Monday, October 10, 2016

Truest statement of the week


It is sad that Davis continues to devolve politically before our eyes, it is even worse that she attacks those who are still ready to fight back against neo-liberalism and imperialism. If she is willing to vote for Hillary Clinton she should just say so. But she felt compelled to get in her own dig at independent thinkers with the “narcissist” label. She is no better than Democratic party scoundrels who point at Trump’s low hanging racist fruit while simultaneously cutting deals with ruling elites.


-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Ignoring Angela Davis" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).









Truest statement of the week II

Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize –for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous. Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush’s Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his “War on Terror” into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East.
He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.

-- Andrew Levine, "Needed Now: a Peace Movement Against the Clinton Wars to Come" (COUNTERPUNCH).










A note to our readers

 Hey --




Very early for us!!!!




Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:







The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.



And what did we come up with?



Margaret Kimberley gets another truest.
Andrew Levine gets his first.
Yes, Hillary and Donald are both liars.  But on Iraq, the more serious issue is that Hillary chose not to seek out information before voting.
Ava and C.I. review LETHAL WEAPON.
Short feature!!!!
Ava and C.I. weigh in on the debate.
Yes, this says it all.
Another look at the debate.
When does Hillary -- or her campaign -- go high?
I (Jim) present a problem.
Rape apologist Adam Peck.
What we listened to.
Repost of C.I. writing about Iraq.
Ann weighs in on the debate.

Kat takes on a lousy album.
 
Marcia reviews a new book.

Press release from US House Rep. Jeff Miller.
Press release from US Senator Johnny Iskason.
Gloria La Riva offers her take on Sunday's debate.
Press release from Gloria La Riva's campaign.
Jill Stein Tweets.


And that's what we came up with.  A mixture of features -- a range of topics.

Probably one of our stronger editions and we managed to do it by 12:14 a.m. PST so it's only just Monday!!!









Peace,






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










Editorial: Not doing the work required is serious -- Ted Kennedy thought so


., the blood in the Middle East you mention is on your hands. The Saudis are your ATM. . . . .

Somehow, the post debate 'analysis' and fact check and 'coverage' wasn't interested with that fact.

But then, the media that sold the Iraq War doesn't really feel up to calling out a War Hawk like Hillary Clinton.

They're comfortable at THE LOS ANGELES TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST and AP and -- well everyone.

You may think Donald Trump is lying about his opposition to the Iraq War from the start.

You may think he's telling the truth.

We really don't give a f**k.


crankyclinton

What we care about is  Hillary's vote for the war, her support -- for years -- for the war is not an issue.

It's nothing the media wants to explore.

It's not worthy of mention.

She likes to say it was a mistake -- now, she likes to say that.

But you make up for a mistake.

And what she did was criminal and led to over a million dead.

In the Sunday debate, she claimed she'd worked, as Secretary of State, to help women around the world.


But she didn't help Iraqi women and when a friend e-mailed her about Iraqi women and Hillary including them in a speech she was due to give the next day, Hillary fobbed her off and gave a speech -- a lengthy speech, over 4,000 words -- in which she name checked at least 15 foreign countries but never mentioned Iraq.


At some point Donald Trump was a critic of the war.

We believe that was after the war started and we'll allow that it was only weeks after but we still argue it was after.

That said, when he objected to the Iraq War (which was long before Hillary did) isn't really an issue.

Hillary's support for the Iraq War -- which she voted for -- is.

As is her refusal to follow Senator Bob Graham's advice and read the intelligence before voting.  The late Senator Ted Kennedy did not support Hillary in the 2008 Democratic Party primary and among his reasons?

Hillary's vote for the war and her refusal to seek out information before voting.

He saw that as a serious issue, a serious disqualification.

It's amazing that the press can obsess over -- and repeatedly fact check -- Trump on when he was actually against the war but can share Ted Kennedy's offense that Hillary Clinton elected to vote for a war without doing due diligence.








TV: The Man and The Boy Chick

The buddy piece is a staple in American entertainment.  Long before, for example, 48 HOURS there was BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and before that there were Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's road pictures.

abtv

There have also been female buddy pictures.

The most famous female buddy picture was, of course, THELMA & LOUISE and the female buddy picture goes back to the work of Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly in the 1930s and, before that, Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts.

