Saturday, April 11, 2020

HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER

Thursday, ABC aired the latest episode of HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER.

Gabriel is the most forgettable character.  And he plays a part -- a big part -- in this week's episode.  I remembered what he did but I could not remember his name.  I had to look it up and that happens so often with him.  He really served no purpose on this show.  He's a plot point, not a character.

Okay, we now know who killed Asher.  That was the big point of the episode.

Annalise was back -- remember, the FBI grabbed her in Mexico.  She was in court, with Teagan as co-counsel.  The government was charging her with using a fake passport and pretending to be someone else.

Annalise knew these were holding charges and that the government was preparing for more so she and Teagan argued for all charges to be declared.

So they're going to get Annalise for everything -- including fire starter -- based on a childhood fire.  She wasn't the Firestarter but she knows who was.  And she knows that for the government to have that information, Nate had to turn it cover.

Annalise's mother is staying with her (Ciecly Tyson, who is 95, by the way) and she goes to Nate and tells him he needs to support Annalise.  He tells her she doesn't know everything that went down.

Michaela, Connor and Oliver know Annalise is back.  Is she the killer?  Does she know they made a deal against her?  She wants to see them.  They try to avoid it but the FBI says that they have to meet her and that if they don't they'll violate the plea agreement.

So they meet her and she's trying to figure out if they've turned against her.  Oliver is the most vocal, by the way, in fighting back against Annalise.  Annalise says they're just mad that she left them when she left the country.

Asher's sister goes to see Gabe.  Gabe says he didn't see Asher that night.  Really, because he called his sister.  She hit redial on her phone and Gabe's phone rings.  He starts trying to tell her as little as possible -- remember, Asher gave Gabe that $60,000 check to use his phone.  He doesn't want her to tell anyone.  She tells him that it was the FBI who told her, they know.

Gabe runs to amend his statement with the FBI but pretends that Asher using his phone was all he didn't tell them.

Wrong.

He saw the murder.

He goes to Michaela, Connor and Oliver and tells them that Laurel was the killer.

He's wrong.  But they just kick him out.

He was peeking under his door into the hall -- wooden door in an old building with wooden floors, probably an inch gap under the door before the floor starts.

He saw Asher fall to the ground and the fire poker dropped.  He saw some of the woman's head as she walked down the stairs.

It's that woman who was following people and who tried to kill Bonnie, the one I think who works for Laurel's family.

Gabe goes back to the FBI to amend his statement.  Does he think it's Laurel?  He may, I wasn't clear.  But when he's telling the FBI guy that he knows who killed Asher, the guy calls for another agent to come in and, of course, it's that woman and Gabe recognizes her by her double ear piercings.

I think this was in the preview for next week but it may have been the end of the episode, Gabe told Michaela, Connor and Oliver that the FBI killed Asher.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Friday, April 10, 2020.  The betrayal.  The lies that surround it.  How these lies destroy us as a person, as a country.  Bernie betrayed us -- stop covering for him.


In the US, Bernie Sanders' betrayal is still fresh.  Jeffrey St. Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) offers the following bullet points:

+ Alexis Isabel pretty much sums up our current political predicament…

+ Coming Soon in Odorama: Scratch and Sniff: the Joe Biden Story. (When select theaters reopen.)

+ Did Sanders consult the Sandernistas on his surrender to the babbling racist neoliberal in the basement? Or did he make the call on his own, as he did during the 2016 convention, blindsiding his most devoted troops once more…
+ There’s always been some inexplicable mutual affection between Bernie and Biden that I’ve never really understood. It sure wasn’t there with Hillary, who he chastised and scolded to the convention. Perhaps they bonded through their obscene votes for the Clinton Crime Bill. That kind of transgression tends to bring even the most unlikely co-conspirators together…
+ Sanders on Biden: “He’s not going to adopt my platform. I got that, alright? But if he can move in that direction, I think people will say you know what, this is a guy I think who we should support and would support.”
You say you want a Revolution©, well ya know
That isn’t what I really meant
You say you want to end student debt
Put that $18 contribution toward your rent
You say you want free health care
Ain’t gonna to happen any more
But if you go carrying pix of Creepy Joe
We can do it over again in 2024

