Thursday, October 01, 2020

What Glen Ford said

Important column from Glen Ford (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):

The rich man’s media are calling it “the worst debate in modern American history,” but that’s because the truth is often painful to watch. The Biden-Trump confrontation revealed, with crystalline clarity, that the real “genius” of the American electoral process is its total imperviousness to popular demands for a healthier, more just and less economically precarious society and a peaceful, ecologically stable world. Instead, the Democratic alternative to the white supremacist Republican in the White House is — another lifelong racist, mass-incarcerating, corporate-serving, warmongering old white man.

“The party is me, right now. I am the Democratic Party,” Joe Biden shot back at the “clown” Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to associate the former vice president with the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and Black Lives Matter demands to rein in the police — all issues supported by super-majorities of Democrats, and even large chunks of Republican voters, but opposed by the candidate now representing the Party.

“You just lost the left,” Trump twice hollered, wishfully. In an actual democracy the Democrats would, indeed, have committed political suicide by nominating a corporate hack and career race-baiter like Biden as their standard-bearer. But the U.S. is a corporate dictatorship where the rich have two parties and the rest of us effectively have none.

The voters that Trump referred to in the debate as “the left,” are actually at the center of the U.S. political spectrum, where super-majorities favor the positions taken by Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Exit polls in South Carolina and on “Super Tuesday” showed that the same Democrats that voted for Joe Biden nevertheless favored Sanders’ positions on the issues, but opted for Biden in fear of Trump and his rabid White Man’s Party. It’s a simple formula that allows Democrats to promise their base nothing — except that they are not Trump or some other flagrant racist.

“The U.S. is a corporate dictatorship where the rich have two parties and the rest of us effectively have none.”

The trick will continue to work until voters, especially Blacks, stop rewarding Democrats for their serial betrayals. There is nothing smart or “strategic” about falling for the same trick every election cycle – and anybody that tells you different is in on the con game.

Joe Biden is only the answer if the question is: How do we destroy ourselves?

We really need to fight for our own interests and also grasp that corporate bought political parties are not going to deliver anything of real value.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, October 1, 2020. A presidential candidate reveals himself to be a fake ass and more on the debates.

Starting in the US. First off, Joseph Kishore. As I note during election year, my time is valuable. I cover you until you reveal you're a fake ass. Then I don't have time for you. Trina's going to be writing about Kishore tonight and I'll link to it in Friday's snapshot. He's a fake ass.

You either do what your supposed to do or you don't. In this case, you didn't. I didn't create the SEP platform. I didn't sign off on. If their candidate cannot follow their platform, that's on them and their candidate and I don't have the damn time. I was already wasting too much time every Friday searching wildly for anything that week -- the entire week -- that fake ass Kishore had done that we could note here to include him as one of the people running for president.

Jo Jorgensen deserves to be included in the debates. I have argued that all should be. But my argument gets really weak when a fake ass can't run a campaign well enough to issue at least one statement or one video a week. People in all fifty states can vote for Jo Jorgensen. She has her ballot access.

Equally true that she, the Green Party's Howie Hawkins and PSL's Gloria La Riva are running real campaigns.

In 2024, if the SEP cannot get a candidate who can do a minimum of one video a week -- as opposed to Kishore one every two months? -- then they don't need to run a campaign.

And let's also be clear, you're copyrighted articles at WSWS do not count as press releases so stop linking to them as such from your inactive and lazy campaign site.

I will champion the right of people who make real runs for the office. I will do my best to include them. Joseph Kishore is not a real candidate. He's another Dennis Kucinich who play acts at being a candidate and then gives delegates away in Iowa only to later whine, "The press isn't covering me." No, they not going to. Once you care so little about your campaign that you send your supporters over to another candidate, you're not really running for anything. And we all have limited time so we don't have time your fake ass.

As a candidate, Joseph Kishore has now demonstrated he's a fake ass. We'll link to Trina's piece tomorrow. Back to the debate. I'll grab this because I know Trina isn't planning to. Donald Trump's taxes.

They don't matter. Here's Jimmy Dore.

Moon of Alabama via INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE:

It essentially says:

Trump is a quite rich international real estate investor.
U.S. tax laws allow investors to minimize their reported income by claiming various kinds of deprecations and other gimmicks.
Tax regulations that allows investors to carry forward leftover losses to reduce taxes in future years are especially helpful.
Trump has good accountants and tax lawyers and has used the laws to their full extent to minimize his tax payments.

Is any of the above something we did not already knew?

What the Times story does NOT say is:

Trump's tax record reveal that he did something illegal.

The paper had surely hoped for more. It must have been especially bitter for its authors to write this paragraph:

By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.

