First up, I'm glad so many of you liked the joint-post:
It could have had a four author. I was mentioning that I wanted to highlight Diana Ross' new mix of "I Still Believe."
It came out last week. C.I.'s already noted it three times at THE COMMON ILLS and I was mentioning that to her, that I wanted to note it and wanted to do something more than just note it in a post here? She said that Wally and Cedric were trying to figure out a post with regards to Whoopi Goldberg's non-stop hatred of late and said I could see about doing a humor post with them and maybe Ann too that brought Diana into that and resulted in all four of us having the video at our sites.
I loved the idea.
And we were all more than fine with including C.I. in it but she said no, she didn't write a word so no, but that she loved it. I did too. I think it turned out well and I had a lot of fun working on that with Ann, Cedric and Wally.
I love Diana. She's been my favorite artist all my life. Love her in films (MAHOGANY, THE WIZ, DOUBLE PLATINUM, LADY SINGS THE BLUES and OUT OF DARKNESS) and I love her as a singer. I think THANK YOU is an amazing album and wish more people were checking it out.
From the time I was a little girl, I found her so fascinating, inspiring and glamorous.
If I could be any other person, it would probably be Diana Ross because she's so amazing.
She started out singing in the group The Supremes for MOTOWN. They were struggling until Berry Gordy decided the group worked best with Diana on lead. Then they went on to have countless hits including 12 number one pop hits. Diana went solo in 1970 and wrapped up 7 more number ones on the pop charts (that's including "We Are The World"). And, in the last few years, she's had four more number ones but on the dance charts.
She broke the color line over and over. She did that on TV and she did that in clubs. She was too popular and her talent forced doors open.
I knew she had been a first in many ways but only today -- in C.I.'s snapshot (in full below after my post) today, C.I. notes that Diana was the first Black woman to be a host on the Oscars. THis year, we have two: Wanda Sykes and Regina Hill. But Diana was the first.
That's usually the case and why she's not just a great artist and a legend but also a trail blazing pioneer. :D
Be sure to check out Ava and C.I.'s "TV: 'No one was looking after me!' (that includes you yourself)."
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Again, we look at the lies about the IRaq War -- and how Barack Obama has never been held accountable. Plus I've added a response regfarding some e-mails about the upcoming Oscars.
As we did yesterday, we'll again be noting Saif Ansari's bad piece at JACOBIN. His piece is the perfect example of how and why the Iraq War cotninues. Lies, selct truths, favoritism, omissions, all passed off as 'nothing but the truth.'
An e-mail Martha passed on to the public account yesterday included this:
So President Obama wasn't sure how he would have voted if he had been in Congess when the Iraq War took place, so what? He was anti-war and wanted to end the war before it started and after he it started. He never waivered and he did end the war.
Saif, is that you?
There's so much wrong with the stupidity in the quoted statements above.
First, yesterday's snapshot ended when it did because I was done dictating having gotten off the treadmill and having done my cool down so I was headed to the shower. On my end, there was the belief that this private conversation in a public sphere would not be confusing because we should all know what happened after he became president but apparently we're too invested in lying there as well.
Before we get to Barack as president -- and this is not a biography and will not cover every point -- let's drop back to before that.
Some idiots supported Barack because he was 'anti-war.' He was not.
Elaine covered this at her site, I covered it here. But for those late to the party, by several years, who want to pretend like they arrived on time . . .
I have always maintained I understood how someone could be taken in by Barack even if they were pro-peace. And I've explained how I was taken in.
Anyone who considered thmselves a friend of Barack's in Chicago back in the day, Elaine or I knew. Most of them, we both knew. The more radical they were politically, the more likely we knew them. (Note, they've all been discarded by Barack and that happened once he became president.) So we knew of Barack. Equally true, I've knwon Bobby Rush for decades. So I also knew that Barack wasn't who he pretended to be.
Fine, I don't care, I just wanted politicians who would end the war. He was going national. He was going to run for the US Senate. And because Elaine and I had money to donate, we were invited to one of his earliest fund raisers.