+ Sanders confirmed to Chris Hayes on MSDNC, what many of us suspected, that it was Obama who played the role negotiator, smooth-talking Sanders into disarming, walking away from his movement with his hands above his head and coming back in from the cold…


Laurie Dobson (COUNTERPUNCH) provides so much context on the betrayal:

In the end, this campaign was all about Bernie. This may not sound very charitable. I could not believe however, that there were no admissions of any missteps in his concession speech. No mention that he could have done more to address the concerns of many people.
For instance, although he said he was inclusive, he did not pay any particular regard to those not in the minority segments or youth age brackets that he was trying to romance. He would not stray from the talking points hammered into our brains, trying to burn a legacy into place, to make the case that he was the originator of these ideas, and, in my view, trying a little too hard to rewrite history.
His last speech as a contender showed him once more taking credit for these ideas becoming mainstream. Although he clearly was a defender, or at least a constant repeater of these ideas, was he helping “build a movement” by stamping his brand all over them? The progressive ideas that he embraced did not belong to him. Occupy was involved in income inequality long before Bernie hitched his wagon to that star.
Bernie did not come up with a tax on speculation on Wall Street (an idea that I supported in my run as an Independent from Maine for US Senate in 2008). It actually came from James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Prize. Tobin originated the concept of the STT (Securities Transaction Tax), which would be an optimal way to fight back against the tax breaks and cuts that Congress has showered on the rich for several decades. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1981/press-release/]
The fight for minimum wage has been a progressive effort since I was young, hardly a new idea. Not a Sanders idea, although to be fair, he has strongly endorsed the idea for a long time. The same goes for single payer, or healthcare for all. Others, notably Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) have fought these fights on behalf of the progressive cause.
Bernie adopted those ideas into the progressive platform he ran on. The need was evident, but the ideas are not new and are not his alone. Maybe he has fought for these things in the Senate, and as an Independent from Vermont, which would be a reasonable thing to do to stay in power, since they are among the most popular ideas for change in the country.
I am not impressed that Bernie could not summon the willpower to respond to the efforts of those who wanted him to go to battle. I wrote many columns trying to appeal to him to suit up. I attended ten of his campaign events in New Hampshire this time out and wrote and made videos to support his efforts from the beginning of this second campaign. I have tried to reach the campaign to no avail, to urge them to heighten their response and sharpen their attack on substandard candidates’ ideas.
Bernie was staggeringly passive; he let one opportunity after another go whizzing past with weak responses, if any, in the face of a growing Democratic resurgence determined to destroy him. His silences emboldened the corporate centrists, and confused supporters, who thought he would take the huge advantage they gave him and surge forth, brandishing fury and determination. Instead, he endlessly equivocated.
I have to own my part in this: I was stunned in 2016 when he said Hillary was right and that nobody cares about her damn emails. From the beginning I saw him back down. Everything since then has been consistent: he never went full tilt. He wanted to be loved more than being right at all costs. He was able to be loved again, and forgiven again, and able to let us down again. Yet I went along with it; I still worked on his behalf.

Despite his recent abdication (and, for some of us, his serial betrayal) Bernie Sanders will be remembered fondly, and he will likely be forgiven by the majority of his followers. Jacobin Magazine has written an article entitled “Thank You, Bernie,” making the case that Sanders two campaigns have made it possible to talk about socialism in America. It’s now okay apparently that he will be endorsing and campaigning for Joe Biden, who shamed Anita Hill and is now shaming Tara Reade. I have lived to witness the day this has happened. It is not a joke.



We'll note this Tweet:

My daughter is a 4th grade teacher with significant student debt working 3 jobs to survive but somehow managed to donate to
several times. Having him ‘suspend’ while #Biden is failing and 1/2 the states (including hers) yet to vote, is a HUGE GUT-PUNCH. Betrayal?

And this one:

Your inability to fight is proof that you were never truly committed to implementing the political revolution you have been talking about.

You signed the corporate welfare bill, stabbing progressives in the back.

This is the worst
betrayal in American history!