This is a dud. It is certainly not the campaign ammunition the Democrats had hoped for.

Where's WSWS on this?

It's news -- to them -- when they aren't tops in a GOOGLE search result. It's news -- to them -- when there are efforts to disappear them online. The media's unfair -- they cry then. But only for them.

We've been here for 16 years next month. Go find the entry where I'm whining about this site.

ALTERNET delinked from us. I did note that. Because I publicly told them to because of their writers were bullying a young teenager.

Other than that?

Nothing up here. Nothing about why the backup sites that I did are no longer posting. The reason is because there was an effort to influence our GOOGLE status by referring to those. Which is why I no longer post content there. There have bene so many attacks and so many efforts to just shut this tie up -- including legal threats. And I just keep going and don't try to make it about me or this site.

I do not dislike Zach Haller. I think he's a strong voice for the right. If I read him, he makes me think about where I stand on the left and that's the best thing you can say about a political writer. I have called him out only once and that was when a year after the fact he's still got a pinned Tweet (he changed in August finally) about his being censored. Again, he's got a new pinned Tweet and thank goodness. But what's WSWS' excuse. They only care when it's them?

THE NEW YORK TIMES article was supposed to be an "October surprise." It was a smear job and a hit job. It was the media working together to determine the election.

I'm not voting for Donald Trump. That doesn't mean I applaud organized efforts by the press to determine the outcome of the election.

Donald Trump paid very little taxes, the article argues. But that's not illegal. He apparently followed the tax code. Did he create the code? No. He was not in the White House nor was he in Congress. Joe Biden cannot say the same.

The only thing worse than THE NEW YORK TIMES is THE GUARDIAN. They run with anything to undercut Trump. They do that because they have no real reporters. Martin Chulov got bullied by Nouri al-Maliki and was never the same -- boo hoo.

And the rest are opinion writers who often try to pass themselves off as objective news reporters. They are not.

THE GUARDIAN offered a stupid report that's stupid on so many levels. First off, butt the hell out of the US election. Truly, do you see the US involving itself in whether or not this or that person becomes prime minister of the UK?

Apparently, the UK is such a tiny pond and their writers have such a case of penis envy that they have to obsess over the US.

Which is how you get the garbage 'report' of US workers who are outraged by Donald because of his taxes.

Grow the f**king hell up. Outside of some rabid know-nothing, no one's having a fit. Most Americans do not like paying taxes to begin with. If Donald broke the law, people would be outraged. He followed the law and got off via loopholes that the Congress created?

Only the politically stupid would be outraged at him over that.

But THE GUARDIAN exist to, week after week, try to chip away at support for Donald Trump. That's disgusting and that's disgusting if they're a US publication. They're a foreign publication and they're vile and disgusting.

Now they could call out US policies -- under Donald or anyone -- and that could be effective reporting. But they won't do that, will they?

Remember, THE TIMES OF LONDON broke the news of the Downing Street Memos. In the US, you may remember, we were outraged that our press wouldn't cover those memos. But, reality, THE GUARDIAN never covered them either. Nor did the rag try to stop the Iraq War. Tony Blair was for it and, neo-liberal, NEW LABOUR organ that it is, it went right along.

There is a lot of messaging going on right now in the media. That's why your partisan blogs read like MSM -- and vice versa -- over recent allegations about Hillary Clinton. Even the headlines were similar. Just by chance, right?

No. You've got an organized messaging system taking place right now and it'll be exposed later on just like JOURNOLIST was.

There are real issues and Donald Trump's tax returns were never a real issue.

Want to talk about the tax code and Congress? Let's cover that. Real issue.

But the press working overtime to take down Donald Trump is not a reflection on Donald, it's a sign of how corrupt they are and how much disregard that they have for the public.

Remember that Katha Pollitt is a whore. She's a racist whore, yes. But she's a whore. She saw Sarah Palin speak at the GOP convention and took to JOURNOLIST to complain about how effective she felt Sarah was and how she felt Sarah was connecting with voters.

Now Katha's paid to share her opinions with readers of THE NATION. But that opinion never made it into print. Instead, she whored and attacked. We know what she really thought because JOURNOLIST got leaked. But if THE NATION was a credible outlet, they would have immediately fired her when the JOURNOLIST was exposed because how can they -- or their readers -- trust someone who they now knew lied in an opinion piece?

Now she's a racist. African-American writers have always known that. Alice Walker is not the only one Katha's attacked in a NYT review. She's a racist. That's why, when at the start of the '00s, the NAACP was rightly calling out the lack of people of color on TV programs, Katha, in her racist huff, felt the need to lecture the NAACP and tell them that there were more important matters.