One of the most successful buddy franchises was kicked off with LETHAL WEAPON, teaming up Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and followed by LETHAL WEAPON II, LEATHAL WEAPON III and LETHAL WEAPON IV.

Now FOX is offering up a weekly LETHAL WEAPON series starring Damon Wayans and Clayne Crawford.


How do you screw up LETHAL WEAPON?

FOX finds a way.

The problem isn't Damon Wayans. As he demonstrated on MY WIFE AND KIDS, to name only one example, he's comfortable on TV and down right funny.

Playing the older cop (the Danny Glover role), Damon shines -- whether his Murtaugh is on the job or interacting with his wife Trish (an amazing and delightful Keesha Sharp).

Where the show falters is with the former Joey Crawford.

He's now known as Clayne Crawford, the baby faced, baby chested actor playing Riggs.

Mel Gibson originated the role in the film series when he was 31-years-old.

Joey/Clayne is 38-years-old.

But while Mel played a man and came off like a man, Clayne comes off like he's auditioning to play the lead in a rebooted DAWSON'S CREEK.

How do you do a buddy show when you're forever worried Damon Wayans is going to have to stop in the middle of a car chase, pull over to the side and change Clayne's diaper?

Shows like this depend solely on chemistry and believable leads.

The scripts aren't very challenging.

The viewer tunes in solely for the interaction between the leads.

So what were people thinking when they cast the underwhelming Crawford opposite heavy weight Damon Wayans?

If they'd went with a lesser actor than Damon, Crawford would still be weak but not as weak.

Clayne opposite Damon is like Jessica Simpson acting opposite Meryl Streep.

Jake McLaughlin stars on ABC's QUANTICO and is four years younger than Crawford but you never doubt that Jake's characters are  grown ass men.  That was true when Jake starred in NBC's BELIEVE in 2014 as well.

With Crawford, you never believe he's an adult, or a widower or a former Navy SEAL.

Mainly, you don't believe you've wasted an hour watching this crap.






















Last week at the White House . . .

ibo



US President Barack Obama spent two and a half hours arguing that he did have a plan for Iraq before he realized the man he was hectoring was a Leggo statue.






Thoughts on the second presidential debate (Ava and C.I.)

It was an issues free debate but that was always going to be the case when you block out presidential candidates like Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party).



One of the saddest recurring features was Mama's Boy Anderson Cooper rushing in to insist 'let her speak' and 'she didn't interrupt you' over and over.

116

If Hillary Clinton (Democratic Party) can't handle a debate with Donald Trump (Republican Party), how's she ever going to stand up to Putin?

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is the man Hillary's forever threatening and blaming.

If she is elected, does Andy Cooper plan to leave CNN (we'd recommend it) and travel along with President Hillary to ensure that no men try to talk over her?


114


Anderson Cooper and ABC NEWS' Martha Raddatz moderated the debate.

Early on, they attempted to participate until Donald got off a one liner about how he had to debate not just Hillary but the two moderators as well.

The moment that some may remember best is when they were asked, at the end, if they could say something nice about one another.

Trump, who had promised earlier that he'd appoint a special investigator to investigate Clinton if elected, did not go with the obvious of Hillary would look good in orange [prison garb].

111

Instead, he said that she was a fighter who never gave up -- even though he didn't agree with what she fought for, he thought she was worthy of praising for her ability to keep fighting.

Hillary offered that Donald had lovely children.

This moment apparently allowed the two candidates to shake hands as the debate ended -- something they'd avoided doing at the start.


They'd refused to shake hands and they'd opened attacking one another.

We weren't bothered by that.

It's who both of them are and they're not about to change at this late date.

Hillary insisted that Donald "never apologizes for anything."

Which was a missed opportunity by Donald -- and by Hillary.

He should have asked her to apologize to the woman present who was raped at the age of 12.

Hillary intimidated the girl and her mother with attacks on the young girl's character back in 1975.  She supposedly feels bad for defending the rapist.

Kathy Shelton was present at the debate.

If Hillary believes so much in apologizing -- let alone in championing women and girls -- she should have offered an apology for the hurt her defense of the rapist caused Kathy Shelton.

Some media types are grousing that Trump invited Shelton as well as Paula Jones and other women.

Donald didn't invent these women.