It's a betrayal.  I'll let others grade it on where it falls historically.  But Bernie's actions are a betrayal.  But it's not the only betrayal going on.  COMMON DREAMS?  They're still running garbage hailing Bernie -- the latest from Laura Flanders but she's is a craven liar.

There are too many liars.  Let's start with Laura.  She's unable to tell the truth.  She whores and pretties it up to keep a corrupt system going while insisting all along that we need to be informed and active.  Then stop lying.

We never fell for Russia-gate here and, in fact, we called out the demonizing of Russia back when it really went into effect and that was while Barack was president.  That was in 2014.  That's when it came out in the open.  So when 2016 rolled around, we weren't part of the nonsense.

Russia didn't steal the election from Hillary.  These were all lies.

And we noted it in real time.  And we noted a lot of writers who sent their stuff in to get it included here.  Some of these writers are lying now.  And I'm thinking of their e-mails to me which went much further than anything they published.

I'm thinking what a bunch of liars or fools you are.

The whole point of the Russia lie was so the DNC could evade responsibility for how they blew the 2016 election.

And shame on Neera and every other whore who tried to spin a lie instead of getting accountable and working to fix the problems.

Now if Aaron Mate (I'm using him for an example because he never e-mailed this site) is going to rail about how the autopsy on the failure was never done because people were vested in lies regarding the 2016 election, he's a hypocrite or he's blind to reality if he can't see that that's what's needed right now.  Aaron is writing goofball Tweets about Bernie and how wonderful he is and praise be Bernie.

F**k the hell off.

Truly.

Bernie betrayed everyone.

That's reality.

Stop rallying around him like Neera did Hillary.

If you want people to wake up and if you want them to be powerful and informed, stop lying.

We need to learn from the betrayal.  Unless we want to be engaged in a cycle of betrayals.

These lies about all Bernie has done for us -- he didn't do s**t.

He rode a movement in place based on needs of the people and, in the end, he sold them out.

That's reality, Aaron Mate.

And maybe you want to be beaten every day and spend all your spare time in the ER but the rest of us don't live to be battered by politicians.

We were betrayed.  If you can't be honest about that, there's no point in any of it.  You're as bad as Neera.  If you can't get honest about what happened so that a real and needed conversation can take place, you're as bad as Neera.

Politicians aren't my heroes.  They work for us.  I don't spend my time glorifying them.  And I certainly don't fall in love with politicians -- I'm not that depraved.

It's time for honesty.

Let's talk about one issue -- Bernie's refusal to fight.  It's why he dropped out, yes.  But in debate after debate, we saw him make nice with Joe Biden.

People said things online in real time, "Oh, get active, Bernie oh do this that blah blah blah blah blah."

It was nonsense.

Here's reality.  Next time we support a candidate who won't fight?  We make it clear that we're not their follower, we're their boss.

We call for a donation boycott until the candidate seriously fights on the debate stage.

That's the sort of thing we need to be talking about right now.

Can you imagine if we'd sent the message to Bernie early on that we were his boss?  Can you imagine the fear that he would have had if, even for two days, we stopped all donations?  He would have been crapping his pants.  He needed that haul to look like a real candidate.  Even two days of a boycott on donations would have scared him.  And should have.

We need to stop -- pay attention Aaron Mate, you clearly have Daddy issues -- looking up to our 'gods' who are false gods and we need to realize that they should be glorifying us, not the other way around.  They're not Daddy and you're not a child, grow the hell up.

People can't grow up -- not honestly -- if they don't know the facts and this b.s. pretense that Bernie was our savior and our hero and we owe him so much?

He betrayed us, we don't owe him a damn thing.  We never did.

Aaron Mate's current nonsense not only robs citizens of their agency, it puts them into a powerless and victim status and tells them that they don't deserve what they need.

I'm tired of the nonsesne.

When Tulsi Gabbard betrayed her supposed beliefs, we called her out. We led on it here.  We didn't do a day or two after -- like one asshole I was kind enough to give credit to -- we did it the night of and for days and days after.  We weren't little babies and we didn't tiptoe around like the asshole did who after I gave him credit here for his weakass nonsense, he went and credited a dead man for a piece from a year ago.

No, you stupid f**k, the issue was not, "Oh, look who was Psychic Sue and predicted everything a year ago!"

