what's the deal with al?

i'm going to move quickly because i've got a date tonight with a man who looks like

i'm getting a number of e-mails about al franken. having spoken the truth about big brain and lizz, people are asking me to weigh in on al franken.

he's probably a nice man and, if i can be really honest, there are times when i think he's a little sexy. but he's also been useless.

here's why.

he's gotten raves for his smack down with bill o'reilly on c-span. but let's be really honest here, he looked like a titty baby. he was on the verge of tears. not in a 'i'm so passionate' manner, but in a weak and ineffectual manner.

this week al's cozying up to the right at some idiotic conference. he thinks bantering with them passes as serious political discussion. he is mistaken.

but he's very cozy with that group. and you need to ask yourself about that.

you need to ask yourself why bob somerby, a brilliant mind that the common ills introduced me to, was on al's show and treated like a stranger who showed up at the door after midnight asking to use the phone. bob somerby knows what he's talking about. he's well spoken. but al wasn't interested in that.

jeremy glick was on. al kept chattering away about how bill o'reilly wouldn't let him speak on the o'reilly factor. (i'll take al's word for it because unlike him, i have better things to do than to listen to rush limbaugh or watching bill o'reilly.) from what i've read, o'reilly had his meltdown almost immediatly with glick but hit the 'shut up shut up shut up' roof when glick attempted to note, rightly, that actions have reactions, that our policies in the 80s could come back to bite us in the ass. and when glick attempted to discuss this on al franken's show, al did not tell him to shut up, he just cut him off and changed the topic.

or take the week long love-fest over reagan. during this non-reality based moment, greg palast (too sexy for his own good - yes, i'd do palast!) attempted to interject reality by discussing the attacks on central america (death squads, etc.) and al nearly had a heart attack.

it wasn't about 'taste' because al can go into the gutter with sexual jokes faster than any 1. it was something else.

fear to speak truth to power?

al feels the need to play a little theme every time david brock comes on. a common ills community member complained about that jingle and i agree. it's insulting and disgusting.

but can you explain to me why there's no 'now he's back in the human race' when al brings on paul peterson?

al treats paul peterson like a patron saint. peterson served under nixon. that's not the issue. john dean did so as well. john dean's gone on to be a productive member of society.

but considering that the issue de jour is social security, shouldn't peterson have to answer for what he did because make no mistake that he attacked social security more than any 1.

when clinton got into office, there was paul peterson decrying the deficit and the need to reduce it. and it was in the new york review of books that peterson attacked social security repeatedly. now al's an 'entertainer' so he may or may not be aware of history. social security, peterson's basic argument, was this huge pac man gobbling up every thing in sight.

has peterson had a transformation? if so, we'd need to address his attacks on social security which have gone on for decades?

i'll allow that al has a mushy brain. this is the man who just doesn't get it.

he's still looking at the world with his elite college eyes of youth and isn't able to discuss anything that really effects our world today. he can make gay jokes that are, quite frankly, offensive. and then reassure you that he likes gays and lesbians. he can do the 'funny' let's make fun of how foreigners speak differently bit. he can do that and so much more because in his formative years, that passed for liberal.

before the black power movement, stonewall, the second wave of feminism, you could stroke your sense of entitlement (provided you were white, male, straight and of a certain economic strata) until you juked your walls and still be a liberal.

that's what people like todd gitlin object to when they bemoan special interests. that women won't shut up and go fetch coffee or type up papers the way it was in the original days of the sds. that women, minorities and others weren't going to sit at the back of the bus waiting for big white male master to pass on a request.

'special interests' are bemoaned by the likes of todd gitlin who seem to think that their view is universal and every 1 else is just squabbling over minor details. had gitlin been born black or a woman, i doubt he'd be so dismissive of the needs of others.

he wants to claim that there are big issues we need to focus on and he wants, as a white male, to define them. we've fractured, according to gitlin. we're losing our focus, accoring to gitlin.

that's true only if your focus was on what mister whitey wants.

todd gitlin wants to control the dialogue and be allowed to establish what is important. i don't think al is thinking it through. i think he means well. but i don't think he possess the intellect to think it through and won't while everyone joins him for a circle jerk.

and that's what his show provides. that and a ton of right wing voices.

a good point was made by a female comedian on the majority report this week. the right doesn't spend their air time obsessing over the left. she compared it to the way some women are always trying to figure out what some man thinks. (i don't do that. if a man can't communicate with me, i settle for sex until that loses its appeal or else i move on.)

all this time spent on right wing guests and center guests (howard fineman is not a guest worth having) prevents al from being exposed to the voices that could challenge him.

now look, i never expect that al will open a segment with 'joining us today is the 1 and only angela y. davis. angela, we're thrilled to have you with us.' but why does he insist on having on people like fineman, for instance? (i'd love it if he'd book angela davis for his show.)

amy goodman is a journalist. a damn good 1. why not highlight her? why not book her on a regular basis? why not bring on naomi klein more often?

i am some 1 who doesn't claim to be the most informed. the common ills did a post about how important it was for us to share voices that speak to us because we never again want to feel we're in the wilderness the way we were after 9-11 when the mainstream media took a hard right like never before. i treasure that post and have to confess that i felt very alone after 9-11.
i had my friends and we would say 'bush is out of control and destroying everything this country stands for.' but i didn't know about voices that were reality based.

thanks to the common ills, i've learned of important voices that speak to me. i know naomi klein is out there, for instance. i know i can count on inspiration from katrina vanden heuvel. i've learned of howard zinn who, sad to say, was some 1 i knew nothing about. matthew rothschild, the editor of the progressive, was a name i had no idea of. i have been turned on to him by the common ills and have gone back and read his 'mccarthyism watch' and his 'this just in' and he is some 1 i could have related to long ago - if i'd have known he was out there.

i've talked about this in e-mails with c.i. of the common ills because i think this is really important. i want to address it here. i could count on gloria steinem. she's a true hero. and i knew of her because i self-identify as a feminist. i knew a little of robin morgan who's equally courageous. and a now leader, i knew about them.

but the mainstream media had excluded voices from the left for some time now. i could see that meet the press didn't offer gloria steinem as a guest and be outraged by that (i still am). but with their pushing of the weekly standard staff, for instance, and other media following that lead, it truly did seem like there was steinem and the brave women at ms.

but i didn't know about the progressive. i didn't know about in these times. i didn' t really know about the nation. as some 1 who had read the new republic (a hideous magazine), i wasn't very curious to pick up the nation. and there was nothing in the mainstream media that would prompt me to do so.

the common ills provided me with a reality i didn't know existed. i am now some 1 who makes a point to watch democracy now. i never even heard of it before the common ills.

i was, maybe like some of you, someone who would turn on nightline and groan at ted koppel's nonsense. but i'd think well he's not pat robertson.

and he's not. but he and nightline do not provide a dialogue. they provide a forum for the right wing and the center to have a dialogue. and the left was left out.

there are rumors now that nightline may be scrapped. or that koppel may be replaced. a year ago, that would have bothered me to no end. these days i realize it truly doesn't matter.

nightline does nothing of real value. unless your goal is to watch as the center and the right find common ground (by going to the center-right).

i had no illusions in the 90s that i was getting to hear the left in the mainstream media. but i was under the wrong impression that my concerns were minority concerns shared by only feminists like myself. i was wrongly under the impression that the most i could hope for was maybe the new york times would do a story, one, on a given week that actually said some thing that spoke to me.

my friend elaine told me about the common ills and kept saying 'you're online all the time, you can make time to visit the common ills.' i resisted because what was the point? more center people chatting up a storm? thank you, but if i wanted that, npr exists already.

but she was on my ass about this. and on thanksgiving she would not shut up to any 1 at the table about how npr had put on the husband of a woman who works for cheney to critique john kerry's campaign and hadn't told their listeners that very important fact.

i, and every 1 else at the table, heard that story over and over. the only thing i can compare it to is when elaine read naomi wolfe's fire with fire and we all had to hear about that over and over.

but i finally got around to reading fire with fire and found it to be a brilliant book.

and npr is treated with kid gloves by too many people i know. we feel like since it does address some real news in between whoring itself out to corporations and the stock market, we can't come down too hard on it.

so i thought i'd do a quick look-see at the common ills. i read that post (when npr fails you, who you gonna call? not the ombudsman) and was blown away. there was a sensibility i could relate to. and i found myself going back to the web site and before i knew it, i was visiting it non stop.
i was seeing some 1 take on the new york times and share my disgust over their appeasement, their disinterest in real news, their fudged facts and all the other problems with the paper of record.

and in the 1st month, i mainly read the pull quote of any article highlighted on the site. (i read the times each morning. not all the way through. i read the front page until i'm pissed off. then i flip through the rest of the paper. and let me be clear that i mean pissed off by pedistrian reporting. i expect that the paper will cover 'bad news,' i expect that the news can be a downer.
but when articles have no basis in reality and exist, as the common ills called, part of some operation happy talk, i'm done with the main section of the paper.)

but i went from noting the headline topics and summaries of democracy now! to actually watching it on my tv. and i started visiting the daily howler and the progressive. and i learned so much.

i learned that i wasn't isolated in my beliefs, it was just that the mainstream media tried to isolate me, tried to isolate us all. i can, and do, listen to the majority report now. janeane garofalo is some 1 i always enjoyed but i wasn't keen to listen to her program because i was so disgusted with what passes for news. but i ended up giving her show a try and it's great. (i don't listen when she's not on.) i learned about laura flanders and i make it a point to listen to her show as well.

at some point in december i was writing these long e-mails to c.i. of the common ills. and c.i. would ask 'can i quote you?' (back then, the e-mail wasn't over 3,000 a week and c.i. could reply to every e-mail.) i would always say no because a) i'm still learning and b) i didn't think i was going to be the next hannah arendt so what was the point?

c.i. kept e-mailing me that it wasn't about every i being dotted or every comma in place, it was about speaking your truth and that we needed more voices not less. c.i. also suggested in 1 e-mail that i should consider blogging to which i laughed my ass off.

then when my best friend elaine was trashed on unfiltered by lizz no-brain winstead, i wrote c.i. and said, 'i am ready to blog, talk me through this.' c.i. spent forever in i.m. with me and i kept saying 'i can't do this, never mind' because it was so beyond my computer skills.

but c.i. kept me focused and now, though i'm still learning, i can do enough to make sure 1 more voice is out there. the al franken show could do what c.i. does.

but instead it treats voices from the left as sidebars and doesn't really allow you to know what resources are out there.

i also mention the common ills because i disagree strongly with c.i. over unfiltered. and a few people have wondered if i was taking swipes at c.i. between that and my comments in the 3rd estate sunday review about how c.i. can face each day with hope.

those aren't swipes at c.i. if you're coming here for that you will be disappointed. i really do think it's great that c.i. can always start off filled with hope each day. that's what makes the common ills so important. if c.i. was as cynical as me, i don't think the common ills would have become huge community it has.

i'm more jaded. and honestly take a fuck-it-all attitude.

and when 3 e-mails came in saying 'you really socked it to c.i.' i immediately e-mailed c.i. and said 'i am sorry if people are seeing it that way and can we talk about this?' and c.i. e-mailed back that we do not have to agree about everything. (similar comments were later posted in reply to people e-mailing c.i. with comments about our 'smack down.')

it really is about more voices being available and that what i say may reach some people that don't go to the common ills. and when the 3rd estate went to work on a story critizing the new york times coverage of the plame gate issue this wednesday, c.i. brought me in on the article as well to add my own feelings as well.

you know that i love the kids at the 3rd estate. they are groovy beyond words. but i was so touched by c.i. bringing me in on that because if there were any hard feelings, that wouldn't have happened.

i'll disagree with c.i. here over unfiltered or any thing else that we might disagree on. but if you're coming here expecting a flare up or an old fashioned cat fight, you'll be disappointed.
i wouldn't be blogging if it weren't for c.i. and the common ills.

there is no hatred, anger or malice towards c.i. and i know most of you get that. but there are 3 people who keep e-mailing wanting a smack down. and if you are 1 of those people, you need to go elsewhere.

and i need to go elsewhere because my date is here! if it turns into an overnight date (fingers crossed, legs uncrossed) there may or may not be an entry tomorrow. but i will focus on sex.
i'm in love with sex again. the lynne stewart thing has me so upset still but i'm going to try to be more positive because i know the only way to help her and ourselves is to utilize my anger and shock. so i will be talking about sex in the next post. and i will also highlight some of the smart, brave and, i'm sure, gorgeous people speaking out for her. we're in this together and we're going to bring about change. it may not happen tomorrow but i am going to stay positive that it will happen.

let's start with the good news.

today is billie joe armstrong's 33rd birthday. best wishes to a cool guy, a sexy guy and one third of one of the rockingest bands (green day). green day took on the bully boy and ended up with a best selling cd and a grammy for best rock album.

now let's do the bad. i'm finishing up with the evening news as i write. and i'm a longtime nbc nightly news viewer. tom brokaw was some 1 i grew up with and trusted. brian williams is just not cutting it.