113

During the debate, when asked about the recent tape where he and NBC personality Billy Bush discuss women ("kissing without consent!" Anderson shrieked repeatedly -- about Trump bragging that when you're a celebrity, women let you kiss them), Trump declared:




If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse, mine are words, his was action. This is what he has done to women. There's never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that's been so abusive to women.  So you can say anyway you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them are here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years-old --  was raped at 12.   Her client she represented got him off and she's seen laughing at the girl who was raped. She is here with us tonight, so, don't tell me about words. And, absolutely, I apologize for those words. But it is things that people say, but what President Clinton did, he was impeached, lost his license to practice law. He had to pay an $850,000 fine. To one of the women. Paula Jones, who's also here tonight.



Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment.

He paid her.

He's guilty in the eyes of the world.

Gennifer Flowers said for years that they'd had an affair and, under oath much later, he admitted they'd had sex.

If you're uncomfortable with those women, maybe you need to grow the hell up?

They are part of public history now.


The Iraq War is part of history now as well -- the ongoing Iraq War, the never ending Iraq War.

But Martha and Anderson had little interest in it and Donald appeared to be the only person there wanting to bring up Iraq.

Syria was a different topic, Martha wanted to know about it.


Hillary insisted there would be no US troops -- "ground troops" -- in Syria.

Then she went on to insist that Special Ops was fine.


At one point, Donald rightly noted that they kept interrupting him when he was answering -- the moderators kept interrupting him -- but they didn't interrupt Hillary.

He was correct.

This was most obvious when the question was about Syria and Clinton declared, "So I -- when I was Secretary of State -- advocated -- and I advocate today -- a no-fly zone and safe zones."


Martha said nothing.

Of course, during the Democratic Party's debate of presidential candidates last December, when Hillary invoked a no-fly zone, Martha had plenty to say.




RADDATZ: Secretary Clinton, I'd like to go back to that if I could. ISIS doesn't have aircraft, Al Qaida doesn't have aircraft. So would you shoot down a Syrian military aircraft or a Russian airplane?

CLINTON: I do not think it would come to that. We are already de-conflicting air space. We know...

RADDATZ: But isn't that a decision you should make now, whether...

CLINTON: No, I don't think so. I am advocating...

RADDATZ: ... if you're advocating this?



This go round, Martha didn't even raise that issue.

In fairness to Martha, she didn't ask Hillary to stop interrupting in that debate either.

She didn't care about interrupting in either debate.

It was only School Marm Anderson Cooper that kept whining about interruptions -- though he was happy to interrupt Donald himself and never objected when Martha did.

Hillary Clinton seems  to think she can invoke her resume -- it's a slight resume and one with little accomplishment -- in every answer whether it applies or not.

And apparently she can because the moderators never challenged her on it.

And that would be fine, this lack of challenge, if they'd done the same thing with Donald Trump.

But they didn't.

With Donald, they asked a question and repeatedly interrupted him.


And at some point, we may progress enough as a society to seriously explore what Anderson Cooper was doing.

If that had been Henry Clinton and Donald Trump debating and Anderson had repeatedly told Donald to stop interrupting Henry, most Americans would've felt (a) Henry's too weak to stand up for himself and (b) Anderson's repeat interruptions were blowing any chance that Anderson could be seen as impartial.

So when our society truly progresses and we look back at this debate in ten or twenty years, we will realize how sexist and offensive Anderson's interruptions were?

Did he think he was exhibiting chivalry by repeatedly taking on Trump on behalf of Clinton?

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We just thought he came off sexist as he rushed to help the political candidate he saw as 'the little lady.'






Tweet of the week



























Critiquing the fashion of the debate (Rebecca, Betty, Dona, Ty, Jess and Wally)

comedianhil

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Stand Up Hillary" argues Hillary Clinton dressed like a stand up comedian from the nineties and, while we see his point, we also thought her ridiculous outfit made her look like a penguin.

Our biggest shock was seeing Donald Trump.

If his reinvented campaign did nothing else other than get the Cheetos dust off his face . . .

Well they did.

Someone convinced him to lay off the make up and the tanning beds.

He looked almost human.

His hair also looked almost natural.

Hillary's ears are very unnatural.

Why, on that overly large head, do her ears hang so low?

We don't know.

