Monday, December 12, 2016

Truest statement of the week

I can’t help but notice that the new Washington Post-certified “master list” of “fake news” outlets does not include any of the media organs overseen by David Brock, one of the leading propagandists of the modern era. Why is this? Virtually everything that David Brock does would qualify as “fake news” under any objective criteria. He runs a bunch of websites that may seem to the naked eye to be legitimate “news” sources, but in reality are just Democratic Party / Hillary agitprop conveyor belts. This is well known and accepted, even by Hillary’s inner-circle, many of whom view Brock with suspicion.
Bountiful “fake news” can be found at the propaganda outlet Media Matters, the premier Brock-connected entity (he founded it). To take just one example, Eric Boehlert, the main public face of Media Matters, relentlessly denied over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign that Hillary was under criminal investigation. He denounced this notion as “fictitious,” and launched a relentless “targeted harassment” campaign against the New York Times for reporting otherwise. It turned out that Boehlert was 100% wrong and the NYT was 100% right — Hillary really was under active felony criminal investigation, from July 10, 2015 to July 5, 2016 and then again from October 28, 2016 to November 6, 2016. Those facts are no longer in dispute. Hence, wasn’t Boehlert promoting “fake news”? He was putting false, distorted information out onto the internet, thereby actively misinforming readers. If that doesn’t qualify as “fake news” — what would? Please explain why the term “fake news” would not apply to Boehlert’s conduct.



-- Michael Tracey, "If You Really Want To Get Rid Of 'Fake News,' Start With David Brock" (MEDIUM).




Truest statement of the week II

Blaming Russia for Hillary’s flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary’s server. They did not force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn’t set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win? 


-- Larry Johnson, "Unraveling the Russian Hack Conspiracy Propaganda -- DOUBLE UPDATE" (NO QUARTER).









Truest statement of the week III


How Surrealistic Pillow served in the transformation of an entire generation is well documented. For myself, a 20-year-old girl in rural New Jersey, hearing the voice of Grace Slick on the radio was a revelation. “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit” both contained the emotional trajectory of an aria. Make no mistake; we all owe her a debt. She was like no other and opened a door that will never close again.

-- Patti Smith, "Jefferson Airplane Ushered Us Through the Summer of Love" (MEDIUM).







A note to our readers

Hey --





Sunday.


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.


What did we come up with:


Michael Tracey gets a truest.
As does Larry Johnson.
As does Patti Smith.
How did this not become a story?  Oh, that's right, a bunch of dumb asses who can't let go of last month's election are sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
Ava and C.I. take on HAIRSPRAY LIVE! and the idiots behind it.
Iraq.
The whiny crowd that can't get over Hillary Clinton losing the election.
That crowd includes Rosie O'Donnell who has real problems with how she talks about others.

It also includes Alyssa Milano who seems to think she was educated but clearly was not.
What we listened to while working on this edition.
Repost of Great Britian's SOCIALIST WORKER.

Press release from Senator Tammy Baldwin's office.
Press release from Senator Johnny Isakson's office.
Press release from US House Rep. Jeff Miller's office.

Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.



Peace,






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

Editorial: 3 Americans held in Iraq?

Where's the press been last week?

Obsessing over the failure of Hillary Clinton to win an election?

An election that took place last month?

How about we try to pay attention to reality.

Three Americans are said to be held in Iraq.

And yet the US State Dept. and the White House have refused to talk about it publicly and the 'brave' corporate press has refused to ask about it.




News of the three Americans was ignored by US outlets.


It started with news out of Canada.  For example, THE CANADIAN PRESS reported:



A former Canadian soldier being held in Iraq is in good health and Canadian Embassy officials are working to win his release, federal cabinet minister Judy Foote confirmed Monday.
Foote, the senior minister responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador, spoke to Mike Kennedy’s mother in Newfoundland earlier in the day, said press secretary Jessica Turner.

Kay Kennedy told radio station VOCM her son was arrested in Erbil in northern Iraq while taking part in what she called a humanitarian mission. She said she was speaking with him on Tuesday evening when she realized something was wrong.



Mike Kennedy was released.

But his mother, explaining his release, revealed something else.