I don't need your crystal visions, you're not Stevie Nicks.

I don't care about your predictions of Tulsi.  When you made your prediction, you were guessing.

The issue was the last night of July found Tulsi on stage with War Hawk Joe Biden and she gave him a pass -- not once (as asshole wrote in his most recent piece) but twice.

That's when you call out Tulsi.

But they didn't, did they.  Glen Ford, after that debate, for example, did a segment on BLACK AGENDA RADIO where he praised Tulsi for being anti-war.

Huh?

Glen, you want to explain that?

Now Michael Tracey and Aaron Mate and all of the Tulsi Boobies wanted to spend weks and months after that debate avoiding reality.

Who the f**k did that help?

You Tulsi Boobies are the same people calling out Neera for her refusal to get honest and you couldn't get honest that Tulsi  betrayed every one of her beliefs in that debate as well as her stated reason for running in the first place.

We need to stop lying and we need to stop defending politicians.  They make choices and if they know we're going to run around after they betray us, that we're going to run around going, "Oh, I'm just so thankful that for a few months someone pretended to care about me"?  Then they're never going to change.

Bernie needs to be held accountable.

He betrayed everyone.

What his supporters wanted was real and we're not going to get that by sitting on our asses and waiting four more years for another candidate we can hero worship.

We're only going to get that if we demand it.  We're only going to get that if we demand our public servants start working for us.  We're only going to get that if future presidential nominees get right now that we're not going airbrush out truth and pretend that it's okay that we got betrayed.

I'm not going to live in fear and I'm not going to live in denial.

We are constantly screwed because we waste our time running defense for politicians.

We need to stop that.  From 2009 to 2016, the so-called 'independent' press (THE NATION, et al) was more concerned with painting this week's GOP Horror Creature each week than it was with holding Barack Obama accountable.  Week after week, the powers of the president were ignored so we could focus on this minor Republican or that one.  Barack was the president.  He was in charge.  But instead of holding him accountable, they distracted from what was taking place each week by offering b.s. nonsense about some minor player.

This happens over and over.

I like Elizabeth Holtzman but she's an idiot who lies to people.  We could have had real amnesty for draft evaders and AWOLs who went to Canada.  But there was Elizabeth, right after Jimmy Carter was elected, going on THE NEWSHOUR (PBS) and explaining that the evaders would be dealt with now and surely the AWOLs would be addressed later.

No, Liz, they never were.

And your prediction wasn't just false, it also gave everyone a sense of "Oh, we don't need to press on this issue anymore."

You did real damage and you did it to prop up a politician (Jimmy Carter) and to make life a little easier for him.  Why?

He got health care for life.  He gets a retirement fund for life.  He's set for life.

And we're footing the bills.

There was no need to make life 'comfortable' for him.  He should have been working and he should have been feeling real heat and real pressure.

The people we should have been defending, Liz?  The poor American citizens sent into a war on lies and betrayed by their country who self-checked out and went to Canada.  Jimmy was set for life after being president.  The same was never true for the war resisters.

We harm ourselves -- and our world -- over and over by defending these idiots.  We have an ongoing Iraq War -- that most of you want to ignore (I think I'll let rip on that in Monday's snapshot) -- because people wanted to defend their politicians.  They should have been voted out of office.  Instead, some idiots tried to justify the way their hero-politician voted.  "Well he wouldn't been re-elected . . ."

You have not put the fear of God into your elected officials.  Until you do, they will betray you and not give it a second thought because where else are you going to go -- that is their attitude.

It's time for these self-appointed voices of the people in independent media to either grow up or go away.

The fact that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee (unless he's pushed out for 'health' as a current effort is attempting) goes to how disgusting we are.  Not him.

Oh, he's a nightmare.  But we know he's a nightmare and have known that for years.

We're disgusting because we haven't made it clear to the Democratic Party that we're not slaves to them.

In 2004, the national ticket was John Kerry and John Edwards who both voted for the Iraq War.  In 2008, the national ticket was Barack and Joe with Joe having voted for the Iraq War (Barack wasn't in the Senate but in interviews after the fact did allow that he probably would have voted for the illegal war), in 2012 again Barack and Joe, in 2016 Hillary headed the ticket and she voted for the Iraq War.  Now in 2020, it's going to be Joe.

