The cast of the West Wing is coming out to campaign for Hillary in Ohio.

NEW --> The gang is getting back together: the cast of The West Wing will campaign for @HillaryClinton in stops across Ohio this weekend. pic.twitter.com/ZwyoIyiIDX

— Ian Sams (@IanSams) September 21, 2016

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

The cast of “West Wing” will reunite in Ohio over the weekend to stump for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign announced. 

Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg), Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Joshua Malina (Will Bailey) and Mary McCormack (Kate Harper) will take part in grassroots organizing events across the battleground state. 

The Emmy-winning drama was a highly idealistic idea of the political landscape in the ‘90s and early 2000s.

Not exactly a surprise that the cast from an Aaron Sorkin show are in the tank for Hillary, right Wingers?

And personally though I am quite impressed that this many West Wing alumni are willing to campaign for Hillary, I was even more impressed that Joss Whedon got this group together to speak out against Trump.

By the way, just so you know, when commenters come out swinging against the idea that celebrity endorsements or famous surrogates have much of an impact on the voting public, that is proof positive that they do indeed.

After all if it were really inconsequential it would not really be worth getting all worked up over. Right?

Right.

What everybody is talking about, the Newsroom's college rape storyline.

Courtesy of The Independent: 

The Newsroom has been accused of having a “women problem” before, but now Aaron Sorkin has come under fire for a rape storyline that implies male perpetrators are to be believed over female victims. 

The latest episode has been criticised for its portrayal of female rape victims after TV news producer Don Keefer said he felt morally obligated to believe the man’s side of the story because he had not yet been convicted of rape. 

The episode’ storyline followed a Princeton student who starts a website allowing women on campus to out their rapists after the city justice system failed to prosecute two fraternity members who she claimed raped her. 

The student is tracked down by the fictional news network ACN for a debate with her alleged attacker live on air. Don had also interviewed the man she claims raped her and when she asks him who he believes, the producer says he felt obliged to take the man’s side over hers.

This received quite a lot of backlash from all corners.

Including from a writer on the show who claims her misgivings about the segment were ignored, and that she was "kicked out" of the writer's room.

Sorkin himself responds here.

Actress Olivia Munn, who plays the character Sloan Sabbith on the show, also weighed in:  

“…The reality is that Sorkin writes things so that they can be talked about, and so we show both sides of it,” she said. “I think it was important to show what it’s like for women to be a rape victim, want to speak out, and then have somebody come in and say, ‘Hey don’t do that. That’s going to be bad for you.’ 

“Sorkin wasn’t saying ‘Don’t do that,'” Munn said. “He was saying ‘This is what happens.'” 

Personally I liked the episode. Partly because it left me conflicted, and not sure whose side I should take in the exchange between the Don Keefer character and the college student.

But that to me is the mark of great television.

I don't often watch shows that make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. I watch shows that make me think, piss me off, or make me grieve for the loss of a character that I have, against my better judgement, grown attached to. (Still miss you Beth.)

I think the show did everything that I would expect it would do with such a controversial subject.

And in the light of the Rolling Stone campus rape scandal, it could not have been more timely.

The Republicans are once again holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to force the President to delay the implementation of Obamacare. Here let the Newsroom's Sloan Sabbith explain why that is a dangerous plan.

(Caution this is HBO so you can expect at least one F word.)

And people wonder why I love this show.

As many of you will undoubtedly remember that the Republicans ONLY acquiesced when the President signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 which stipulated that if the two sides could not reach an agreement on the budget by late November then Sequestration would take affect. At the time they believed that despite their differences they were not quite THAT entrenched.

Unfortunately for all concerned, they were.

And during all of this political posturing and threatening Standard and Poor's downgraded our credit rating for the first time in history, dealing a blow to America's reputation and our standing in the world's economy.

Which is just what Sloan Sabbith is warning about in the above clip.

Yes I realize the scene was written after all of this had already happened, giving writer Aaron Sorkin the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but what is happening right now is ALSO taking place after all of that has already happened, which means that the Republicans and Congress should ALSO be benefiting from 20/20 hindsight, and yet it is increasingly looking as if it is all about to happen again.

What Sloan Sabbith is suggesting the American people do in that clip, is exactly what they, what we, should be doing right now.  I only hope that we can be heard over the rattling of their partisan swords.

Will McAvoy's brilliant defense of his Republicanism on the season finale of Newsroom.

Damn I'm going to miss this show!

The brilliance of HBO's The Newsroom. "Sloan explains pictures."

Now if you are confused by that clip, Sloan, played by Olivia Munn, has just learned that intimate pictures that she took with her boyfriend have now found their way to the internet after she broke up with him.

What many viewers may not have known is that in this case art reflected life. Olivia Munn's life.

Last year intimate pictures of Munn were also distributed all over the internet. Only in her case they were not from a disgruntled ex-boyfriend, but the result of her phone being hacked, along with Christian Hendricks, Scarlett Johansson and others.

The pictures were scrawled with very explicit notes to her boyfriend and were very intimate, and undoubtedly she was horribly embarrassed to have them showing up in teenage inbox's all over the world. (Munn was a host of the video game program G4 and the subject of numerous teenage masturbatory fantasies.)

When the pictures came out she, just like her Newsroom character, also tried to play them off as fake at first. But that only made the internet detectives snoop harder, and eventually there was no question.

Now Munn only addressed the photos once that I know of, but after awhile people stopped asking her about it and she went on with her life.

Which brings me to the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin and the incredible courage of Olivia Munn.

Last night Munn's character Sloan went through all of the emotions, anger, frustration, shame, that she MUST have felt when those pictures of her came out last year. She got the chance to let the viewers see up close how painful it must be to have your privacy so callously invaded, and to have your personal sex life shared, judged, and mocked by people who have no right to even know about it.

Munn MUST have known that by revisiting the issue viewers would flock to the internet to once again find her pictures and gawk at them all over again. But she did it anyway.

But at least this time it was HER choice. SHE was in charge.

And what's more, in the show her character got to exact revenge on the person who victimized her. Something that she was never able to do in the real world.

I have long been a fan of Olivia Munn who I think is not only beautiful, but extremely talented. But now I more than admire her, I am in awe of her.

Now that you have read this, play that clip up top again, and you will be in awe as well. 

Damn this show is good.

Dan Rather explains the significance of HBO's "The Newsroom." and why YOU should be watching it.

Courtesy of Gawker:

 In this episode, the most important, most interesting, most revealing scene is where the owner of the corporation (played superbly by Jane Fonda) tells the head of her news division, "I have business in front of this Congress!" She's complaining about her anchorman and his newscast covering news in ways she knows will displease Congressional leaders whom she needs for business advantage. 

Her news division president (played equally superbly by Sam Waterston) answers, in effect "You can't possibly expect us to tailor the news to your corporate agenda." 

She shoots back, "I have business (she hits the word hard) in front of this Congress." And she flatly says she'll fire the anchorman if he doesn't stop putting on the air what he has been. 

This, friends, is drama taken from real life. Yes, this is fiction. But it's based on some recent history in the news business. 

This whole episode is something I wish every American could see and ponder, especially in the context of the two preceding installments. They would then understand how a combination of big business and big government, working for their mutual benefit — not the public interest but rather their own interests — affects the news we see and hear.

You know I think that Dan Rather can be correctly labeled an expert when it comes to reviewing how well a television program depicts the relationship between journalists, their producers,  and the corporate bosses at the top. 

As a matter of fact, considering how he lost his job while trying to expose the truth about Bush's National Guard service, he may be THE expert on the conflicts between journalism and the politics of the corporations that employ them.

He is dead right, EVERYBODY with an interest in how news is gathered and disseminated to the public, and that should be ALL of us,  should be riveted to this program.

And you can tell how well this show is doing its job t=by the fact that it has already drawn the wrath of at least ONE Teabagger Senator.

Can I have an hour of your time? Update!

The image above is from Aaron Sorkin's incredible new show, "The Newsroom."

I watched it on Sunday, and immediately fell in love with it.

It just so happens that HBO has put the entire first episode online over at YouTube, which you can view for yourself by clicking here.

I know that a lot of you complain that you don't have HBO and miss some of the great programs that we all talk about here. Well I certainly do NOT want you to miss this one so get some popcorn and your favorite beverage and sit back to enjoy one of the best programs I have seen in quite some time. (It lasts about an hour and thirteen minutes. Don't worry, it'll go by quickly.)

Perhaps afterward you could come back here and let us know what you thought.

Update: I saw this on Facebook and thought it belonged here.

This is where I got hooked.