Thursday, November 14, 2019

Elizabeth Warren and other topics

In the roundtable tonight for tomorrow's gina & krista round-robin, Keesha brought up that C.I., Wally and Cedric link to everything the community writes.  She rightly noted that the rest of us aren't doing that good of a job giving shout outs.  She's right.  If I'm lucky, I note one other community site a week.

So let me steal from THIRD to note two things.  First, political coverage in the community last week:




"Over 300 protesters killed in a month of protests,""Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Where is Saba Al Mahdawi?," "Iraq snapshot," "The protests continue," "Hillary never fails to remind us that we don't like her," "Does Joe Biden love pedophiles because he relates to them? Just asking." "Real issues versus nonsense to drag someone through the mud," "Zuckerberg," "Amen to that,"  "Joe has to go," 
"Friends of Jeffrey Epstein's should not be involved in any presidential campaigns," "Iraq protests," 
"Loser Joe," "joe biden, larry summers and jeffrey epstein had s...," "the protests in iraq," "Bill Gates says he made a mistake," "Larry Summers loves Jeffrey Epstein and Joe Biden …," "A lot of people protected Epstein but no one prote…," "Neither Joe Biden nor Alyssa Milano give a damn ab...," "Eric Ciaramella leaks in his pants," "Eric Ciaramella," "Leaker Eric Ciaramella," "NPR's MORNING EDITION turns 40," "Who knows where she is at in her head?," "Medicare For All." 
"One eye has to be on the ones who are supposed to help," "The US press demonizes" and "THIS JUST IN! JOE'S DESPERATION KNOWS NO BOUNDS!" and "Appeals to pedophilia and sexism is all that Joe Biden has to offer" -- political coverage in the community.



And here's the entertainment coverage in the community last week:
"Great sci-fi conspiracy films," "2 TV choices," "Batwoman episode five," "MODERN FAMILY's awful 11th season," "HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER," "Some HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER thoughts," "3 films I'd add to Rebecca's list," "DOCTOR SLEEP left me snoozing,"
"The streaming wars," "EMPIRE is a huge mess," "Weekend box office," "dynasty - liam remembers," "it's so hard not to hate debra messing," "favorite conspiracy films,"  "Crackdown on streamers," "Charmed episode five" and "Farrah Fawcett and Teddy Pendergrass" -- TV and movie coverage in the community.


And let me note this week's pieces at THIRD:


Now for politics.  I will gladly vote for either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.



I'm highlighting that because I like Ayanna Pressley.  And since I'm noting Elizabeth in this post, let me also share this video.



We need Medicare For All.  I'm with Trina ("It's pretty obvious: Medicare For All"), if you can't demand it, you don't need to be running for president.



We need it.  And shame on anyone who can't stand up for it.  FDR knew we need it and they are spitting on his memory.

You know who else would spit on FDR?  The Republican Party.  So if some Democratic hopeful can't call for Medicare For All, let's call them what they are: Republicans.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, November 14, 2019.  A new entry in the race for the Democratic Party's nomination and this guy doesn't want rapists registered as sex offenders (at least now when he's related to them!), protests continue in Iraq and a protester who had been kidnapped is released.


Starting in the US with the race for the Democratic Party's nomination.  In an already crowded field, you might think the move would be to winnow down.  Instead, people keep jumping in.  Yesterday, another person declared they were seeking the nomination.

No, not Hillary Clinton.  She continues to tease that she might run and she's noted the voices in her head are asking her to run but she's not declared yet.


No, it's Deval Patrick.

l

Link to headline article
Deval Patrick enters Democratic presidential raceFormer Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick launches a late-entry bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The longtime Obama ally will offer centrists another alternati…
Profile image of authorLos Angeles Times



Who?

He was supposed to become what Barack Obama became.  Before Barack emerged, the press would float Deval and Harold Ford Jr. as the centrist Democrat who would transform the nation when they, one day, took the White House.


Harold Ford Jr. is largely forgotten today -- despite his explosive temper ("Say it to Murtha's, face!" being only the best known example) -- and Deval wants to make sure he's not forgotten.

While floundering Joe Biden continues to insist that he's asked Barack not to endorse him, the reality is that Barack urged Deval to seek the 2020 nomination.  Poor Joe.  Since being governor of Massachusetts, Deval's been all about big business which, no doubt, relieves the non-objective press who have been freaking out over candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Deval's had his dirty hands in everything -- including the Ameriquest scandal.  As governor, he fired the chair of the Sex Offender Registry Board (Saundra Edwards).  Why?  Deval's brother-in-law was convicted of raping Deval's sister.  As such he was a sex offender.  Edwards attempted to follow the law and see to it that the brother-in-law was registered as such.  Deval hit the roof and fired her.

Deval's not really about women's rights or, for that matter, about punishing rapists.