She's an ugly person and she's still got a job. She's useless and she's ugly and THE NATION keeps her on the payroll while a small group of White feminists rally round her like she's Edna Garrett and they're THE FACTS OF LIFE gals.

The press is corrupt and it always has been. Katha's been a racist for years. She signed off on that racist letter this year and, even then, notice she wasn't called out.

Supposedly, on the left, we care so much about racism. We want to end it. But we're too scared to even call out an elderly, fat White woman for her long history of racism.

The debate coverage goes to the corruption of the press. Ruth's "It was the Dog Faced Pony Boy that started the interruptions" went up. She's right. It was Joe Biden who first started interrupting and cutting off Donald Trump. But how the press has painted Senile Joe as the victim.

And when this happens, go watch the debate again, moderator Chris Wallace encourages it.

The debate failed to cover serious issues. War was not on the table. Though Joe did try to self-servingly bring up his dead son again. Trump cut him off, thankfully. Beau serving -- briefly -- in the Iraq War does not mitigate your role in the Iraq War. You stifled debate, you attacked people who were against the Iraq War, you voted for it and then, long after you knew better, you continued to support the war. In April 2008, you noted that Nouri al-Maliki was a thug (without using the term -- only Hillary Clinton had the guts to call him that with that term in April of 2008) and you noted that his government had no support among the Iraqi people and that US troops were being used to keep him in place. Those were solid observations. However, two years later, you didn't care about any of that. The Iraqi people voted Nouri out in the 2010 elections. He refused to step down -- as US Gen Ray Odierno warned could happen. Instead of backing the winner and ensuring that Iraqis had trust in this new voting system (that was imposed on them, not created by them) and that democracy could flourish in Iraq, Joe overturned that vote with The Erbil Agreement.

What Beau did or didn't do -- this is where I could float some truths about Beau but won't -- is not pertinent. What is pertinent is what Joe Biden did.

And if he wants to talk about support for the troops, I'm sorry Senator Tammy Duckworth, where's your critique? Candidate Wheezy? She's slammed Donald Trump for not serving in Vietnam. Joe didn't. Despite playing baseball and football in high school and college, he was too 'sickly' from asthma to serve in Vietnam. And then he got those deferments -- I mean children. Saint Joe did not father children to stay out of the war, no one ever did, right?

I didn't support the war on Vietnam and don't feel anyone should have been sent there. But Joe did -- after the fact, after it was over and his cowardly ass couldn't be sent there.

Throughout the debate, Chris Wallace offered opinions that he passed off as facts -- he did that with Joe and with Donald. It was disgusting. "I guess I'm debating you and not him," Donald said at one point and he was right. The moderator is not running for president, the moderator's opinions are not important or necessary.

The questions? We could have had more if Chris wasn't so enthralled at the sound of his own voice. Where was gender in the debate? Old White Man Chris asked Old White Men Joe and Donald a ton of questions. He didn't ask about assault -- because both Joe and Donald have been accused of it? -- and he didn't ask about domestic violence. Poverty and healthcare are issues that overwhelming effect women -- especially single mothers -- but there was nothing that indicated that in the debate. Healthcare was reduced to pre-existing conditions.

Candidates may choose to run issue-less campaigns and stand for nothing. That's no excuse for the media to go along with it. The moderator needed real questions and offered none.

In Iraq, the war continues. Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM):

During September at least 104 people were killed across Iraq, and 114 more were wounded. A mass grave also gave up 21 victims. The toll from August was 102 dead and 134 wounded.

Rebecca's "nora barrows-friedman" just went up. In addition, the following sites updated:

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Jupiter

Science post time. Rafi Letzter (LIVE SCIENCE) reports:

If life does exist on Venus, NASA may have first detected it back in 1978. But the finding went unnoticed for 42 years.

Life on Venus is still a long shot. But there's reason to take the idea seriously. On Sept. 14, a team of scientists made a bombshell announcement in the journal Nature Astronomy: Using telescopes, they'd detected phosphine, a toxic gas long proposed as a possible sign of alien microbial life, in the upper part of the planet's thick atmosphere. The detection was a landmark in the long hunt for life elsewhere in the solar system, which has mostly focused attention on Mars and a few moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Meanwhile, Venus, hot and poisonous, was long considered too inhospitable for anything to survive. But now, digging through archival NASA data, Rakesh Mogul, a biochemist at Cal Poly Pomona in California, and colleagues have found a hint of phosphine picked up by Pioneer 13 — a probe that reached Venus in December 1978.

Some basics on Jupiter from NASA:

Jupiter has a long history surprising scientists—all the way back to 1610 when Galileo Galilei found the first moons beyond Earth. That discovery changed the way we see the universe.

Fifth in line from the Sun, Jupiter is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.

Jupiter's familiar stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.

One spacecraft — NASA's Juno orbiter — is currently exploring this giant world.

And here's some views of Jupiter.

DAILY MAIL offers these bullet points about Jupiter:

Venus is thought to have a cooler climate and flowing water billions of years ago
It is now raging with volcanoes and filled with clouds of sulfuric acid
A new study suggests the hellish world was created by Jupiter
As Jupiter was forming, it would move closer towards the sun and back
This would tug on Venus, causing a heating and cooling effect
The movement caused a dramatic change in Venus's climate

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, September 30, 2020. SON OF TRUMP: THE DEBATE.

Son of Trump. In the tradition of past sequels like THUNDERHEAD, SON OF FLICKA and THE SON OF MONTE CRISTO and SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, last night a new film was delivered: SON OF TRUMP.

Chris Wallace moderated a debate between US President and GOP nominee Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden. No others were invited -- not the Green Party's Howie Hawkins, not the SEP's Joseph Kishore, not the PSL's Gloria La Riva and not the Libertarian Party's Jo Jorgensen.

It was just Donald and Joe. Or Donald and Donald Jr. We'll get back to it.

Chris Wallace did not try to fact check. Thank goodness. Big boned Candy Crawley ending her sad career in disgrace as a result of her 'fact checks' which, as she herself admitted on CNN immediately after she completed 'moderating,' were incorrect. The moderator's job is to keep the debate going. It is the job of the candidates on the stage to hold one another accountable. So at least Chris avoided that nonsense.

Donald Trump won the debate.

One of the reasons for that is Chris Wallace. Both candidates interrupted one another throughout the debate, both spoke snide remarks while the other was speaking. Chris, at one point, corrected Donald Trump who then noted Joe was doing the same thing and Chris replied that Donald was doing it more.

A friend who was -- and still is -- planning to vote for Joe said that moment stood out to him (a well known liberal comic). Why? Because it was unfair and reminded him of high school. He was a class clown. He was not the only one. He sat with four others and a high school English teacher would always call him out. It might be any of the other three but she would always single him out. In part, it was because the other three included the superintendent's son. But it wasn't fair.

And Chris Wallace, in that moment, made this anti-Trump ("I hated him with all my heart") feel sorry for Donald Trump.

Fairness is something Americans count on. And that wasn't a fair moment. When Donald said Joe was doing it to, it was up to Chris to call them both out.

And Joe was doing it too.

Which is how we got SON OF TRUMP.

The bar for Joe was never going to be that high. Going into the debate, we all knew Joe was going to lie and the media would look the other way or rush to say it didn't matter. We all knew that the media would ignore Joe's mental issues and they did. On the latter, for example, no one's reporting over Joe, in the debate, confusing Medicare and Medicaid. On the former?

Camille Caldera (USA TODAY) claims to fact check whether or not Joe Biden called US troops "stupid bastards." She concludes:

Based on our research, the claim that former Vice President Joe Biden called the troops "stupid bastards" is missing context. Biden did make the remark in 2016 as part of a call to applaud a fellow soldier. It was a joke, per a spokesperson for his campaign. During the same speech, he praised the troops as the "finest generation of warriors" in the world and thanked them for their "incredible sacrifices."

Camille is missing context and demonstrating that she can't fact check -- either she's an idiot or she's a partisan who can't control her whoring.

In the debate, Donald stated Joe called the troops "stupid bastards." Camille tells you he did but it was supposed to be a joke. What's the liar leaving out?

The most important thing.

Joe didn't keep his mouth shut. Joe responded to Donald that it never happened, that he never said it.

That's the claim that Joe presented. He didn't say, "I was joking." He didn't insist, "I said it but . . ." He said he didn't say it.

That would be lying. Lying Camille, like what you do with your fact check.

That's not fair and, again, when people aren't fair in their treatment of Donald, it helps him.

The media's reputation is in the sewer. And it belongs there. They lied about the Iraq War, they lied for eight years insisting there were no scandals in the Barack Obama administration (Lois Lerner, Eric Holder being in contempt of Congress, Solyndra's half a billion unpaid loan that should never have happened to begin with, etc.). Barack employed the media and their spouses. In Ben Rhodes case (a disgusting piece of filth, Ben Rhodes), the brother of the CBS NEWS president David Rhodes. It was all across the board -- every element of the media. At THE NATION, for example, they let Chris Hayes cover the White House. No. His wife was -- oh, I'm being told that CRAPAPEDIA has scrubbed Chris' entry. To read it, you don't know now that his wife worked for the White House. That's okay, the whores of CRAPAPEDIA are not the final word. We can go to Barack's archived White House pages and grab the information:

For Immediate Release

January 28, 2009

President Obama Announces Key Additions to the Office of the White House Counsel

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced more key members of the Office of the White House Counsel, including Deputy Counsels and Special Counsel, Associate Counsels, Deputy Associate Counsels, Research Director, and Staff Assistants and Administrative Assistants. The full list of appointees named today is below.

President Barack Obama said, "The White House Counsel’s office is tasked with making sure that we are operating under the highest standard of ethics and transparency for the American people. Ensuring that we have an open and honest government is one of our top priorities, and this team brings together people of exceptional experience and dedication to public service. I trust they will serve the American people well."

The following announcements were made today:

Deputy Counsels and Special Counsel

Daniel Meltzer

The President has named Daniel Meltzer to be Principal Deputy White House Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President. Mr. Meltzer is the Story Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Vice Dean for Physical Planning. He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School in 1982, teaching courses in federal courts, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Prior to his tenure at Harvard, Mr. Meltzer served as Special Assistant to Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and, after leaving the government, practiced law for three years at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. Earlier, Mr. Meltzer served as a Law Clerk to the Judge Carl McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Meltzer earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as President of the Harvard Law Review and was awarded the Fay Diploma. From 1988-1992, he served as Associate Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, Iran-Contra Prosecution. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served as a member of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Judicial Conference of the United States and on the Council of the American Law Institute.

Mary DeRosa

The President has named Mary DeRosa to be Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council. Ms. DeRosa most recently served as Chief Counsel for National Security to the Senate Judiciary Committee, working for the Chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy. Prior to that, she was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Earlier, she served on the Clinton Administration National Security Council staff as Special Assistant to the President and Legal Adviser and Deputy Legal Adviser. She has also been Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the Department of Defense and an Associate in the Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles offices of Arnold & Porter. Ms. DeRosa served as a Law Clerk for Judge Richard J. Cardamone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, where she served as an editor of the George Washington Law Review.

Neal Wolin

The President has named Neal Wolin to be Deputy Counsel to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Assistant to the President. Mr. Wolin most recently served as the President and Chief Operating Officer for Property and Casualty operations of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Wolin worked as Executive Vice President and General Counsel to the Hartford Financial Services Group. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wolin served as the general counsel of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Mr. Wolin served in the White House as the executive assistant to National Security Advisor Anthony Lake. Prior to that, Mr. Wolin was the deputy legal adviser of the National Security Council, providing foreign affairs and national security legal advice to the National Security Advisor and the Counsel to the President. Mr. Wolin has also served as special assistant to three directors of Central Intelligence: William H. Webster, Robert M. Gates, and R. James Woolsey. Before joining the federal government, Mr. Wolin practiced law in Washington D.C. with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering, and as Law Clerk for Judge Eugene H. Nickerson of the Eastern District of New York. Mr. Wolin received a bachelor’s degree from Yale College, a Masters degree from the University of Oxford, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Norman L. Eisen

The President has named Norman L. Eisen to be Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform. Mr. Eisen most recently served as the Deputy General Counsel to the Transition, where his duties include serving as lead ethics advisor. He will reprise that ethics role in the White House, as well as helping to advance the President's overall government reform agenda. Before joining the Transition, Mr. Eisen was a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington D.C. acting as outside counsel to governmental clients in a wide array of matters. He also handled white-collar and Congressional investigations during his 17 years at the firm. He is the co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a progressive government watchdog group. Mr. Eisen received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Associate Counsels

Kendall C. Burman

The President has named Kendall C. Burman to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Burman most recently served as Chief Staff Counsel to the Obama for America campaign. Earlier in her career, she served as an Associate at Latham & Watkins, LLP. Ms. Burman received her bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.

Susan Davies

The President has named Susan Davies to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Davies recently served as General Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Earlier in her career, she served in the Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Office of Policy Development. Prior to that, Mrs. Davies worked as a litigator at Sidley and Austin in Chicago. Ms. Davies also served as a Law Clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton. Ms. Davies received her bachelor's degree from Yale University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.

Karen Dunn

The President has named Karen Dunn to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Dunn most recently served as Deputy to Chief Strategist David Axelrod on the Obama for America campaign. Prior to that, Ms. Dunn served as a Law Clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Earlier in her career, Ms. Dunn worked for Senate candidate and then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as her press secretary and later as her communications director and a senior adviser. Prior to that, Ms. Dunn served as an aide to Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey. She received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Danielle Gray

The President has named Danielle C. Gray to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Gray recently served as Deputy Policy Director for Obama for America, focusing on domestic policy as well as law and judicial issues. Prior to this, she was an associate with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York. Earlier in her career, she served as a Law Clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Merrick Garland on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She also worked on the policy and research staff of the President-elect's 2004 United States Senate campaign. Ms. Gray received her bachelor's degree from Duke University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Michael Gottlieb

The President has named Michael J. Gottlieb to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Gottlieb recently served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Prior to this, he was an associate with the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Gottlieb received his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Roberto J. Gonzalez

The President has named Roberto Gonzalez to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Gonzalez recently served as an associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States and a Law Clerk to Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Gonzalez received his bachelor's degree from Duke University and his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he served as an editor of the Stanford Law Review.

Virginia Canter

The President has named Virginia Canter to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Canter most recently served as Associate Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Department of the Treasury. Earlier in her career, Ms. Canter was Senior Ethics Counsel at the Department of the Treasury, General Counsel of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Associate Counsel to President Clinton, and Assistant Ethics Counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ms. Canter received both her bachelor’s degree and her J.D. from the University of Baltimore.

Caroline Krass

The President has named Caroline Krass to be Associate Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs. Ms. Krass recently served as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Prior to this, she served as Deputy Legal Adviser at the National Security Council. Earlier in her career, she served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the National Security Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Ms. Krass also worked as an Attorney Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel, as the Special Assistant to the General Counsel at the Department of the Treasury, and as an Attorney Advisor at the Department of State. Ms. Krass served as a Law Clerk to Judge Patricia M. Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ms. Krass received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale University, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Jonathan Kravis

The President has named Jonathan Kravis to be Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Kravis recently served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Prior to this, he was an associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Kravis received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Trevor Morrison

The President has named Trevor Morrison to be Associate Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs. Mr. Morrison is on leave from Columbia Law School, where he is a Professor of Law. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Betty Binns Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Morrison received his bachelor's degree from the University of British Columbia and his J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Alison J. Nathan

The President has named Alison J. Nathan to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Nathan was recently the Fritz Alexander Fellow at New York University School of Law and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fordham Law School. Prior to academia, Ms. Nathan was an associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. She served a Law Clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Ms. Nathan was the National Voter Protection Senior Advisor to the Obama campaign and a member of the campaign’s LGBT Advisory Committee. Ms. Nathan received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her J.D. from Cornell Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Law Review.

Kate Shaw

The President has named Kate Shaw to be Associate Counsel to the President. Ms. Shaw most recently served as an Associate Counsel in the office of the General Counsel to the Transition. Prior to this, Ms. Shaw served as a Law Clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Ms. Shaw received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Northwestern University Law Review.

And we can stop right there because Kate Shaw is Chris Hayes' wife. January 20, 2009 he was sworn in and eight days later he announces Kate Shaw's in his administration. Which means the transition team had already vetted her. Which means Chris Hayes should not have been allowed cover any White House story or issue for THE NATION. That's not me slamming Chris. I don't think he was swayed by his wife's position. But I shouldn't have to think about it. Even if there's no conflict of interest, the appearance of a conflict of interest was there. That's why NPR, for years and years, would not allow Michele Norris (ALL THINGS CONSIDERED host from 2002 to 2011) to cover various topics because her husband Broderick D. Johnson because of his various positions (in the Clinton administration, in the Obama administration, etc.)

The press repeatedly lied for Barack. Sometimes it was because he screamed and yelled at them -- or his minions did. And sometimes they'd get honest as they retired.

Oh, look, here's ABC NEWS' Ann Compton, retiring in 2014, talking about Barack's tantrums.

Please be clear that while she was the working press, while she was covering the White House for ABC NEWS, she never made these statements. She never reported those facts.

Barack got a free ride. That's the reality.

Barack born in Kenya?

Bob Somerby loves to lie and pretend that Donald Trump started that.

Barack Obama, THREE RIVERS PRESS (TIMES BOOKS, a book imprint of THE NEW YORK TIMES, was the original publisher but we're talking an article by AP when Barack was running for the US Senate and THREE RIVERS PRESS is the publisher that re-issued the book in 2004) and AP started that rumor. Add GOOGLE to it. In 2008, as Americans were beginning to discover Barack -- Hillary had seemed inevitable to many in 2007. In 2008, GOOGLE had some anniversary and allowed people to search old news items. (Later that year they would institute GOOGLE NEWS ARCHIVES which is still up but they no longer maintain.) It was then that the rumors of Barack being born in Kenya really took hold. People found the AP articles, the first ones written about Barack, and he was described as being from Kenya in the article. AP never issued a retraction or correction (to this day).

Did AP lie?

No. Their report may be inaccurate, but they didn't lie. They based that report on the press material for Barack's book DREAMS OF MY FATHER. That material was put out by THREE RIVERS PRESS. That material identified Barack as such.

Author Barack has to approve promotional material that the publisher releases. He was running for the Senate and apparently missed the mistake. But this whole controversy is on Barack and THREE RIVERS PRESS>

It's amazing how we can blame everyone but the press.

It's like with Jean Seberg. How many years online did I have to scream about NEWSWEEK before it finally got added to the record. The lie, when I came online, promoted by FAIR and every Indymedia outlet, was that Joyce Harber ran a blind item about Jean and Jean lost her baby as a result.

It was a lie. That was months prior. Jean went into the hospital when NEWSWEEK magazine ran an item claiming to have interviewed Jean -- they did not -- and telling the world that the child she was carrying was not her husband's -- now that didn't happen, I'm talking about the press, back then, if you were married and pregnant, end of story. Joyce Harber's item didn't mean a thing to Jean. The NEWSWEEK story did. And she and Romain sued NEWSWEEK and won and NEWSWEEK had to print an apology.

Janaury 3, 2006, at this site, I'm discussing Jean Seberg:

The first time I mentioned Jean Seberg a few months ago at The Third Estate Sunday Review a few members wrote to ask if I was sure what I was talking about -- the government spying on an actress? They did their own research and learned that, yes, it was true and that it went way beyond that. Someone asked at one point (the third or fourth time I'd mentioned Seberg) why I brought her up as opposed to others? That's a good question because there are a long list of victims (some who managed to continue their lives and some who weren't as fortunate).

We focus on the press here. And Seberg (Breathless is a good place to start if you never seen one of the films she made) is a solid example, to me anyway, of the problems with the press. Just to recap (and sorry for those who've followed comments at The Third Estate Sunday Review on this topic), Seberg is attacked by two press organs. The FBI wanted to plant a rumor about Seberg. She was an actress and she was also involved in politics. That included the Black Panthers which appeared to be a source of some of the "nervousness" about her (my term). (The reports from that period, clandestine spying by the FBI, the CIA and military intel, focus on any sexual aspect they can to the point that you visualize a bunch of prigs with their noses pressed to a bedroom window. There's a scene in Coming Home where Jane Fonda and Jon Voight are being spied upon and the comments focus on sex which is a good reflection of what the reports focused upon.)

So Seberg's on the enemy list (Nixon's) and she's spied upon. And the FBI floats the idea of planting a rumor that she's pregnant by a Black Panther in order to attempt to destroy her with the oft cited "middle America." At one point J. Edgar Hoover writes a memo saying not to go through with the plan. Either there are memos that were never released or someone elected to
act upon their own. So a blind item pops up in Joyce Haber's gossip column about an actress who's pregnant by a Black Panther. The item is written in such way that it could be any number of actresses (including Jane Fonda -- Seberg was married and living in Paris at the time) except for noting that the actress was filming a musical (that would be Paint Your Wagon).

Haber was the fall guy for that blind item in the eyes of many. But Haber didn't just come across the information. It was fed to her by her editor. Her editor, who claimed later that he couldn't recall anything about the matter, passed it to Haber by Bill Thomas who wrote on the tip that it came from a good source. He couldn't remember anything though when, in the seventies, it was revealed that the FBI had planned to plant a story like that with the press. When it came out in the seventies (as a result of the committees), Thomas struck the pose of "I don't remember." Haber was quite clear that she didn't take planted information from the FBI and, if this was planted information, Thomas was the one who needed to answer for it.

But, big surprise, everyone looked the other way. That shows you the problems with the press (mainstream) right there. But that's only the first example. Apparently the attempts to shock America over an interracial romance weren't completed. There were additional blind items. (And Nixon's staff, Erlichman, Mitchell, etc. received reports from Hoover that they presumably passed on in some form.) But then the "news organ" Newsweek, supposedly not a gossip rag, runs with it as well.

Edward Behr was the author of the piece. His claim is that he included at the end of the article to demonstrate his knowledge of the subject but didn't intend for it to be included. (It being that Seberg was pregnant by an African-American and not her husband, Romain Gary.) Behr may be genuine in his remarks because in his report that section was labeled "strictly FYI." Somehow (or "somehow") this false fact made it into Newsweek. The editor (Kermit Lansner) offered an excuse (my opinion, lame) that he hadn't checked the edition as he usually did because he'd had a scooter accident that day. (Late in the day, by the way. I'm thinking it was three or four o'clock, as Lansner told the story, when he had his scooter mishap.) True or not, the "fact" that Seberg was pregnant by "a black activist" makes it into Newsweek.

I'm sure that was just a coincidence. I'm sure that these coincidences just happen. It just happens that a rumor the FBI was interested in planting gets pushed onto Haber by her editor (Thomas) and it just happens that a false fact labeled "strictly FYI" ends up in Newsweek which did have fact checkers and was aware of the issue of libel. It didn't even run as a rumor, it ran as a fact in an item on Jean Seberg. I'm sure that all of that just magically happened and Nixon and his crowd were just, by magic, getting all the breaks when it came to this false story.

(Yes, that was sarcasm.)

When the Times (New York) ran a story about Jane Fonda and John Kerry in 2004, about the photo (doctored or genuine, I don't remember) people rolled their eyes because one of the claims (false) was that Fonda and Kerry were at another event together (the doctored photo).
Where Jane Fonda was in the early seventies should never be in question because the government recorded her every move. (Kerry was somewhere on the east coast. The undoctored photo was taken by Al Franken's brother, I believe, who immediately noted that the new one featuring Fonda and Kerry onstage together was a fake. To end this out, Fonda was in Los Angeles, as the FBI noted, at a fund raiser -- I believe for the Black Panthers.)

Now maybe the reporter who worked on that story for the Times suffered the same fate that so many did -- we expected would learn about COINTELPRO and other activities in their schooling and they didn't learn of it. Or maybe the reporter was just lazy. I don't know. But, my opinion, the false rumor never should have been floated in the paper in 2004 when it could have easily been dismissed via the government's own records.

I'm off on a tangent where even I've lost my place. But the point here is that Seberg was engaged in lawful activities protected by the Constitution. Those activities made the government nervous so she was (illegally) spied upon. The government floated the idea of creating false rumors about her and planting them with the press. (That happened also with a number of other actors, by the way.) And two large press organs, the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, just happened to print the items that the FBI was interested in having planted.

Just happened.

It's just a coincidence that the government's smear plan on Seberg makes it into the press.

If you're a trusting soul, I guess. And I guess I'm not. And that's why we don't highlight Newsweek here and why I don't purchase the magazine. Robert Parry has rightly documented serious problems (more than that) at the magazine in the eighties when he worked for it. That should be enough to bother many people. But it didn't start there and if it ended there . . .

This isn't "wild talk." I've not offered my own theories. This is public record. And it was embarrassing for the Los Angeles Times when it came out in the mid-seventies. I don't remember Newsweek being embarrassed. (I don't remember the Times being that embarrassed. If they had been, the Reagan defense of "I don't recall" wouldn't have flown.)

So that's why I focus on Seberg. She was on the enemies list (Nixon's), she was spied on by the government, Nixon received reports on her (via Ehrlichman), the FBI devised a smear campaign to attempt to shock "middle America" and devalue Seberg and that smear campaign appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. In terms of Harber's piece, it was a blind item (an obvious one). In terms of Newsweek, the magazine that never prints that an actor is gay or lesbian until they come out, they ran it as fact. And somehow no one thought that this was something worthy of checking out. It's interesting the way Nixon's interests were so well served by the mainstream press with regards to Seberg but, of course, it was all some big coincidence. That's what the story supposedly is. Like the supposed story on Valerie Plame is that the outing just happened without planning on the part of anyone.

We covered it many times after that (here when FAIR was lying).

They lie and they cover for themselves.

And they lied like crazy for Barack which is one of the reasons you ended up with Donald Trump.

They've always lied -- Marilyn Monroe killed herself because she didn't have a job anymore! No, she was already going to return to SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE. They lie constantly and the American people are sick of it.

They're lying now.

Joe Biden did not do well.

He had one job: Draw a line between himself and Trump.

All he had to do was appear mature and thoughtful.

Instead, he argued with Trump, he belittled him with insults, he interrupted him.

This is who we replace Trump with? Son of Trump.

Joe was a disaster. He lost.

When they go low, Michelle Obama said, we go high.

Well Joe didn't last night. Joe didn't just step into the gutter, he wallowed in the gutter -- with glee.

"The party is me," he insisted. Then heaven help us all.

Then he claimed that Roe v Wade was on the ballot. Questioned, he insisted, " It's on the ballot in the Court." No, it's settled law. And when Joe claims otherwise, he weakens it. Settled law is settled law. If you support Roe v Wade, that's the argument you make. The majority of adults in the US favor it. The decision was made decades ago. It's settled law. People who argue otherwise aren't arguing law, aren't arguing fact, they're weakening Roe v Wade.

I'm no where near done with this debate. I may do a brief entry tonight, otherwise we'll continue it in tomorrow's snapshot.

The following sites updated:

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