We chit and chatted and nodded with others present -- we knew over 2/3s of the room, and waited until we got our face time with Barack. Elaine immediately spoke of how illegal the war was and how we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. And she notes how the US troops need to come home. And 'anti-war' Barack? He informs us that US troops are on the ground now so it no longer matters. Huh?
He tries to move along the conversation with the fake ass charm that too many have fallen for but I stop him with a nicer equivlaent of "Bitch, what did you just say?" And he's quite clear that he's not for ending the war, it's started.
We had assumed we'd be writign checks ofr the maximum amount -- that our initial donation would be it for the primary race he'd be fighting (and, as it turned out, fighting dirty -- no one ever wants to note how Barack used sealed court records to destroy an opponent in the primary and again in the general). We went from, "Let's get him in the Senate!" to "get the f**k away from us." We left.
But prior to that moment of face to face time, it had been exciting. He was against the war, He was bi-racial and a fresh start ("fresh start" was especially popular among his Chicago friends that and "a new page"). We were taken in by the narrative. We knew better or should have, but we got taken in and that's how we ended up in Chicago.
But unlike a lot of idiots, when he showed us his true nature, that was it. We didnt' support him. We didnt' defend him.
Far too many people claimed he would end the war and that we had to vote for him. Even now they lie.
Barack didn't end the war. And while he promoted the lie that he wanted to in his 2007 and 2008 speeches, he didn't plan on it. Samantha Power -- despite John Nichols whoring for her -- did not leave Barack's campaign because she called Hillary Clinton a "monster." She'd already survived that and it didn't really matter. BArack was on camera flipping Hillary off. He was making sexist remarks about her constatntly and that didn't matter. he was putting 'converted gays' onstage, excuse me, ex-gays. That's who he was on the campaign trail and people lied for him and looked the other way for him. Self-laothing lesbian Laura Falnders gave him a pass on that. Remember her mantra, we will hold him accountable, just not now! COuldn't do it in the primary, she said. Had to line up behind him. But in the general election, we'd hold him accountable and make our demands. Then she never did that but insisted when he was in the White House . . . But she never did. She didn't defend immigrants when he beacme the deporter-in-chief, she defend We The People when his two terms saw that massive transfer of wealth from the people to the already rich. She never did anything.
At any rate, people should have woken up. Yes, their so-called 'leaders' failed them. Medea Benjmain, et al. Though Barack was voting for every war funding item, CODESTINK didn't bird dog him. CODESTINK did find a face of color to hide behind when they wanted to go after Hillary for being White. It was a rare moment when a CODESTINKER found the time to share a byline with an actual woman of color.
The whores lied to get him in the White House and then they continued to lie.
Just looking aback on it, it's appalling what they got away with. Hadn't planned to go into this but let's note that Barack was friends with someone who was once on the most wanted list -- the FBI most wanted list.
So the press lied for him and FAIR hissed in the most idiotic way possible and tried to insist that Barack was treated unfairly in a debte because he was asked about it.
The Weather Underground was a desiginated terrorist outlet. Do you believe that they were terrorists? Doesn't really matter. When someone's running for president -- especially while touting their supposed superior judgment, things like that do matter.
People have a right to ask. And Barack should have been, if he were truly left, able to talk about how a corrupt system went after the Weather Underground (the FBI did not need to steal a woman's panties for their investigation -- sickos).
In fact, a year before Barack began his run for the nomination, THE NATION had rolled out another attck on Weather Underground. We defended the group at THIRD. Toad Gitlin -- thankfully now dead -- was forever attacking the Weather Underground.
We saw them as a response to the times they were created in.
We also saw the sexism at play as everyone went on and on about Bill Ayers. I love Bernardine Dohrn to this day. I think she is a fascinating person. I still speak to her. I've never had any use for Bill. No one with any brains ever has. Bill was the arm candy, he was the trophy wife. Benardine was the leader. She didn't write a passive aggressive memoir -- one the media avoided in terms of what it said about them and how it explained some of them were in on what was taking place.
Bernardine would never write such a friviolous book. She was and remains a revolutionary. And I respect her. She led the Weather Underground. But, in 2008, the press couldn't grasp she was the power in the couple and focused constnatly on Bill. and they went with the lie Barack and his campaign told, their kids were in school together. That's how they knew each other.