The biggest foreign policy disaster (and a war crime) in our modern history and yet every presidential election cycle since the war began in 2003 has found the Democratic Party's national ticket having at least one person who voted for the disaster, who supported it, who caused it.  This will be the fifth presidential election cycle and -- barring an upset at the convention -- this will be the fifth time the Democratic Party has put someone who voted for the Iraq War on the national ticket.

That's on us.  That's how disgusting we are.  The Iraq War is an ongoing crime.  The people of this country turned against the war in 2006.  Fourteen years later, the DNC still thinks it's okay to put someone who helped start that war on the national ticket.

We have spent too much defending politicians and justifying their actions and too little time acting like responsible -- and outraged -- citizens in a democracy.

Keep on lying for politicians and we'll be in the exact same spot in four more years.

The following sites updated:

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Saling monkeys landed in South America

CNN had the most interesting story.  It's about how monkeys went from one area to another across the Atlantic Ocean.  Katie Hunt (CNN) reports:


A crew of now-extinct monkeys made a treacherous transatlantic journey on a natural raft from Africa to settle in South America around 35 million years ago, according to a study of fossilized teeth found in Peru.
It's believed the prehistoric Ucayalipithecus monkeys made the more than 900-mile trip across the Atlantic (a narrower ocean at the time) on floating islands of vegetation that broke off from coastlines, possibly during a tropical storm.
"It would have been extremely difficult, though very small animals the size of Ucayalipithecus would be at an advantage over larger mammals in such a situation, because they would have needed less of the food and water that their raft of vegetation could have provided," said lead author Erik Seiffert, a professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. The study published Thursday in the journal Science.
"This is presumably why most of these overwater dispersal events that we know of in the fossil record involve very small animals," Seiffert said.

Marc Godinot (SCIENCE) covers the story. Riley Black (SMITHSONIAN) adds:

The sudden appearance of Ucayalipithecus in South America, far from its closest relatives in prehistoric Africa, hints that these monkeys the same sort of transatlantic journey that the ancestors of New World monkeys must have endured. No, these primates were not lashing together rafts and intentionally setting sail for uncharted territories. The process was entirely accidental, relying on luck and the fact that the world was different 32 million years ago.
Back then, during a time known as the Late Eocene, Africa and South America were significantly closer. The span of the Atlantic Ocean between the two continents measured about 930 to 1,300 miles apart compared to the modern expanse of 1,770 miles. In addition, the buildup of glaciers in Antarctica around that time caused sea levels to drop, making the passage shorter than it is today. During this window of prehistory, the path between the continents was passable by sea.

“I think everyone kind of shakes their heads at primates rafting long or even moderate distances,” Miller says, but such events have happened at other times and are still going on today. Animals such as tenrecs and lemurs arrived on Madagascar by rafting from mainland Africa across a distance of more than 260 miles, for example, and small lizards island-hop in the Bahamas on natural rafts.

Imagine those poor monkeys.  They're in a storm and they're on a piece of land when the land comes loose and starts floating off.  They're too far from shore to jump and they're drifting along.  After awhile, in the Atlantic Ocean, they're probably thinking that they'll never see land again and are trapped on that tiny strip.  Then, boom, they are next to actual land again and can get off the floating strip.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, April 9, 2020.  Bernie Sanders betrays his supporters and his ideas, Iraq gets a new prime minister-designate, and much more.

Starting in the US where a coward has dropped out of an ongoing race.  Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders -- with one primary still counting votes and 26 more primaries to go -- dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination leaving only alleged rapist Joe Biden running for the nomination.

His staff fought a battle, his supporters fought a battle.  Bernie?  He never really fought anything.

In the '00s, people like Robert Greenwald would make 'documentaries' and usually Bernie would pop up in them.  Oh, we need to stop the consolidation of our media, he would whine.  And then do nothing.  Back then the excuse offered for his do-nothings was, "He's in the House of Representatives and has to run for re-election every two years.  He can't do too much or the Democratic Party might primary him!!!!"  Then he ran for the US Senate and we were told that since it was a six year term, a Senator Bernie was going to be something to watch.

