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ryan-anderson
Views:
-Was against invading Iraq (hot topic). But I think we need to stay there until the new government can stand on its own 2 feet.
-Pro-choice (on abortion)
-Strongly believe in Separation of church and state
-A supply-sider
-I Favor the death Penalty
-Against Gun Control (lifelong NRA member)
-Was consistently on the Republican's (and the LBJ/Kennedy Dems) side in the Cold War (i.e. favored Reagan's build up, favored our interventions in third world countries)
-I think the media (overall) is very liberal. (Many studies prove it too.) Of course there is a conservative element out there (i.e. Fox News, The Washington Times, et al).
-I want our borders secured, but that doesn't mean I want immigration stopped. I would just like some documentation as to who is coming in.
-I favor stem cell research.
-I favor allowing gays to marry.
-I favor right-to-work laws
More to come.
Ignoring: Rico, GameBoyFan, ibestupid, Holiday_Hobo, sharon_18, TilaMoo, Okie-from-Muskogee/boo321, NorCalNik, Nullifidian, Ben_Doval
Reviews
Kill the Messenger (2014)
Good movie.....lousy history.
To start off with, I really enjoyed Renner's performance......and I think it's a story worth telling. But what I noticed most of all is the almost endless inaccuracies, omissions, and misleading info while watching it. Setting the record straight:
-Blandon did NOT testify that the CIA came to him and asked them to run drugs. He testified that it was either Meneses or Enrique Bermudez (in the grand jury transcript called "Enrique Ramunez"), it's not clear which one (Blandon's English wasn't clear at times), is who asked him. In either case, neither person amounts to representing the CIA: Meneses definitely was not, and Bermudez wasn't either. And Blandon himself later specifically denied that Bermudez asked him to raise money through drug smuggling. Meneses said the same thing. The SJMN quoted Bermudez (via Blandon) as saying the "ends justify the means". But Blandon himself said he didn't take that as meaning they should traffic in drugs.
-The drug cartels had set up routes and were mass importing the drugs into California and Florida (and elsewhere) before the Contras were even in business. (Ergo the Contras sparking any crack epidemic (as Webb claimed) in LA or elsewhere is preposterous.)
-It's also worth pointing out the crack epidemic did not end when the Contras shut down in 1990. Ergo, the trade obviously didn't hinge on their (or their supporters) involvement.
-To illustrate the previous point: according to 'The War on Drugs: An International Encyclopedia', by the late 1980's: "an estimated 300 Colombian trafficking groups and 20,000 Colombians were involved in the cocaine trade in the United States. At least 5,000 of the Colombians who worked for the cartels lived in the Miami area and another 6,000 in the Los Angeles area." In other words: the cartels had about as much manpower in the United States alone than were in the entire Contra movement. (The Medellin cartel employed 750,000 people in Medellin.)
-Ross had other (non-Contra) suppliers besides Blandon and he was mixed up in drugs before he ever met him. Other LA dealers (like "Tootie" Reese) had established links with the South American cartels before Blandon met Ross.
-Webb gives the number (in 'Dark Alliance'; the book not the series) Blandon sold to Ross at around 5 tons. By DEA estimates, more cocaine went to Los Angeles in a *single* year (i.e. 1980; before Blandon was selling to Ross) than Ross sold over 8-10 years.
-Ross's suppliers were not Contras who went into dealing to support them.....they were dealers sympathetic to their cause who kept most of the money they made. That's an important distinction. Most provable estimates of what they gave the Contras was around 50-100 thousand dollars.
-Ross and Blandon had more money than the United States gave the Contras total (we are talking in the hundreds of millions). So if the Contras were running on drug money, why did the war grind to a halt once the USA cut off aid? Furthermore, why even bother with the Contra aspect of Iran-Contra (which got them maybe 2 million from the diversions of the arms sales to Iran) when all that coke money was supposedly out there?
-The movie also depicts (some would say "fabricates" is a more accurate term) a number instances of personal harassment (and contact) of Webb by the government and its agencies. Before he even writes the story, some "agents"/"a few guys from D.C." meet with him and try to warn him off and also make a implied threat against his family. Ray Liota plays a CIA agent who sneaks into Webb's hotel room in the middle of the night to tell him he is right. And finally, Webb fires a warning shot at a guy hanging around his car at night. Following that, some unidentified people start going through Webb's files while he is talking to the police. To my knowledge, even Webb didn't claim ANY of these events happened. I think the closest thing to this was the fact Webb once shot a would-be car thief who came at him. But this was in Kentucky and years before he came across the Dark Alliance story.
-Webb did not endorse the wild conspiracy theories put forth by a lot of people like Maxine Waters. But he didn't distance himself from these people either. So that didn't help his cause.
-At the end of the film, a number of misleading statements appear on the screen. For one, it mentions the the Director of the CIA's appearance in a "town hall" type meeting with the citizens of south central Los Angeles, and that the director left the CIA a month later. That leaves the impression Deutch left the CIA because of the Dark Alliance series. Deutch was actually forced out because the Clinton administration was upset with his testimony to Congress on Iraq. A statement is also made that the CIA released a report that acknowledged the fact they "...associated with members of the Contra movement who engaged in drug trafficking." True. But just not the ones Webb wrote about. The mentioned report specifically denies that the agency ever had any contact with Ross, Blandon, or Meneses. Furthermore, that report (and the unmentioned DOJ report), far from being a vindication for the Dark Alliance series, blew a great many holes in the story. And finally, Webb's two shot suicide is mentioned. The movie states it was "ruled" a suicide. But there is little doubt. Webb had made arrangements for his cremation (as well as other things), and even his own family does not doubt it was a suicide based on his actions before hand. (Nick Schou covers this in 'Kill The Messenger'. In a way, it was kind of good this aspect of Webb's life was omitted from the film because it made for some depressing reading.)
So a good movie.....but pretty flimsy history.
Real Time with Bill Maher (2003)
Malodorous
If you've ever watched one of the many talk shows that litter cable and wondered: "Who would give this person a show?" Rest assured: you are not alone. 'Real Time' is just about the rock bottom of them all. But as if the premise isn't bizarre enough (i.e. a 61 year old bachelor who curses just about every other word and practically brags about his cannabis use), the treatment of some very important political issues is even worse. Like the rest of the opinion shows out there: there is no restraint on the demonization of the opposition and the applause lines are endless. And if all that isn't bad enough: the time wasted talking to some really fascinating people with all that. Some of them even play along with it. For example, he had Jane Goodall on there during Bush's Presidency. And he brings up Bush's intelligence and then they start comparing him to a monkey. (This is coming from a guy who has pleaded for more civility in politics.) This is not to mention all the other lowbrow stuff he brought up. (And this guy went to Cornell?) I think I'd rather ask Goodall about Bigfoot than to waste anyone's time with that.
As a southerner, I get a kick out of the frequent targets against my region. Once I saw some sort of contest (similar to the NCAA Final 4) where he named the "stupidest state". Of course, just about all of his selections were southern states. Something he misses though: just about all of them had some of the highest concentrations of African-Americans in this country. (Mississippi for example is 37% black, the highest in the country.) That's an interesting stance to take. I wonder if he thinks all the dumb people are white republicans? And as someone who lives here I can tell him: if your definition of stupid is someone who believes in creationism.....then there are a ton of stupid people here who aren't white.
As a engineer, I also laugh at the notion that we southerners are "anti- science". (Coming from a guy with degrees in English & History.) I'd like him to go to any of the major engineering hubs in the southeast (i.e. Houston, Atlanta, Greenville, Raleigh, etc.) and tell all of them they hate science. Of course, he has admitted on this show that he really doesn't know many southerners to start with. (No kidding.) And I'd pay some real money to see a evolutionary biologist give him a pop quiz (and him fail it spectacularly). The point being: he doesn't have any more of a knowledge base to accept evolution than those who reject it.
One infamous moment (for any thinking person who saw it) had to be the time he sent Alexandra Pelosi down to Mississippi to get a taste of "real Americans in the south". Maher made it a point to say (in the intro) that she did not "cherry pick" these people. That she just got "off the plane" and this is what she saw: a bunch off toothless hicks sitting 'round the shack. Baloney. First off, everyone they talked to was white, and secondly one big giveaway that they didn't just get off the plane and see this was the fact one person they talked to had a "Vicksburg Toyoda" tag on his work shirt. Almost everyone who flies to Mississippi routinely goes to Jackson-Evers. I don't believe for one minute that a bunch of out-of-staters flew directly to Vicksburg (which is about 40 miles west of Jackson). (The background of where they shot was a bunch of shacks. If anyone thinks downtown Jackson looks like that.....they've got problems.) So obviously it's a total lie to claim this is what they saw when they got off the plane and these people were not cherry picked.
And that's not the first time I've seen him tell a blatant lie. In one of his "New Rules" segments some years back he called Ronald Reagan "the original tea bagger". Among his many false and misleading claims in the segment included the claim that Reagan just "made up" the Chicago welfare queen. "That woman never existed" according to Maher. Well, that's news to Illinois state officials: She did exist, and her name was Linda Taylor. The original accusations of the multiple IDs, addresses, what she stole, etc.....were made in a AP article in 1977. (Quoting a Illinois state official named Joel Edelman.....not Ronald Reagan.) So as usual, this guy doesn't know what he is talking about. The other thing that has always grabbed me about this show is the way he plays to his audience. (Either that or all his writers are in the 17-27 age bracket.) As mentioned before: a 61 year old man cursing his way through every show (not to mention all the vulgar sex jokes) trying to make political points is pretty strange. (Tim Russert he isn't.) I will give him credit though: he's dropped the libertarian facade.......and he finally woke up to the fact that radical Muslims getting nuclear weapons is a far greater threat than just about any fundamentalist Christian. I also give him credit for speaking out against the drug war and his work with PETA.....but that's about it.
I guess probably what this show reflects most of all is what it says about our society. This is sort of like Jerry Springer on politics. A generation or two ago, this guy would have been lucky to get a 2am show in Vegas. Today? He has a platform to discuss serious political issues with millions. That's about as depressing as it gets. We'll just have to continue to hold out for better.