We also noted that she seemed to have trouble standing and frequently sat down on the stool provided.

She was smart to title her head up repeatedly throughout the debate.

Not only did the tilting make the heavy bags under her eyes look less severe, the tilting also eliminated some of her neck wrinkles.

But it was the outfit she wore that we kept coming back to.

We wondered what could Donald Trump wear that would be as outrageous?

Maybe a dress?

Instead, he went with safe: dark suit, white shirt, red tie.










When they go low, Hillary goes high?

She claimed she follows Michelle Obama's advice, that when your opponents take the low road, you take the high road.

Hillary Clinton claimed that in Sunday's debate.


If indeed that is her motto, she forgot to share it with her staff.



hey, – regarding your claim that Captain Khan would be alive if you were president: go fuck yourself.






Little Jesse may need a bar of soap to clean his mouth but he doesn't appear mature enough to be part of a presidential campaign.


Let's see if Hillary has the strength to fire him or if she just excuses away his behavior.

She certainly doesn't feel Donald Trump's behavior is appropriate and considers him a loose cannon.  Whatever would she call Little Jesse?






Jim's World

aa5



When we started back in 2005, we wanted to be sure to highlight issues and candidates that didn't get a shot to be heard elsewhere.

And highlighting a candidate didn't require that we endorse them.

We've tried to continue that tradition this year.

Jerry White is a presidential candidate that's difficult to highlight.

His campaign pieces appear at the copyrighted website WSWS.

His Twitter feed is basically non-existant.

And he has no campaign website.

Gloria La Riva at least has a campaign website, as well as Twitter.


We try to highlight La Riva.

We also try to highlight Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party).

If we're going to exist, the point is not to be part of the echo chamber.

But we've got a problem now.

I don't want to highlight Gary Johnson anymore.

He's running a better campaign than last time.

And he did follow Ava and C.I.'s post election 2012 advice and learned to smile for the cameras.

I don't have a big problem with anything he's said.

And I'm happy that Scott Adams endorsed Johnson.

Melissa Joan Hart also deserves applause for endorsing Johnson and breaking with the corporate duopoly.

My problem is not with Gary Johnson.

It's with his running mate Bill Weld.

Weld has declared that he intends to use the remaining time ahead of the election doing his part to ensure that Hillary Clinton is elected.

Hillary Clinton is running on the Democratic Party ticket.

So he's trying to elect an opponent.

Which means he's not running a real campaign.

Now he's not Gary Johnson.

But he is Johnson's running mate.

We were very clear that if Jill Stein ran the campaign this year that she did in 2012, we wouldn't highlight her.

Our time matters to us.

If you're fighting to be heard, we'll highlight you.

But with Weld throwing in the towel?

I don't see the point.

I'm tossing it out to you the reader because I realize Gary Johnson is running.  He's for real.

He's been stabbed in the back by his running mate.

So maybe my decision isn't fair?

If you agree or disagree, please e-mail at either thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com or common_ills@yahoo.com to let me hear your opinion.  If enough disagree with me, we'll go back to noting Johnson.  Otherwise, we're moving on.





Whore of the week: Adam Peck

Fat boy Adam Peck is a rape apologist who defends Hillary Clinton at THINK PROGRESS for her attacks against a then-11-year-old girl who was raped.


He's a rape apologist for the rapist and for the rapist's attorney (Hillary Clinton).


Fat boy Adam types, "Opponents have characterized the case as an instance of Clinton helping a convicted rapist avoid prosecution, but that too is false. Taylor pled guilty in the case after Clinton successfully struck a deal with the prosecution to lessen the charges."

The mother of the victim wanted a deal because Hillary's attacks on the girl -- insisting the girl fantasized about older men -- was bad enough.


Hillary is a defender of rapists and attacks on rape victims.


As Ava and C.I. point out, she had an opportunity during the debate to apologize to the now-adult rape survivor but instead elected not to.

That's another detail rape apologist Adam Peck ignores.








This edition's playlist


nickjonas





1) Nick Jonas' LAST YEAR WAS COMPLICATED.


2) Ben Harper's CALL IT WHAT IT IS.






The establishment wants the Iraq War to continue (C.I.)

We're reposting this piece by C.I.


The establishment wants the Iraq War to continue

Former Secretary of State Condi Rice is getting some attention.

She's made her feelings known regarding Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

And surprisingly, her pronouncement is prompting people to recall one of her most infamous pronouncements.


"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." - Condi Rice telling us why we have to invade Iraq. Own it, Ms. Townsend.










"I'm Condoleezza Rice. As National Security Adviser I made 56 false statements in an orchestrated effort to get America into war with Iraq."










My own personal favorite Condi Rice statement would be the "No one could have guessed" testimony at the 9-11 hearings and how she was then forced to provide the name of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US."





No One Could Have Guessed Condi.

She's one to go to for advice, right.



  1. I find that no apology can excuse your brother from sending thousands of Americans to die in Iraq. Oh but wait, he didn't apologize.







And i can never excuse your family sending our finest to iraq to die in a fake war! 5 Trillion spent, thousands dead, ME destablized!










Jeb Bush.

No excuse for Trump's locker room talk.

No apology will make up for those words -- but the words that led to the Iraq War -- the words that were lies -- from his own family requires no apology.


The Bushes, Condi, these are people to listen to?




Woulda been better for the change to have happened before NYT and others started printing WMD lies in the lead up to the Iraq War











Nothing has really changed.  Sirota might develop that point later on -- a Tweet doesn't allow for much more than an immediate response -- but this isn't a "change" for NYT at all.


And maybe this Tweet provides more context than David Sirota's Tweet.


The hatred of Trump is from all the criminals who have given us: Iraq, Nafta, TPP, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan & Russiaphobia.









The establishment does not want Donald Trump.

The establishment that wanted war, the corporate media and all the war mongers who rally around Hillary today, and NYT -- as part of the establishment -- provided lies for war.

In 2007 and 2008, the corporate media did not want US House Rep Dennis Kucinich to be president.

So they trashed him for believing in UFOs.

I loathe Dennis, but we defended him.

UFOs exist.

That's not in dispute if you're intelligent.

If you're intelligent, you grasp that Unidentified Flying Objects have been sighted.

That doesn't mean they're alien spacecraft.

That doesn't mean they aren't weather balloons.

It just means, whatever they are, they are unidentified.

Yes, Dennis' beliefs go beyond that.

But in his remarks, in that debate, they did not.

It was a point to embarrass him on, a point to ridicule him on.

But noted alien believer John Podesta can advise Hillary and she can flirt with the alien abduction crowd publicly by promising to open up this or that file and no one's ridiculing her.

The establishment -- a pro-war coven -- does not want Donald Trump.

So they do not feel that rules of fairness apply.

It's not a change.

They've done this to destroy so many people in the past.

H. Ross Perot has always maintained they weren't fair to him and he's probably got some validity with that view.

Tom Cruise's ridiculous moment on Oprah all those years ago did not help him.  But there was an orchestrated effort to bring him to heel by the establishment.

(We never made a joke about Tom during that period.  He survived it.  I am friends with Paula Wagner, as I noted when this was going on, but I don't like Tom.  My liking or disliking him did not stop me from noting here and at Third that what was being done was a corporate attack.  Very similar to the one that 20th Century Fox used on Marilyn Monroe when their ineptitude and stupidity nearly destroyed the studio and they needed a scapegoat.)

The media's never been fair to the ones they thought they could destroy but it's rare that one of the ones they felt they could destroy was the leader of one of the two major political parties.

Donald's treated unfairly because the Rices and Bushes and the rest have made clear that they disown him -- just as he's made a point to condemn their Iraq War.

Hillary hasn't.

She's pro-war and pro-Iraq War.

And they love her.


Just like they love the Iraq War and want to keep it going.

James Traub's piece for FOREIGN POLICY makes that clear -- read to the end.

It's a cute bi-partisan call to more war.

So cute, many may miss it.

I think the cutest thing, though, is pinning Nouri's second term on Iran.


The cutest and the most dishonest.

But then the people who brought -- and continue to bring -- you the Iraq War have never been known for their honesty.

So they trash Donald Trump and they ridicule Jill Stein and Gary Johnson as they try to pimp the notion that you only have one choice and must vote for Hillary Clinton.





“I think (Hillary's) dishonest, and I don’t think she has the interests of working people at heart. Vote for Jill Stein.” -Viggo Mortensen
















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