But, hey, he's not going to push for Medicare For All so the press will just kiss ass over and over.

 1 hour ago
It’s official. Deval Patrick is running for President. He openly admits today that he doesn’t really have any strong policy positions, but that he just wants to nebulously bring America together for healing. He misunderstands the moment.
126 replies97 retweets584 likes
 
 
 


In his first term as governor, Deval could still pass for dashing.  The years have ground all the pretty away.

 1 hour ago
For every journalist covering , here's your Google list for today: "Bain Capital" "Ameriquest" "Massachusetts Health Connector" "Chardonnay" and DEFINITELY.. "Justina Pelletier"
7 replies6 retweets15 likes
 
 



  1.  16 minutes ago
You know what this race was missing? A Wall Street bankster who busted unions.
1 retweet
 
 


Though the usual toadies (Jonathan Alter, ect) are giddy, not everyone sees this as a moment to celebrate.


  1.  15 hours ago
The more I think about this run the more it pisses me off that these men just can't handle the idea of a Black woman having a shot at the WH before them. Everybody doesn't need to run for Prez & after 11 months the constructive thing to do is to back Kamala Harris.
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1:57
100 replies298 retweets1,268 likes
 
 
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  1.  16 hours ago
: Pissed off at Deval Patrick Running? She needs 75k by midnight Friday. Do work.
16 replies104 retweets144 likes
 
 



In Iraq, protests continue.

 1 minute ago
Today security forces attacked the protesters near Tahrir Square in to disperse the protesters from the strategic square but the attempt failed. Here is a video security forces chasing protesters near Tahrir Square.
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ALJAZEERA notes this morning:


  On Thursday, security forces used live rounds, rubber bullets and fired tear gas canisters in a bid to disperse hundreds of protesters gathered near Baghdad's Tahrir Square, the Reuters news agency reported.
One protester died immediately after a tear gas canister hit his head and another lost his life in hospital from wounds from a stun bomb fired by security forces, reports said on Thursday, adding that at least 50 people were wounded in the latest clashes in the capital.
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Baghdad, said the protesters were killed between 7 and 8 am local time (04:00-05:00GMT).


Natasha Turek (CNBC) offers:

 Iraq is descending into its most violent days since the battle against ISIS concluded in late 2017 — and the world is completely underestimating its significance, regional experts told CNBC at the Middle East’s premier oil and gas conference this week.
The second-largest OPEC producer has seen protests every summer for the last several years over economic grievances, met time and time again with empty government promises of reform that go unfulfilled. But this year’s demonstrations are different, spilling over into demands for a full-on political overhaul and attracting elements like Iranian-backed forces and other extremists that threaten to hijack the protest movement and potentially bring the U.S. into deeper involvement.
“From a security perspective, I would say that the Iraq story is the most under-covered story in the region right now,” Amos Hochstein, former deputy assistant secretary of state and special envoy for energy affairs under the Obama administration, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“Because the forces that are outside, the external forces that have decades of interest (in Iraq) are not going to go away quietly. They will affect the economics of the region potentially, and they can affect the security beyond the region of Europe and eventually the United States.”



Samya Kulab (AP) asks the question everyone should be asking: Where's the money?  Iraq's an oil rich nation that raises enough in oil each year to turn every Iraqi citizen into a billionaire.  So why do the people suffer?  Kulab notes:

Oil accounts for roughly 85-90% of state revenue. This year’s federal budget anticipated $79 billion in oil money based on projected exports of 3.88 million barrels per day at a price of $56 a barrel. Iraq’s economy improved in 2019 due to an increase in oil production, and GDP growth is expected to grow by 4.6% by the end of the year, according to the World Bank.
The fruits of these riches are rarely seen by the average Iraqi because of financial mismanagement, bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, experts and officials told The Associated Press. Overall unemployment is around 11% while 22% of the population lives in poverty, according to World Bank estimates. A striking one-third of Iraqi youth are without jobs.


Corruption is one of the things the protesters are calling for an end to.  A large number of Iraqis who fled Iraq decades ago have returned following the 2003 US-led invasion and the US turned them into politicians.  They ended up rich far more than anyone could imagine.  How so?  Corruption.  Nouri al-Maliki's son is seen as the poster child of corruption, in fact.

Changing topics.  Two weekends ago, Sabah al Mahdawi disappeared.  The activist and journalist was providing medical assistance to the protesters in Baghdad.





  1.  18 hours ago
, a protester who was kidnapped while going back home from Tahrir Square, is released. I am so happy that she got back home safe between her family and love ones but I can’t even begin to imagine how traumatizing this must have been to her.
 
 
THE NATIONAL's journalist Mina Aldroubi confirms the release.


 6 minutes ago
Iraq's Sabah Al Mahdawi, who highlight the role of shadowy forces in the government’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators, has now returned home. But the fate of those that had gone missing since began last month remains unknown.
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