No.
The Obama girls were not born in the 70s. But the press -- including THE GUARDIAN -- ran with that lie. Chease Boudin is 41 years old -- Bernadine and Bill raised him. Barack's oldest daughter is now 24. They did not go to school together. And heaven ehlp us all if the two had lseep overs back in tn 2008.
It was one lie after another. And people gobbled it up over and over. Because they chose to. At some point, when all the evidence is before you and you make the decision not to recognize it, you are choosing to be fooled.
Samana Power was not fired for calling Hillary a "monster." That moment had passed. It was what was coming. And we wrote about it the Friday it started coming out. And continued to write about it the next week. By contrast, after it came out, the day after, John Nichols ignored it and wrote a lie-filled column in which he even lied that Hillary and Samantha were friends. They were not. He was using the "monster" flap to distract from reality.
Reality was that Samantha had opened her big mouth to the BBC. Barack was claiming to be anti-war and saying he would pull US troops out of Iraq and would do so quickly. He gave a timeline. And the chief diplomatic expert in his campaign? She told the BBC that this promise wasn't a promise. They you had to say things to get elected but you weren't bound by them when elected. When Barack was elected, Samantha insisted, he would asses the situation in Iraq and then decide what he would do.
All the whores played dumb.
Many months later, the forever useless Tom Hayden -- oh, if only he'd lived long enough fo# #METOO -- emerged months later in July finally agnry -- momentarily -- about Barack and took THE HUFFING POST to huff about this March incident -- in July, he huffed. And pretend no one had known about it. And blame Hillary Clinton for that. SHe should have informed the world. Well, Tom, she did raise the issue. Her campaing rasied it repeatedly for over a week. Back in March of 2008, when it mattered. It was whores like yourself who stayed silent. Tom knew about it in real time. I have the e-mails form him where he was whining to me about my covering it here in real time and how I was hurting "the case."
Funny, he said that to me back in the 80s as well -- that I wa shurting "the cause." HOw so? By refusing his advances and making it clear that I would never, ever sleep with him.
Barack gave a very informative interview while he was running. It was to THE NEW YORK TIMES. War cheerleder Michael Gordon wrote it up. Most ignored the write up. It wasn't much to read. The transcript of the interview, however, was wroth reading and the paper published that online. It was covered in this "Iraq snapshot," and, at THIRD, we used the transcript to write what THE TIMES should have written "NYT: Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq." Read it, in his own words, read him saying that even if he pulls troops out, he's open to putting them back in.
He never ended the war.
All US troops did not leave. We covered the Senate hearing where the late Senator Kay Hagan made that point in real time. The press was there in full force but, strangely, they didn't cover the truth about what their little pet was actually doing. Ted Koppel did. On NPR and on NBC, he covered what was actually happening during the drawdown passed off as a withcrawl, he covered how many would be remaining, he had confirmation on camera from the military for the NBC report.
STrange, isn't it. This was his post-NIGHTLINE beginning. And it ended with those stories. First the NBC outlet was pulled fromt he airwaves, then the long-running NPR program hit the dust.
And we never really got reporting from Ted again.
But we covered those reports here at lenght. The NBC one? We covered it before it aired. REpeatedly. Then we covered it after it aired. And then we covered it for years aftwards.
Barack did not oversee a withdrawal. He oversaw a drawdown -- a reduction. That's not what he promised on the campaign trail but the press was happy to join him in lying about it.
In 2012, the idiot Mitt Romney was told that he needed to point this out. He was told that he needed to go for this because Barack was running with the lie that he'd kept his promises -- except of course for closing Guantamano Bay. He had withdrawn US forces from Iraq!!!!
Mitt was told by his chief advisor that this was where Barack was weak and this was what he needed to hit on.
But he didn't. Because he's trash and he always was trash.
This paragraph used to appear here a lot:
December 6, 2012, the Memorandum
of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of
Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department Defense of the United
States of America was signed. We covered it in the December 10th and December 11th
snapshots -- lots of luck finding coverage elsewhere including in media
outlets -- apparently there was some unstated agreement that everyone
would look the other way. It was similar to the silence that greeted Tim Arango's September 25th New York Times report which noted,
"Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
[US] General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations
soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and
help with intelligence."
September 25 of 2012. The election year. That's when Tim was able to get the truth into the paper of no record. Jill Abrramson was still the eidtor of the paper and she was insisting that no truth be in the paper about Barack, he had to be re-elected. Tim snuck that into a report on Syria. It ran buried in the middle of that piece. It should have been front page news but Jill repeatedly nixed it.
A year after the wisthrawal that wasn't, Barack was sending US troops back into Iraq. (Where they joined other US troops becuase all troops did not leave.)
That's the reality regarding Barack.
And if you stil l think he ended the (ongoing) war, that's on you for believing it now.
JACOBIN whores for him all this time later. Apparently, Laura Flanders, it's still not the time to hold Barack Obama accountable.
And that's how we ended up with the 19th anniversary of the ongoing IRaq War.
_________________________________
Added at 1:48 pm EST 3/22/22:
Shirley reports a number of e-mails to the public e-mail account insist that I wrote the above to avoid weighing in on Amy Schumer. Sorry, you're wrong.
I didn't have Amy on the mind at all. U dud bute nt tibgye ib /ant ub tge oast, She was maing a complete ass out of herself for over a year. But I said nothing because a firend had made a film with her and I wanted the film to do well (Goldie Hawn is the friend)> So Ignored her and didn't call her out for being a poor sport and getting NETFLIX to cahnge their ratings.
Sorry, Amy, no one likes you anymore. You were briefly a film star. And then you had to open that mouth of yours. You don't know anything and should frankly just sit down and close your mouth.
You are no longer a film star. You're even questionable as a film actress. That's because you have alienated so many people with your views that they never needed to know about.
You are a joke in the industry and that's why HULU is your last shot after the film career died, after the reality nonsense flopped.
ABC has gotten the Academy to elimat handing out some awards live because they think the problem is the long hours the broadcast runs. No. Ratings are down for the Oscars because of all the partisan nonsenset that's passed off as politics.
Her statements abouit 'going there' do not help the ratings. The first commercial featuring the three hosts was an embarrassment. Amy had all the lines and all the action. While Regina Hall -- an award winning actress -- and Wanda SYkes -- a comedian and actress of many years -- had to watch White failure act the fool. Are they co-hosts or her sidkicks?
Now Amy has said that the president of Ukraine should appear.
No.
Are you working for your cousin Chuck Schumer? Amy, you're not working for the Academy. As a member of the Academy, you are not working on my behalf.
You are trying to bring your partisan nonsense into a celebration of the arts.
The fact that we are not celebrating the arts in the broadcast is what has hurt rating.
Among other things, the man you want to bring to the Academy Awards night of honor is shutting down leftist outlets in Ukraine.
Forget everything else, Amy, that alone says no. Equally true, you may love him but he's not Nelson Mandela. Take your crush somewhere else. It does not belong on stage.
But more to the point, there was never a reason to say "Yes."
The Oscars are about art. And you clearly are not qualified to co-hsot because you don't grasp that.
We need to celebrate the arts. We do not need your current cause or your current nonsense.
That's Diana Ross with her latest mix of "I Still Believe" from her latest album THANK YOU.
Why am I noting that? Diana's a frined. It's a great song. I love THANK YOU> That is all true.
But there's another reason and goes to the failures of ABC and Amy.
It's great that Regina and Wanda are co-hsoting -- even if the commercials keep focusing on White Amy. This is big step.
It is not, however, the first and we need to celebrate the people who got us here. Diana Ross is the first woman of color to ever be a co-host of the Oscars. That should be pushed by aBC, that should be discussed and addressed. This is historic. I'm sure REgina will bring a full appreciaton of the arts in her duties as co-host. I look forward to Wanda cracking me up.
They got here because pioneers like Diana broke down the barriers. We should ignore White Amy and her patisan nonsense and celebrate Regina and Wanda while acknowledging all the men and women who came bfore and brougtht us to this point.
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The following sites updated:
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