Really?  For comic value?

Real members of Congress of yore -- say Mike Gravel -- actually accomplished things in Congress.  Bernie?  No.

In 2015 and 2016, we told truths about Bernie in Congress and many of those truths became talking points for Hillary Clinton's campaign.  We'd get the outraged e-mail regularly, "How can you do this!!!" Tell the truth?  How can you not?

In 2019, Bernie had a movement he could ride to victory and an excellent group of people working on his campaign -- David Sirota and Nina Turner to name just two.

There was real excitement behind the empty suit.  That excitement could have been amplified and built on.

But apparently not by Bernie.

Just as in 2016 when he never really offered any strong criticism of Hillary Clinton, he never offered any strong criticism of Joe Biden.  You can't run for office with a meek whisper.

Bernie didn't fight.  He had a movement behind him that fought constantly.  They would have done anything because they believed what he said.  But the reality is that Bernie never believed what he said.  You can't believe in those things and not fight for them.

Bernie's an empty suit and he's a disgrace.

4 e-mails to the public account insist I'm upset that Bernie endorsed Joe Biden.

Huh?

That's not a surprise.

Bernie loves to be useless.




From October 31, 2016, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hillary Talks To Bernie."  Bernie folds like a fluffy towel, he always folds.  The betrayal this go round is that he insisted he was in the race but ends up dropping out before millions of people even get to weigh in.

Normally when people drop out, it's because there's no more money -- Joe knows about that from previous runs -- all about that.  But all you need it a digital camera or phone to record/broadcast an 'event' these days and Bernie's not spending money on event locations or anything else.

Bernie dropped out because he's a coward.

This was a make or break moment.  He could run on the ideas he supposedly believes and make a difference.  Or he could fold before everyone was able to vote.  Even when he lost a primary, those participating made clear in exit polls that they supported Medicare For All.  Why not let the remaining 26 primaries take place so we could know where all the voters stood.

[If you're e-mailing the public account that I am wrong about the number of primaries remaining
it better be because I miscounted and not because you're so stupid you don't know that primaries are not just held for states.  Stop clogging up the public e-mail account with your stupidity.  I am not here to spoonfeed.  You can Google the remaining primaries and see for yourself.  I counted 27 before Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.  That would leave 26 -- 23 of which are state primaries.  If I got one or more wrong, e-mail.  If, on the other hand, you don't grasp that, for example, DC has its own primary, grab a dunce cap and go silent.]

If this was about ideas, if this was about what the American people wanted, you stay in the race until the end.  You do that, if nothing else, for the raw data showing support for Medicare For All.

With Bernie out of the race, there's no reason for anyone to rush to vote in a remaining primary.

Bernie betrayed the ideas he spoke of and the people who supported his campaign.

And now we're surrounded with lies.

At COMMON DREAMS, they offer lies.  Hey, but good for them, did you notice, it took them two weeks but they finally stopped being like corporate media and found a way to note Tara Reade.

COMMON DREAMS, JACOBIN, IN THESE TIMES and others are just being liars right now.

You got used, America.  He blew his wad and left you in the middle of the night.  Now you wake up in the still semi-wet spot of the sheets and you're all, "Do you think he'll call?"

He's never calling.  It's not that 'he's not into you,' he was into you last night, rutting away.  It's that he doesn't respect you and he honestly doesn't like you.

He didn't lose your phone number.  He didn't have a medical emergency.  He didn't get hit by a bus.

He used you.  He pumped and dumped.

You have some friends, America, friends who'll tell you the truth:

Stephen Sheehan:
It seems clear we now know when Sanders said, "not me, us," he was talking about a different "us" then we all thought he was. Apparently the real "us" was Sanders, his good friend, Biden, and the DNC. Bait and switch.

Cynthia McKinney:

Sheepdog 2.0 just kicked off. Bernie endorses Joe Biden. #FeeltheBURN again.


John Stauber:

Imagine if #Bernie had bolted ⁦
⁩ 4 years ago.  But no, he has always been a political fraud, putting ⁦
⁩ over any real movement, herding sheep for #Hillary and now #CrazyJoe, both warmongering corporate hacks.