From Wendesday's "Iraq snapshot:"


VOCM explained yesterday, "Kay Kennedy has confirmed for VOCM News that her son, Michael, was released today.  Kennedy told VOCM that her son would not leave others he was travelling with when they were arrested for visa infractions, even though his visa had not expired."  Colin Farrell (TELEGRAM) added:


 “He called me and he said, ‘Mom, I’ve been released. I’m good, I’m in good health and I’ll be home for Christmas.’”
She explained that her son had been travelling as part of a group when they were arrested.
“The five guys he was travelling with, three Americans and two Germans, their visas were expired,” she explained. “So it was a visa violation, Michael’s visa was not expired. It didn’t expire till January.”
Kennedy explained her son was given an option to go free or stay with the group.
“He turned around and said, the option for me, I am going to stay with my buddies, I am not abandoning them.”



The KRG is standing by their decision to arrest Michael. Murray Brewster (CBC) reports:

But Kurdish authorities, while not disputing the account, say Kennedy's side-trip into Syria was a serious violation that warranted his detention.
"He is arrested because he came from Syria and crossed [the] Iraq and [Kurdish Regional Government] borders illegally [at] Shingal," Dindar Zebari, the assistant head of foreign relations in the semi-autonomous region, told CBC News on Tuesday.

Zebari said Kennedy had been dealt with under Iraqi law.



And the five others that were arrested as well?  Garrett Barry (CBC) reports, "Though the other fighters have yet to be released, Kay Kennedy says their governments -- Germany and the United States -- have begun to work on the file."



Exactly when does the US press expect to cover this news?

Or will they just look the other way as they have repeatedly throughout Barack Obama's two terms as president?


This is real news.

It's not crazed talk of Russia or whining about Hillary Clinton's loss.

It's reality.

Do you think we might pay attention for just a moment?

We should.

















TV: The end of the TV musical?

A-a-a-a-a-a-h!!!!!!

Was Harvey Fierstein clearing his throat in "Timeless to Me" or trying to hit a note?

abtv

NBC crashed and burned with HAIRSPRAY LIVE! last week.

It was poorly cast and badly directed -- often the cameras seem to have no idea where to go as if people had slept through blocking and rehearsal.

Worse for the network than the artistic bust was the fact that the production failed to deliver viewers becoming the lowest rated live musical since THE SOUND OF MUSIC kicked the genre off in 2009.


The ratings weren't a real surprise to the network suits.



Execs were telling us repeatedly that they wished Rosie O'Donnell would pipe down on Twitter.


They wanted a nice, warm, winter event but there was "that actress" being political.

We questioned their use of the term.

For most movie goers, Rosie had supporting parts in three big films -- the last hit was 1994.

That's over twenty years ago.

She hasn't even acted in a live action film since 1998.

For TV viewers?

She was an actress back when she pretended she was the queen of nice on daytime and in love with Tom Cruise.

Now that she's out of the closet, she insists she was saying she wanted Tom to do mow her lawn.

Not true.

"Tommy Can You Hear Me?

Have we forgotten that?

No, we haven't.

Or her singing "I've got chills up and down my spine" for Tom Cruise.

Rosie was a deeply closeted lesbian who felt she couldn't be honest with America, that they wouldn't like her.

So she pretended she was in love with Tom Cruise.

To those who remember her as an actress, there's that image.

To everyone else?

She may be an angry TV host who was forced out of THE VIEW twice and who failed on Oprah's channel and who also failed on radio.

To NBC?

She shouldn't have been the woman who failed on TV last week.


We haven't forgotten ROSIE LIVE, how could they?


In 2008, NBC didn't just give Rosie a chance to bring back the variety show, they gave her the chance to do so during the holiday season.

Rosie thought a 'special' was a bunch of bad political commentary, a non-existent set, low frills and everything else that screamed public access.

No surprise, it was a flop.

It was such a flop that NBC didn't even let her try any other episodes (the special was supposed to be the pilot for the TV series that would premiere in January 2009 but it was such a flop that no other Rosie -- live or otherwise -- followed).


Yet here it was December 2016 and they were giving her a role on their prestige live production?

That's on them.

They can complain about her political rants all they want, the truth is they never should have hired her.


She has no following, people do not feel warmly towards her during the holidays and her career's been in the toilet for decades.

Putting her in the production -- as the gym teacher -- goes to a casting mistake.

And, in the end, that's all the crapfest was -- one big casting mistake after another.

Jennifer Hudson could carry the weight of a live production.

But the only worthwhile performer in HAIRSPRAY LIVE! was slotted into a bit part.

HAIRSPRAY started as a comedy film from John Waters in 1988.  It starred Ricki Lake as the young teen Tracy with Divine as her mother and Debbie Harry as the villain Velma.



In 2002, it became a Broadway musical.

In 2007, it became a musical film starring Nikki Bonsky as Tracey, John Travolta as her mother Edna and Michelle Pfeiffier as Velma.  This film version amplified the role of Maybelle and Queen Latifah ran with it.  Others in the cast included Amanda Bynes, James Marsden and Zac Ephron.


It was the kind of cast that last week's production should have offered.


Instead of Debbie Harry (famous for leading the group Blondie) or twice Academy Award nominated actress Michelle Pffeifer as Velma, you got Kristin Chenoweth.

Who?

For TV and film audiences, that's a good question.

Though beloved by theater goers, she's never made an impression in other fields and certainly shouldn't have been given such a high profile role.

There are three big roles in this musical: Tracy, Edna and Velma.

Tracy was wrongly cast with a newcomer for the TV production (as it had been in both film versions).  There's no reason Tracy had to be a newcomer.  But casting an unknown in the lead meant you had to deliver star power elsewhere.

And HAIRSPRAY LIVE! did not do that.

Not only was a nobody playing Velma but a yesteryear was playing Edna.

Harvey Firestein played the role of Edna on Broadway.

To which we say, "So what?"

If Carole Channing was too much for film audiences -- and she was -- to play the lead in the film of HELLO DOLLY (Doris Day was first offered the role that eventually went to Barbra Streisand), then how the hell did Harvey end up playing Edna last week?


Outside of the cabaret circuit, he has no following.

He's also way too old to play a teenager's mother -- at 62, he looked like he was Tracy's grandmother.

And he looked awful.

Divine and John Travolta did not pass for beautiful women but they passed for women.  You could see something special about Edna, all these years later, in their physical performance.

Not so Harvey.


He has a face made for radio and theater.


Meaning every close up sends you fleeing.

And he has no fan base to speak of.

So why did NBC let this s**t casting go forward?

Did they think others would pull in audiences?

The role of Corny Collins is a thread bare role but attractive men have held interest in the role.

DANCING WITH THE STARS' Derek Hough is not an attractive man.

He has the same freak mouth that David Johansen had and that mouth is the reason Johansen never made it as a film actor.  All those weird lines around the mouth and under it.


They also served up Garret Clayton as Link.  This was a musical production of HAIRSPRAY -- not one of AMERICAN GIGOLO or JOHNS.


Link's supposed to be good looking, not waiting to be pounced on by rough trade.

Derek and Garret prompt no interest from TV viewers.

At least Ariana Grande was both talented and known -- but she was shoved into the thankless role of Penny.

It's stupid casting like the plan for BYE BYE BIRDIE LIVE! next year where NBC will showcase Jennifer Lopez in the role that was played by . . . Janet Leigh in the film.

It's a nothing role.

The role for the woman in this production is the one that made Ann-Margaret a film star.

You want to star Jennifer Lopez in a musical production, make it APPLAUSE.

We also question the interest in BYE BYE BIRDIE as showcase entertainment since it's right up there with THE MUSIC MAN as an overdone musical that is also tragically dated and uncool.

NBC needs to step in and start overseeing these productions.

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, both in their sixties, are clearly too out of touch to cast these musicals.

They thought the answer this year was to cavort across stages and sets and to give updates on watch parties.

No one gives a damn about that nonsense -- in fact it removes the viewer from the live experience.

The whole thing was a flop.

The elderly boys are too old to be in charge of this franchise and they've demonstrated it repeatedly.

If NBC wants to save their yearly event, they better be prepared to bring in some young blood.










Tweet of the week





  1. Before you sleep in warm bed remember that millions of Iraqis & Syrians refugees are dying from cold
     
  2. Before you sleep in warm bed remember that millions of Iraqis & Syrians refugees are dying from cold




















Grow The F**k Up

The new birther is the Hillary Temple Prostitute,



Dems' post-election lunacy closely resembles GOP birtherism, except in this case the paranoia is far more mainstream



These temple prostitutes shouldn't be allowed out in public.

The election was November 8th.

It is now December 11th.


Thanksgiving has come and passed and Christmas is only two weeks away.

When do the temple prostitutes accept reality?

Apparently never.

First came the whining over the vote count.

"Our slave master got more votes, she won the popular vote!"

Who the hell cares?

The popular vote never decides the presidential election.

Did all of you idiots go to school on the set of WHO'S THE BOSS with Alyssa Milano?


After realizing that whining there would not work they began whining the electoral college was unfair.


We agree it is.

We've long called for it to be abolished.

But Hillary's Temple Prostitutes don't want the electoral college to be abolished.

They'd rather hatch some plan to convince electors to break convention and norms and instead vote for Hillary.

This went on both before and after the Jill Stein recount.