those eyebrows are too fucking weird. and the look on his face is like he's been fragging his butt hole with his index finger and then sniffing it. (he actually reminds me of a guy named pete that i saw for three weeks. pete did that and would have the same annoying look on his face.)

i gave up on nightly news continuing in the brokaw tradition tonight. i had to suffer through a report by andrea mitchell dressed as though she's stepped off a fashion runway -- for a fashion show for elderly women. then there was the issue of her hair. what is the woman? 80?

is it a wig? is it a weave? i'm finding it hard to believe it's hair. and watching her shake it and toss it i was left with the impression that i was watching not nightly news but a wella balsam commercial from the 70s. (if farrah fawcett-majors had been a really, really ugly woman.)

and it really wasn't the evening for andrea mitchell to be playing bleached blonde floozy on network tv. i've got 1 story that's been e-mailed to me 16 times today. it's from the washington post and if you haven't read it, you should. terence o'hara has written 'records show liberal use of riggs jet: ex-ceo's guests took trips on company tab.'

there's a whole host of people who should be embarrassed. that includes former president jimmy carter. (who i think was a better president then anything we've elected since 1960 but that doesn't change the fact that he should be embarrassed.) but there is embarrassment and there is shame.

feeling shame should be barbara walters (though i doubt she has any -- if she did, star jones probably snacked on it). feeling shame should be the clone or fembot that's replaced diane sawyer. (truly, plastic surgery alone cannot really account for the difference between 90s sawyer and the airbrushed version that sits in front of cameras today, can it?) and then there's maude:

NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell was invited to join Allbritton and his wife on a flight from New York to Washington in December 2002.
Mitchell said Barbara B. Allbritton approached her "at the last minute" in the airport in New York while Mitchell was waiting for the Delta shuttle to Washington.
"Barbara said, 'We're flying back to D.C., would you like to go with us?' " recalled Mitchell, whose husband, Alan Greenspan, is chairman of the Federal Reserve, which regulates Riggs's holding company. She said she knows the Allbrittons socially. "I thought it was their personal airplane. Only later when this whole thing came up did I learn that it was a corporate aircraft. I'm usually very careful about those things."
She described the Allbrittons' offer as "sociable and neighborly."

you're usually very careful about those things? those things? conflicts of interest? it's bad enough that you're the wife of the fed chairman. that alone should have gotten under your wig or fall or whatever that bleached thing on your head is. but you are also a reporter. so you've sinned twice over andrea.

you're usually very careful about those things? those things? conflicts of interest? like when you attacked john kerry in a post-debate chat-fest on msnbc because you felt your husband grandpa munster had been slimed?

and never once did you explain that you were married to grandpa. you just acted as though you were an objective reporter.

andrea's hall of shame time.

and i flip channels on her sixth or seventh hair toss and check out world news tonight. the story she was reporting on? about john negroponte being named as the intelligence chief? much better reported on abc's world news tonight. martha somebody did a wonderful job. let me look up her name. okay it was martha raddatz. and i'm sorry for not knowing it but i never watch world news tonight. i've spent the last 10 years with nightly news. (yes, i thought tom brokaw was sexy.) martha did a great job including details in her report that andrea must have missed while perfecting hair toss.

but the other thing that i enjoyed was that peter jennings actually seemed to know something about the story. his comments before the story and after indicated that he did. whereas brian williams, again, acts as though as soon as the camera goes elsewhere he's got his finger rubbing his prostate.

at 1 point, in jenning's introduction to the story, they lost visual, then they lost audio. when they had it back, jennings cooly dismissed it with 1 sentence. that was a pro at work.

now i don't mistake peter jennings for amy goodman. amy goodman's the real deal. she's the last newsman standing as far as i'm concerned. but of the big three, i'm willing to trust peter jennings. i won't watch bob face the nation with the red eye lids that look like a sick bunny face.
i don't trust him. he always seems too highly amused with himself.

as for williams, if i were to learn that he actually was getting off on prostate massages during the broadcast, i'd applaud his sexual recklessness. but i still wouldn't trust him. he is beyond bland.

so i guess i'll be watching world news tonight from now on. i'll miss the old faces. and other than williams, they're all really old, really, really old. no more wondering if pete williams will crack a hip. no more noting lisa myers' stress eating. and no more majorette moves from andrea mitchell. (i wouldn't be surprised to find out she was a majorette. i'd be shocked to learn she'd been a cheerleader, however.)

so john negroponte will be leaving iraq and moving onto d.c. i hope there aren't any convents in the area. sisters, watch out for the death squads.

saluting janeane garofalo and gerald lefcourt for their bravery on monday's the majority report

on monday night, janeane garofalo did a wonderful interview with noted defense attorney gerald b. lefcourt on the majority report. c.i. of the common ills sent me some notes on that and will be posting a section from it tonight but passed it on so i could salute since i'm keeping track of who is showing real guts and bravery.

utlizing c.i.'s notes and listening to the episode at the air america archive (i was on a valentine's date monday night so i missed the majority report), i'll provide a summary.

lefcourt explained that he thinks 1 of the reasons for indicting lynne stewart to being with was that after the passage of the patriot act, john ashcroft announces that he now has the right to tape attornies and clients discussing their cases in confidence. there was an outcry from the senate which was: we just gave you your wishlist and you didn't put that on it. and attornies and the american bar association were outraged by this new 'policy' - an administrative rule change.

under pressure, suddenly john ashcroft announces his charges of lynne stewart for terrorism. she was the scalp mad dog john wanted to waive around to justify his policy change (one that goes against our basic concepts of law). he was trying to use her to prove that there was a threat to the national security.

lawsuits were in the pipeline to have this declared unconstitutional (which it is) so mad dog john personally announces the indictment against lynne stewart "to say, 'you see why we need this?'"

they charged her with aiding terrorists. and they rest their weak claim on their belief that her work as a lawyer was done.

so, let me ask readers, if that's what the government believes, why did they allow her to continue to visit him. if she wasn't there as a lawyer, she was there as some sort of a friend and in that case, they could have easily prevented her from visiting. they didn't do that because she was there as a lawyer and they know that and people better wake up and see that too.

so by the government's view, lynne stewart wasn't a lawyer, she was a part of the sheik's terrorist organization.

as janeane pointed out there was nothing that tied her to terrorist activities on american soil and nothing to tie her to further violence on foreign soil. this is all about a press release.

lefcourt made a point to emphasize that the "u.s. has often exchanged prisoenrs with other governments, particularly in the spy era.' this goes to the interview stewart had with laura flanders this weekend where she explained that without media attention, the man had no visibility and therefore no use in a trade.

this is about the attorney-client privilege.

she's charged and convicted of speaking to the press.

that's a summary. when reading over c.i.'s notes, i was surprised that sam seder's name didn't pop up often. then i listened to the interview.

sam, here's a tip, when talking about a serious issue (1 you weren't so sure of, as you said prior to the interview), the issues involved are a little more important than hearing yet again how you went to law school and dropped out.

pee wee herman might say 'i never get tired of that story' but i do.

and i'll also note that a crew was in the studio at the start of monday's show. they were doing a 'where are they now' taping to add a bonus feature to the larry sanders show dvd set that will be coming out.

if you don't know, janeane played paula on that show. if you don't know, and sam appears not to, sam was never on the larry sanders show.

i say that coz he couldn't shut the fuck up. over and over he cut off janeane and seemed to be amping it up for the cameras. janeane couldn't get a complete sentence out. and at 1 point when janeane's attempting to explain why they are talking about jeff gannon, sam cuts her off yet again to go into a 'let me explain why this is news' spiel. uh, sam, the people taping - they weren't there for you.

he attempts to dominate any time a woman speaks and some day some woman will call him on it. but he was useless during the interview. janeane had a conversation with lefcourt. sam acted as though he was sitting on the couch of the johnny carson show.

so let me salute janeane and let me salute lefcourt as well. brave, amazing people who grasp the issues and don't publicly waffle the way sam did.

in other news: this just in, nbc's lisa myers is still useless and still fat.

uber fat chick lisa myers is on nightly news right now delivering a report on contractors in iraq. 'contractors who committ crimes can be prosecuted under u.s. law,' myers just said. 'even good contractors sometimes used tactics that can turn iraqis against the u.s.' lisa myers emerging from the local peter piper's where she's spent 4 hours scaring the little kids away from the pizza buffet to deliver the white wash that the hostilities iraqis feel towards us may be the fault of contractors who can be filed under the 'few bad apples' heading apparently. hey big gal, this was news a looooooooooooooonnnnnnngggggggggggg time ago. finally emerging from your feeing trough, you've discovered the story that every 1 else has been covering but not only have you added nothing to it, you've also turned it into a white wash. you've schilled for the administration, lisa, now hurry off to the candy store.

praise for a winding road & the national lawyers guild for speaking out on lynne stewart

well swing out sister, we got another person on the side of right and justice. let's put the spotlight on folding star of a winding road.
from a winding road yesterday:

Another matter that I've been wanting to blog about is the conviction of Lynne Stewart. If you're a member of the Common Ills Community or a reader of Rebecca's over at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, you know that they both devoted more than one post to this matter this weekend. But outside of them, and interviews with Stewart on Democracy Now! and The Laura Flanders Show, I've seen far too little attention paid and far too little outrage expressed.
Stewart is a Civil Rights Attorney who came forward to do a very difficult but very necessary job- to provide a terrorist suspect with his constitutionally guaranteed right to an attorney and a fair trial.
The Bush Administration has demonstrated time and again that fair trials are the LAST thing they believe in, Constitution be damned. They're all about the sort of narrow minded frontier 'justice' that represents one of the most dire parts of our history, glorified though it's been in countless Westerns.
Given these people's overall disgust for the Constitution (except for that right to bear arms thing, now that they love), I wasn't surprised when former Attorney General Ashcroft announced these trumped up charges against Stewart. What better way to get around a fair and legal trial than to go after the lawyer and scare others off from taking on similar jobs in the future?
I was shocked and sickened by the verdict against Stewart, though.We cannot pretend this is anything other than what it is- the latest attempt of the Bush Administration to undermine and destroy our Civil Liberties. If this new path were to follow its illogical but evidently intended course, the very idea of a fair trial in this country is out the window. We have to know that each and every person accused of a crime- and remember, any such person is INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty- is going to have a fair chance at legal defense.
I see today that the National Lawyers Guild have called for a Day of Outrage on this matter, and I applaud that. You can read their statement here
But really, this should be a matter of outrage for each and every one of us, not just on this specific day but every day.
Lynne Stewart is the latest human face making the Bush Administration's dangerous goals all too vivid a reality.
We've got to fight this. Stewart is appealing her case and we've got to appeal it as well, in our own way. We've got to be writing about this, talking about it, telling people what's going on. The outcry from all of us over this should be deafening. We cannot let these things just happen without being heard, without going out in the streets if we have to in order to be heard.
tell somebody
what happened in the usa?
i wanna read about it in the news
i wanna hear about it on tv, yeah
what happened in the usa?
when they ask you
what happened in the usa?
tell somebody.
they'll wanna know, oh people

the depth of our democracy
is only as good as the voices of protest she protects
voices of protest - rise!

These are lyrics by Rickie Lee Jones that seem fitting on this matter. The song, Tell Somebody, is on her latest cd, Evening of My Best Day, and was written about the Patriot Act.
. . .

so let's take a moment to spotlight folding star of a winding road who has demonstrated bravery. applaud folding star, visit A winding road.

for those keeping track, here are the ones needing applause and thanks: democracy now!, the common ills, the laura flanders show, the third estate sunday review, talk left, a winding road
and the national lawyers guild.

now let's turn to the disgusting. no, i haven't spotted joe lieberman in a speedo, it's much worse.
lizz winstead and rachel maddow the silly gals of unfiltered who never let the facts stand in the way of a cheap laugh.

so today big brain and no brain do this skit about those naughty bloggers. and big brain is her usual joyless self - flat affect any 1? but there's no brain (lizz) screaching and rushing in and out of the skit as though flying a broom.

i'm guessing that listening to lizz's lame skit about ethics had to be painful for even the most devoted unfiltered listener (that would include c.i. of the common ills who loves this show) . playing their lame skit, the gross gals strike the pose of ethics and how important they are. that would be the same dreary duo that can't get their own facts right and, here we focus on no brain lizz, love to fall back on the excuse 'hey, i am a comedian.' well you say you are.

me, i'm still waiting for the laughs.

regardless, no brain built a skit around the fact that bloggers lied about what eason jordan said.
hey, no brain and big brain can go WWF all over the asses of right wing bloggers, i could care less. but they embarrass themselves when they don't know the basic facts.

here's just 1 they should have known: there is no proof that eason jordan didn't make those comments.

but ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-NO BRAIN! rushes in with her theme song to play gatekeeper and make sure that we do not get curious about the actual issue of whether or not reporters are being targeted. my 10 cents? they are.

no brain is no journalist. she's just becoming the screeching schill of the middle class, middle road, close your eyes to reality crowd.

and that point was driven home when i had to hear 'ask a vet' and 'ask a vet for doggies' in the same show. lizz, if you're thinking you're looking less pathetic by crowing over you dog than you would if you were just another old lady with a cat, you're kidding yourself.

what is lizz anyway? 60?

so once again there are 2 'ask a vet's and there are no ask an advocate.

big brain's on some sort of macho trip as she sniffs freely at the crotches of any male who's 'served.' silly no brain lizz thinks 'balance' is talking about animals.

i had this little fantasy while i listened to unfiltered today. here it is. the year is 2015. no brain's career has hit the skids (she's almost there already) and she moves to iraq only thing is she's not funny over there either. but she does her little lame show over there for the 1st time and after she finishes up, she's walking down the streets of, say, najaf. and she has to look at the eyes of all the iraqis who lost loved 1s. she has to know that she was the art buchwald of the left, the saturday review of the 60s, when she could have been making a difference.

let's hope something similar happens and she has to live with that for the rest of her days.

she deserves it.

the common ills is always noting the magazine clamor. i picked it up and it is a great magazine. if you're looking for a new magazine, i'd say start with this 1.

but there's an advertisement in it that made me chuckle. 'radical talk radio now!' highlights many worthy radio hosts. but lizz winstead is radical?

it's funny to read unfiltered fans take on terry gross's interview with lynne cheney and hear them judge it a 'softball.' what do they think lizz is tossing out day after day?

and it's cute as well the way lizz uses the unfiltered blog to plan hook ups. (i'm not suggesting sexual encounters. i am saying there's something a little impersonal about blogging 'am i seeing you this weekend?' for instance.)

but 'radical?' radical???????????????????????

prove me wrong, lizz, do an hour on lynne stewart if you can pull your non-radical ass out of the middle of the road.

we salute the web site talk left

i don't know if you know the web site talk left or not but thanks to kristi, we now know of some 1 else who is speaking out in lynne stewart's defense.

this is what they wrote on thursday, when the verdict came in:

I completely disagree with this verdict. In fact, I'm shocked. And saddened.
More news is here, including this picture of her leaving court after the verdict with her husband.
I think she will get an appeal bond...clearly there are substantial issues of law and fact that would result in a reversal or new trial if decided in her favor. (That's the legal test for getting an appeal bond.)
Also, in light of Booker and FanFan, clearly this is a case calling for non-adherence to the guidelines. The Court can consider them and make a ruling they should not apply in this case.

talk left, you are brave, you are strong and we salute you here and we note that while others were holding their tongues you were already coming out strongly in lynne stewart's defense.
this is the link to talk left's site proper.

i wish i could tell you i knew a lot about them but i know they are brave, i know they didn't wait to see who was going to come out in lynne stewart's defense.

i salute and thank kristi as well for find this brave site and bringing it to our attention.

if you see anyone blogging on this or if you see an article on it, let's highlight and salute. i looked at various sites today trying to find some 1 speaking about lynne stewart and i found none. maybe they're out there and we just need some 1 with skills like kristi to find them.

but let's keep looking because we need to make sure that brave people are recognized. so far it's the third estate sunday review, the common ills, talk left and us.

toni sent me the lyrics to a really great song by carole king called 'chalice borealis.' she said this part about mountains applied to lynne stewart and i agree:

how you gonna explain it to your grandkids, where did the mountains go, how you gonna' tell them you sold them, where did the mountains go?

so when your grandkids ask you what you did to help defend lynne stewart from this governmental attack on her, make sure you have an answer to give them.

i'll toss out my e-mail address again sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com and you can always write there about anything but please use it like kristi did if you find any 1 noting what's happening to lynne stewart.

the test of bravery is standing up even when it's not easy or popular. let's hope some more people learn to stand.

bit of a transcript of the lynne stewart interview with laura flanders via the common ills

i'm swiping from the common ills tonight. i've been reading e-mails today hoping some 1 had a link. watching the grammys. green day won one for best rock album so give it up to my little stud muffin billie joe armstrong. take on the bully boy and get a best selling album and a grammy. it's not the death of a career no matter what the right wing echo chamber tells you.
but as the e-mails have been saying, no 1's talking about lynne stewart that they can find. it really makes me sad.

so let me swipe from the common ills:

From the interview, here is transcript (with many errors I'm sure) of one portion of the interview.

Laura Flanders noted that Stewart's trial took place in "the exact same new your court house where the rosenbergs were tried more than half-century ago" and that she'd last had Stewart on the program in July. After thirteen days deliberating, the jury returned a verdict.

Lynne Stewart: I don't think anyone was more surprised than I was on Thursday when the jury convicted on every single count.

Flanders noted that it was "hard to keep track of exactly what it is you were convicted of."

Lynne Stewart: In may of 2000, I visited my client, the government listened in on this entire visit. . . . however, they never moved to prevent anything. I took out a press release . . .

Laura Flanders: . . . you took one from your client and brought it to the press?

Lynne Stewart: Exactly. . . . he asked me to make a press release. It was a call placed toReuters -- hardly clandestine, hardly secret, hardly secret taking it out since they were videotaping and listening to the entire thing. And this indicated that his personal opinion had changed from being in favor of a cease fire to withdrawing his support. But he also went on to say that he was not asking for a stop to it, he was not calling for an end to it.

Flanders then asked about the agreement the government was making the attornies sign (believe they are called the SANDS agreement and that's how I refer to them later -- correct me if I'm wrong).

[This is probably on Lynne Stewart's website but I haven't been able to find it -- admittedly, I'm hurrying.]

Lynne Stewart: We had understood that to mean, everytime you go into a jail, you sign the thing that you have to sign in order to get into the jail. When we signed onto these we understood that they were intended to allow us access to him but we also understood that they would not interfere with our doing what legally needed to be done. I think I relied on that and the fact that over the three years they had been enforced the only thing that had happened was that Ramsey [Clark] had made many many press releases in New York, Abu Dhabi, in Cairo on behalf, carrying his [the client's] words out and nothing had happened not even a letter. When I did it I got a letter saying that I would not be allowed to see him [the client]. That's what we thought the penality could be -- that you would no longer be able to be the lawyer. Instead two years later this massive indictment. . . . You know laura I just got an e-mail from an attorney up in New Hampshire: "I need you to explain why this press release was part of a lawyer's work?". . . We had a client that was convicted who had no place really to go except through some kind of political accommodations. No matter how unlikely it might appear on day one, perhaps on day thirty, it would not be unlikely. Of absolute necessecity to all of us, when I say all of us, the lawyers, was the recognition that the man had to be kept on the world stage, he couldn't be locked in a box because then there would be no opportunity for him to be a willing trade, let us say, for some political goal of the United States.

Flanders: So for him to retain any kind of political negotiating capital, he had to remain on the world stage?

Lynne Stewart: Exactly he was a world figure, he had played a role. His word was listened to. He was no longer in the field, I mean he was a blind sick man. He even said "I don't know what's going on over there, you know what's going on over there. I'm just saying that it appears that this is not working."

Flanders: So even if you felt the government's attempt to silence him was wrong, for all the reasons you've just described, did you not know that you were breaking a rule by taking out that message?

Stewart: You know I've been asked this question both many, many times from the moment I was arrested, on the witness stand, to my answer to the government. My sense of it was yes, we signed on to these things, but, yes, there was sort of a bubble in which we operated . . .in this, because we had operated under them for so long, we had done the things that were on the face perhaps against them but we were never penalized, we were never questioned, we were never sent a letter saying you can't do that, we noticed you're doing this. It was accepted and we thought the government also felt that they would not interfere with what was legally required to represent him.

Flanders: You thought that they were playing their hand, you were playing your hand, but then things changed?

Stewart: Yes.

Flanders: What changed?

Stewart: Well I think the SANDS were basically their ace in the hole, these are these prison regulations that we signed onto. They're basically not directed at the lawyers; all the lawyers are saying is "Yes, I'll respect this." And I think that they held that in abayence until they had an opportunity, or what they saw as a need, to take action because they had never taken any action and actually, after the press release, I signed the SANDS again and went back in to visit him.

Flanders: And yet after you're convicted and after the attorney general Alberto Gonzales says that the conviction has sent an umistakable message that the justice dept. Will pursue terrorists and those that assist them, you're out on the streets. How dangerous are you really?

Stewart: I feel like I should say 'no comment.' Because I don't want to call their attention to this if they really believe that. Well here I am and of course I've been out since the time I was arrested in 2002 as well. So we're talking about from a point of focus, three years almost and likely to remain out, perhaps, pending appeal.

i'm hopeful we'll see more green day on the grammys and that some 1 will e-mail saying 'i found this great thing on lynne stewart.' but i'm not expecting it to happen. i know we've got the outrage and the 'smart' thing to do would probably be to make a point to act as cheerleader but i just am really saddened that there's no 1 weighing in to defend stewart. if there had been 1 more voice today, i would have been thrilled. even 1 more. maybe monday will bring some bravery. today it's the common ills and the third estate sunday review.

the editorial i helped with is up and you can read it at their site.