned.  Any thoughts?

Mike: Bernie Sanders is glad she's gone.  You know what, Bernie Sanders?  Not good enough.  You should retract your endorsement of Hillary, you never should have made it.  But now that you know for sure the system was rigged, you should retract your endorsement.

Marcia: I agree.

Trina: But he won't.  He's useless.  He stands for nothing.  He's a blow hard who talks a lot but he won't take a stand.  If he meant anything he said, he'd never had endorsed Hillary to begin with.

Rebecca: I can't believe how little has been made of this.  They're talking about things like getting a friend in the press to ask Bernie Sanders if he believes in God because they think it will destroy support for him.  I mean, this is disgusting stuff.  It's Tricky Dick Nixon stuff.  And it's being treated like, "Oh, okay, we'll move on."  No.  It's not move on from.  This is disgusting and Hillary has not called it out.

Ty: I agree with Rebecca, it's disgusting.  WikiLeaks did a rally strong thing when they released those e-mails.  I would never have thought that would happen.  That my party could have higher ups in it that were so disgusting.  And I didn't think I could be shocked or put off anymore.  Then came these e-mails.


Wally: And there's the issue of the journalistic exposures.  To cite just one, Kenneth Vogel.  Marcia wrote about it in "Fire Kenneth Vogel."

Dona: Marcia?

Marcia: He wrote a story about fundraising and he let the DNC see it before he turned it into his editors at POLITICO.  That's a no-no.

Cedric: And instead of addressing it, HUFFINGTON POST dismisses it.

Stan: Let's be a little clearer, Michael Calderone -- Vogel's former writing partner -- dismisses it at HUFFINGTON POST.  He writes:

Vogel, Politico’s chief investigative reporter and author of the 2014 book Big Money, is regarded as one of the top journalists on the politics and money beat. He’s reported critically on fundraising across party lines and the article in question wasn’t one the DNC or the Hillary Clinton campaign would have liked to see in print. 


Elaine: He's a liar.  He's distracting and he knows it.  The point wasn't too allow the DNC to change Vogel's article.  Vogel was giving the DNC a heads up so that they could plan and prepare their defense before the story broke.  And, yes, this is a big deal.

Betty: As was CNN's Maria Cardonna sending a draft of her CNN column to  the DNC before publishing it.  Checking with them to make sure they approved.  It's wrong.


Trina: As was the selling of favors to big donors.  Donate this much, get to sit next to Barack, etc, etc.  It was big money politics and no one in the press really seems interested in calling that out.


Kat: Or how about referring to Latinos as "target consumers"?  The whole thing was slimy and corrupt.

Cedric: And Hillary has to make a statement condemning it or she has to accept that it's reflective of who she is.

Ruth: She really does need to make a statement.  I mean, most of us saw Donna Brazile --

Dona: Interim Chair of the DNC.

Ruth: Right.  Most of us saw her on CNN and she was saying this has to be investigated --

Betty: Agree!

Ruth: -- because there are more e-mails that will be released.

Rebecca: But remember, Donna Brazile's e-mails are being leaked as well.  And I don't know that she's someone who can be trusted.

Jess: I don't know that any of them can be trusted.  They are all so corrupt.

Jim: And on that note, we're going to wrap up.
















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