Democrats poured millions into Jill Stein's coffers after the election because the Green Party presidential candidate was going to fight for a recount -- in three states that Hillary lost!!!!


That didn't work out for Hillary's Temple Prostitutes.


Nothing ever does.

You'd think they'd grasp that they're a bunch of losers -- just like their love master.

But instead, they seize on other things.

The election was hacked!!!!!


It was hacked!!!!!

By Russia!!!!

There's no proof of that.

But still they spread it on Twitter and elsewhere.


And professional crazies like Joy Reid and David Corn amplify this baseless gossip.


Michael Tracey (MEDIUM) explains:


Question: what is the factual basis for David Corn’s unbelievably inflammatory assertion that a “Russian covert op” has brought Trump to power? Answer: second-hand characterizations of unverified CIA claims as relayed by the Washington Post. So just to be clear, the Washington Post report in question doesn’t even contain any first-hand evidence. It wasn’t as if the CIA agent who possesses the motherload of Trump-Putin smoking gun evidence let his favorite Washington Post reporter have a look. Rather, the article Corn so breathlessly and uncritically promoted is based on summaries of briefings as relayed by unnamed “senior government officials,” which Marcy Wheeler speculates could simply mean Harry Reid. Reid’s unhinged rants with regard to Trump and Russia are already public knowledge because he’s spewed them publicly, so if he is the Washington Post’s sole source, this would be crucial context. (Other senators reportedly dispute the characterization.)
In other words, we don’t even have direct assertions from the CIA of explicit pro-Trump interference by the Russians. But let’s say we did have those assertions: the CIA puts out a press release tomorrow declaring that Putin launched a “covert op” to elect Trump. Even if that were to happen, if any agency on the face of Earth should not have its claims taken at face value, it’s the CIA. The CIA’s history is wretched and wicked. It should be abolished. The CIA are trained liars. It wasn’t so long ago that Democratic senators were accusing the CIA of lying when agents claimed they had not hacked into Senate staff computers, only to later admit that they had in fact done so.


Larry Johnson (NO QUARTER) clarifies even more:


Third, the CIA has no technical capability to trace or analyze who hacked the DNC and Podesta emails. That falls to the NSA and the FBI. NSA has limited power and authority to carry out any analysis of U.S. domestic activity and would have to rely on the FBI, who has law enforcement investigatory powers. Given these facts, any CIA Assessment would be reporting on the proprietary information from other agencies. I will tell you what will not appear in such an assessment–the results of an FBI investigation.
The FBI is not an intelligence organization. FBI agents cannot simply gather up information at will for possible use later. Their information is primarily to build a case that can subsequently be prosecuted. If they start sharing that information with the CIA or the NSA then it becomes tainted and will be unusable in the event that a prosecution was pursued. Take the Guccifer case (you know, the Romanian who hacked Sid Blumenthal). FBI kept their info away from the intel community.




Logic and facts don't matter to these crazies.

In the lead up to Barack Obama being sworn in as president in January 2009, some crazies convinced themselves that some deus ex machiana event was going to arrive -- a Kenyan birth certificate proving Barack was ineligible to be president! -- at the last minute and change everything.


It never happened.

But at least the media didn't indulge in the crazy.


Today, they flatter and aid the crazy.

And the crazy just gets worse.

If the electors do not abide by the wishes of Hillary's Temple Prostitutes?


They have a new plan to extend the crazy beyond the December 19th Electoral College vote.



URGENT THREAD. Pls Read and RT





It never ends.


It's time for the media to stop feeding into the crazy.

It's time for Hillary to make a statement and then go away for awhile so that her lunatic base does not continue to distract the country and degrade democratic institutions.

The media needs to lay down the law that it's time for Hillary's Temple Prostitutes to Grow The F**k up.










The sexism and homophobia of Rosie O'Donnell

Twitter and reveal a lot.

Take the Twitter feed of Rosie O'Donnell.


call me - in a gay fan boy voice - as i tend to my toddler - and identify urself - as someone who" works with" the one asking 4 a pretzel



What the hell is "a gay fan boy voice"?


Rosie being a lesbian doesn't give her a pass on homophobia.



BEFORE CHRISTMAS BREAK PLEASE



Rosie, we get that you want to be  macho, we get it.


You're a womanizer who repeatedly dumps your wives and uses your money to try to keep them from their children.


As a womanizer, you may even feel that you have "balls."

But reality, women do not have testicles.

Why do you want women in Congress to grow balls?

We get why Rob does, but why do you?

That's awfully sexist of you, Rosie.


Keep it up and people will start remembering all those anti-Asian, racist remarks you used to make.









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