Ajamu Baraka:

Feel sorry for those Sanders supporters who really thought they were taking part in a revolution.


The party platform. Give me a break. Who cares about a platform for a party that is not even a party?  Bernie your sheepdogging days are over.

Danny Haiphong:

The #BernieBros slander was always about bullying young working class people into Dem civility politics. Unfortunately,
went along. It has long been time to #DemExit and build a new party of the working class. I’m not interested in anything less.


Mike Prysner:

If your first thought after Bernie exit is to tell people to suck it up & vote Biden—and not to get involved in grassroots political organizing to keep fighting for your principles—you totally miss the gravity of this political moment & implications for new generation of struggle

Howie Hawkins:

With Bernie dropping out, the time has come to really ask yourself, who will represent my values in November. #Howie2020 #NeverSettle #DemExit #GreenEnter #PlanB

Abby Martin:

Hugely disappointed that Bernie dropped out and lost his leverage in the middle of a pandemic where his platform is urgently needed to fight for.

Biden already said he will never support Medicare for All & has total contempt for the millions of millennials who voted for Bernie’s agenda. He thinks “no change” will win. I shudder to think what Trump will do with his next term. Start organizing outside the system NOW

Jimmy Dore:

A campaign that failed to call out corruption of a senile pathological liar, failed to get policy concessions, failed its supporters, failed to meet the moment.  So proud.

Graham Ellwood:

BREAKING-
drops out and endorses the warmongering, rapist with dementia. Takes all our money and hope and backs another friend of Epstein. Just like 2016. #NeverBiden #DemExit


The SEP's presidential nominee Joseph Kishore offers this evaluation at WSWS:

Already over the past several weeks and months, Sanders has reacted to the deepening crisis of the state apparatus by shifting to the right. As the Democratic Party moved aggressively to block a Sanders nomination in February and March, Sanders issued a number of statements declaring his readiness to wage war against Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China.
His last political act as a candidate was to vote for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides hundreds of billions to corporations and backs the Federal Reserve’s multi-trillion programs to buy up assets from banks and businesses.
In his proposals for further Congressional action in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Sanders has dropped any reference to increasing taxes on the wealthy. He has proposed further multi-billion bailouts to corporations, without challenging in any way their private ownership on the basis of profit.
Nothing that Sanders has done is in the least surprising. His entire tenure as a bourgeois politician made clear the role he would play. Moreover, his campaign is part of an international phenomenon. Whether it is Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, Syriza in Greece, the Left Party in Germany, or the Workers Party in Brazil—all have performed the same function.
The real treachery has come from organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, Socialist Alternative and others who worked to present an opportunist bourgeois politician as some sort of vehicle for achieving socialism.
In a thoroughly demoralized event last night hosted by Jacobin, Bashkar Sunkara, the magazine’s editor, and other leading members of the DSA denounced not Sanders but the “sectarian left,” by which they mean the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the World Socialist Web Site. For these layers, “sectarian” is a term used to describe anyone with principles, that is, those who do not prostrate themselves before the Democratic Party.
Sunkara declared that Sanders’ withdrawal meant that “our campaign for not even full socialism but half social democracy kind of petered out as of today.” What has “petered out”—in fact, thoroughly exposed—is the DSA’s brand of pseudo-socialism that claims that anything can be achieved within the framework of the Democratic Party.
In opposition to these organizations of the upper middle class, the WSWS and the SEP anticipated the trajectory of the Sanders campaign. In February 2016, early in his first presidential run, the WSWS explained that “Sanders is not the representative of a working class movement. He is rather the temporary beneficiary of a rising tide of popular opposition that is passing through only its initial stages of social and class differentiation.”
When he announced his 2020 presidential campaign in February of last year, the WSWS wrote, “The fundamental fraud promoted by Sanders, along with individuals such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left and made a force for progressive change.”
Once again, a political analysis based on Marxism, on the historical experiences of the Trotskyist movement, and not on pragmatic hopes and maneuvers, has been proven correct.
There are no doubt many sincere workers and youth who will be disgusted by what Sanders has done. They must draw the necessary conclusions.
The only campaign that is seeking to develop a real socialist movement is the campaign of the Socialist Equality Party. The SEP launched its election campaign to fight for genuine socialism, to develop within the working class and among young people a socialist leadership, to fight against war, inequality and authoritarianism, in opposition to the Democratic and Republican parties, the parties of the ruling class.
We call on all workers and young people to join this campaign and support this fight.

To support and get involved in the SEP election campaign, visit socialism2020.org.

Iraq War veteran Adam Kokesh is seeking the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination and he notes:

So it's looking like P**sy Grabber VS Kid Sniffer for the old parties. America deserve better! Ready to vote Libertarian yet?!



The Green Party issued the following:

𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗧𝗼 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀
We believe everyday people must have a party to call home that is politically and financially independent of the capitalist power structure dominated by the parties of War and Wall Street. We say to you: the Green Party could be your home.
Senator Sanders raised critically important issues. He is right, it was not about him but about building a movement for those issues. The Green Party will continue to build and expand the issues Sanders raised. Join us.
We feel tremendous solidarity toward Sanders supporters who have been abused and marginalized by the Democratic Party leadership. We admire their commitment to shared goals like Improved Medicare-For-All, an eco-socialist Green New Deal to avert climate catastrophe, ending the U.S. war machine and dismantling intersectional oppression in our society.
We welcome Sanders supporters whose painful experience has led them to understand that none of those goals are possible so long as the Democrats and Republicans can operate as an anti-democratic cartel at the behest of this country's elite.
Join the fight, either as Green Party members or allies, to bring actual democracy to U.S. elections through transformational victories like Proportional Representation, Ranked Choice Voting and fully-public campaign financing.
These transformations will benefit all who challenge the two-party cartel and will help usher in the political revolution we all hunger for.
At this time of multiple crises, it is now essential to refuse the Democratic Party leadership’s relentless drive to lower our expectations of what we can accomplish in the fight for a just, equitable and sustainable world free from empire and oppression.
Learn more, sign up and volunteer at GP.org#DemExit #GreenEnter #WeAreGreen




Some will continue to spin and offer pretty lies.


You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies

-- "The Last Time I Saw Richard," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on BLUE



Turning to Iraq where there's big news.  ALJAZEERA reports:

President Barham Salih has nominated head of intelligence Mustafa al-Kadhimi as Iraq's new prime minister-designate, the politically fragmented nation's third choice this year.
The nomination on Thursday came moments after predecessor Adnan al-Zurfi ended his bid to form a government. The upheaval threatened a leadership vacuum amid a severe economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
[. . .]
In a statement on his Facebook page, al-Zurfi said: "The failure to form a new government was the cause of domestic and foreign issues. But that will not prevent me from continuing to serve the people through my current parliamentary position.
"I will continue to work and prepare for early elections in order to complete our national project."
Before al-Zurfi, former minister Mohammad Allawi was also unable to pull together a cabinet.

Big surprise to anyone?  Maybe to members of the press who kept presenting Adnan al-Zurfi as prime minister when he wasn't.  As we noted Tuesday,  "He has not formed a government.  He has put together potential candidates.  To form a government, his proposed Cabinet must be voted on by the Parliament.  That's why he's still prime minister-designate and not prime minister."

And now he's no longer prime minster-designate.

Lawk Ghafuri (RUDAW) reports:

Zurfi had until April 16 to form a new cabinet, but it quickly became clear he would have no mandate to lead.

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani and the Sunni Coalition of Iraqi Forces (al-Qiwa) added their voices to the Shiite opposition to Zurfi’s candidacy, making his position untenable.

The main Shiite voices opposing Zurfi were the Fatih coalition, led by former militia commander Hadi al-Amiri, and the State of Law coalition, headed by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

With Zurfi gone, the baton has now been passed to Mustafa al-Kadhimi – the serving head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS).

At the same moment Zurfi stepped down, officials gathered at the presidential palace in Baghdad for a special ceremony to assign Kadhimi the job.

Fatih chief Hadi al-Amiri attended the ceremony, as did former prime minister Haider al-Abadi, and the United Nations special representative to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.


The following sites updated: