Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Puddles Feinstein needs to retire

Term limits.  It's the only answer.  Doubt it?  Bryan Metzger (BUSINESS INSIDER) reports:


Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is poised to become president pro tempore of the Senate, according to long-standing Senate tradition. 

As a result of her new status as the longest-serving Democratic senator, the 89-year-old lawmaker would be third in line to the presidency, behind the vice president and House Speaker.

Feinstein — who will also be the chamber's oldest currently-serving member come January — issued a statement to the Washington Post last month saying that she's not interested in running for and serving as president pro tempore of the Senate.


But when asked by Insider at the Capitol about the potential of taking on the job — she would be the first woman in American history to hold the position — she insisted that she hadn't thought about it.

"Well, I haven't thought about it, but I'll let you know when I do," said Feinstein, who was first elected in 1992. "I just got back, I've had a lot of issues."



As she walks away, her aid tells her she issued a statement a few weeks back.  Dianne says she doesn't remember that.  She explains it to the senator and then Dianne still doesn't remember but says that she must have already decided then.


She needs to retire.  She is too old and too out of it.  89 years old.  She needs to retire.  Puddles needs to retire.

 

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, November 15, 2022.  Could the country finally be free of Donald Trump?  We ponder that and other issues. 


Starting with Donald Trump.  The never-ending soap opera was indulged by the GOP.  Feared and indulged.  He was supposed to represent so much to so many.  But, in fact, he couldn't deliver at the mid-terms.  

It's over for him.

He lost in 2020 and he failed to deliver in the mid-terms.  He can bluster and the media can quake -- their usual relationship to one another -- but no one likes a loser and that's what Donald now is.

A loser and a failure.

His bluster argued he was something more than a politician; however, results and actions demonstrate he is something far less and you don't run a loser on your ticket three times.  He was the nominee in 2016 and in 2020.  The Republican Party is stupid enough to run him in 2024?  

You're seeing people turn on him.  



It's natural, he failed to deliver and he exposed himself as powerless -- there's nothing worse for a politician to be than powerless -- it's the political equivalent of a micro-penis.

He could wise up right now and ease into the role of elder statesman of the party who cheers other candidates on and gives a speech at the convention but that's really all he's got now.

He failed to deliver.

And people put a lot of time into him.  He failed to deliver and he took up so much of their time with his never ending soap opera.  Was he persecuted by the media?  Absolutely, they refused to even give him the normal 100 first days of the presidency -- the fluff coverage.  But at a certain point, it becomes:  So what?

Even for his supporters it becomes: So what?

Had he delivered in the mid-terms, things would be different for him.

But he didn't.

And now Republicans are looking at him differently.  With a winner, you'll take a lot.  Look at Aaron Rogers and how the press is no longer being as kind.

When you can't deliver, everyone of your mistakes and faults is magnified and re-examined.


So right now, he's struggling with whether or not he took top secret documents he shouldn't have.  And that just reminds everyone of every other soap opera element when he was president.

And do they, the Republican Party, want a fresh start or do they want a so-so candidate with all that baggage who can't even deliver votes.

Or anything else.

What did Donald deliver that he promised he would?  How did he make the lives of his supporters better?

He fought the entire four years, yes.  Not just with Democrats.  Not just with the media.  He was constantly fighting with his own party.  

And he achieved nothing.

He was supposed to be a maverick, an outsider.  What actions in his four years in office demonstrate that?

None.

Ron DeSantis defeated a Republican in Florida.  It was two Republicans.   Charlie Christ spent most of his life as a Republican.  Could he beat a real Democrat?  Who knows.  But many Republicans are hailing his victory because they're so sick of the past and Ron -- whether he goes on to become the nominee or not -- is a winner and Donald's a loser.

This is not a bad development.

We don't need Donald Trump in another race.  We didn't need him in the race in 2016.  We also don't need Joe Biden -- Joe, who turns 80 in five days.

Jen Psaki has clearly decided that whore and journalist are synonymous.  Joe, she's taken to saying on MSNBC, is the only one who's ever defeated Donald Trump.

First off, that's a lie.  Life has defeated Donald Trump.  Ivana Trump defeated Donald Trump.  Gravity defeated Donald Trump -- look at that face, ew.  The list is endless.

Joe won one race against Donald Trump.  It wasn't that difficult.

At the very start of 2016, we offered "2015: The Year of the Ass" -- a look back at the prior year.  That piece concluded with:


2015 will lead into 2016.  So is it any surprise that, as the year ends, it appears very likely that the two major party candidates who'll be competing next year will be Hillary and Donald Trump?

What else, honestly, what else could The Year of the Ass produce but a match off between each major party's biggest ass?


In 2016, Donald didn't beat one of the party's major politicians.  He beat Hillary Clinton.  Someone who had to cheat to win the nomination.  Had to get the debate questions in an advance.  Someone who was a known loser.  She was supposed to have 2008 all sewn up but she lost those primaries to Barack Obama who infamously said to her face, "You're likable enough."

And to win, Barack had to destroy her.  You cannot have one campaign call the other racist -- and Barack's 2008 campaign called both Hillary and Bill racist -- and then have the person you're calling a racist win eight years later.  They also pushed that she wanted to murder Barack.  Keith Olbermann and Majorie Cohn -- among many others -- took her comments about why she wasn't dropping out of the race to mean that she was (a) hoping someone would murder Barack or (b) asking that someone assassinate Barack.

This garbage came over the airwaves on MSNBC.

She never stood a real chance of winning in 2016.  She had too many negatives.  On top of that, unlike when she was seeking the party's nomination in 2008, she refused to campaign.  Eight years older, she refused to get out and get the vote.  She seemed to think she was entitled to it.  She also seemed to think that she should now run like Barack (celebrities were what she sought out, not voters).  

Hillary was not a great candidate.  She lacked charisma.  The only thing she could sell the people was that she was a workhorse who would get things done.  But you can't refuse to go to Ohio, for example, while you're shaking it onstage with Jennifer Lopez and look like a workhorse who gets things done.

In 2020, any Democrat would have beaten Donald Trump.

Joe is not a savior of the party.  Bernie could have done it, Elizabeth Warren could have done it, Julian Castro could have done it, Cory Booker could have done it, Kirsten Gillibrand could have done it, Amy Klobuchar could have done it, even Mike Bloomberg could have done it.

Joe and Donald both need to step aside.  Let's see if either has the brains to do it.

The country needs leadership, not old men gasping their last breaths as they remain out of touch with the world around them.

Robert Pether doesn't need to be gasping his last breath but, thanks to the failures of the Australian government, he may be.  In the last few months, the UK has freed two of their citizens from Iraq.  Meanwhile Robert Pether rots in an Iraqi jail.  Jessica Bahr (SBS NEWS) reports:


The wife of an Australian man being held in an Iraqi jail has spoken of her fears he won’t survive the ordeal.

Robert Pether has been detained in Iraq since April 2021. He has been locked in a 28-man cell for 19 months.

Mr Pether's wife Desree told SBS News her husband had lost 42 kilograms during his detention.

"To look at him now, it's like he's aged 40 years ... it's just absolutely heartbreaking," she said.

"It's like watching him die slowly and listening to him die slowly and he's not well, he keeps getting sick."


Australians should be toppling their government right now because it refuses to carry out its primary duty: To protect its citizens.






We'll close with BROS.














The following sites updated:




Posted by at

Monday, November 14, 2022

John Travolta

If you missed it, desperate for attention Henry Winkler is saying he could kick himself for turning down the role of Danny in the film GREASE.

Kick yourself a little harder, Winkler, GREASE would not have been a hit with you as Danny.


You can't sing.  You have no charisma (which is why you were never a film star).  You couldn't act and Fonzie was a joke to anyone over the age of 10.


Fonzie isn't Danny.  Danny's a high school boy, not some middle aged man.


John Travolta was perfect for the role.  No other name could have pulled that role off.  John had talent, could sing, could dance and could connect with audiences.  


John remains one of the great film talents of all time.


If Henry Winkler can't grasp that he doesn't have even half the talent of John Travolta, that's not just sad, it's pathetic.


GREASE was a hit, a mega-hit, because of the cast and because of the chemistry between Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta.

 

"Iraq snapshot'' (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, November 14, 2022.   The persecution of Julian Assange continues as press whores finally note an attack on The Kurdistan, Iraq's future dims as climate change goes unaddressed, and much more.



 Where the wealth's displayed

Thieves and sycophants parade
And where it's made
the slaves will be taken
Some are treated well
In these games of buy and sell
And some like poor beasts
Are burdened down to breaking

-- "Dog Eat Dog," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album DOG EAT DOG


Thieves and sycophants?  What a wonderful to describe Jane Arraf.  Over at the increasingly useless NEW YORK TIMES, Sycophant Arraf teams with Sangar Khaleel to inform you that "Iran launched ballistic missile and drone attacks across the border at Kurdish Iranian opposition bases in Iraq on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding at least nine, according to opposition groups."  Is that wrong?  Or, as George Constanza put it in "The Red Dot" episode of SEINFELD, merely frowned upon?


The reason I ask is, NYT looks the other way constantly as the Turkish government attacks the Kurdistan, as they set up bases illegally in the Kurdistan, as they refuse to respect Iraq's sovereignty in Iraq.  Even the use of chemical weapons doesn't prompt this kind of coverage from NYT.  And Jane Arraf, the whore of Baghdad, has never covered the bombings -- not for CNN, not for THE CHRISTIAN SCIENE MONITOR, not for PRI, not for NPR, not for PBS, not for THE NEW YORK TIMES . . .  In all her years (mis)covering Iraq, she's never covered it.


But when Iran does it, it's news.  Is it really news or is it just another thing to hold against a country that the US government sees as an enemy?


We've called out the bombing of northern Iraq for years.  It's very telling that Jane Arraf and NYT only care when the bombing is carried out by Iran.


Dropping back to Thursday's snapshot: 


In other news, the Turkish government bombs northern Iraq, drones it, sends troops on the ground into it and has set up military bases.  All are acts of war.  Yet, the bulk of the world shields its eyes and pretends nothing is going on.  Stockholm Freedom Center notes:

Professor Noam Chomsky, a well-known American linguist, philosopher and political activist, said in an interview with the Medya Haber news website that an independent organization should conduct a serious investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons by Turkish forces in northern Iraq.

In October the pro-Kurdish Fırat News Agency (ANF) published a video showing two members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, apparently under the influence of a chemical agent.

“The Turkish government has committed many atrocities. … Every imaginable form of torture was used during the 1990s against Kurds in Turkey,” Chomsky said. “Therefore, although there is no direct evidence of chemical weapons use by the Turkish government, the allegations provide a legitimate basis for a serious investigation by an independent team in northern Iraq.”

Chomsky also pointed out that the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) could be a highly reliable institution to undertake the investigation as a continuation of a probe they conducted in September with support from the United Nations or one of its member states.



And when might Jane Arraf cover that?  Magic 8 Ball replies, "Don't count on it."



Julian Assange is another topic Jane Arraf won't cover -- again thieves and sycophants.  


Not everyone's a silent whore.  Geoffrey Macnab (SCREEN DAILY) reports:


Laura Poitras, the Oscar and Golden Lion-winning  director of documentaries including Risk, Citizenfour and this year’s All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, revealed the calculated risks she takes and the extraordinary lengths to which she goes to protect her footage at a masterclass at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) this weekend where she is this year’s guest of honour.

She used the masterclass to voice her fears about what she believes will be an increased threat to filmmakers and journalists from governments if Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is extradited to the US.

“It’s important right now to emphasise the danger to journalism because of the US efforts to extradite [Assange] and prosecute him through the Espionage Act,” said Poitras. “Which is for his journalism, for publishing truthful information about US occupations and war crimes.”

Assange is currently in Belmarsh Prison in the UK as the extradition process grinds on.

He is the subject of Poitras’ 2016 film Risk. She had started filming Assange in 2011, before she went on to make her Academy Award- winning documentary, Citizenfour in 2014, featuring Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who worked at the US’ National Security Agency (NSA) before revealing the extent of the NSA’s global mass surveillance programme.

“[Assange’s extradition order] s the biggest threat to press freedom right now,” Poitras told a packed crowd inside Amsterdam’s Carré Theatre. “It is also very personal. Everything, if you read his indictment, are things that I could be accused of.”


Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden and a host of people who should be supporting him stay silent or heap scorn on him.  Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death. 



Also speaking out for Julian is his wife Stella Assange.




At SCHEERPOST, Matt Kennard writes of his interview with Stella Assange (video above):

The wife of the world’s most famous political prisoner is speaking to Declassified as part of her relentless battle to save her husband’s life.

“Sometimes it’s been really, really very difficult for him, and sometimes when he’s able to see the children, when he’s with the children, when there’s progress in the case, then he’s energised,” she adds. “And he’s energised by all the support that he sees out there for him. He gets letters of support and expressions of support constantly.”

One thing immediately noticeable when talking with Stella is she has the same unusual intensity and focus as her husband. For anyone who has met Julian, the similarities are striking.

[. . .]

In 2020, Declassified published a story showing Assange was one of just two inmates at Belmarsh, which then housed 797 prisoners, being held for violating bail conditions.

The figures showed that more than 20% of the prison population was held for murder, while nearly two-thirds — or 477 people — were imprisoned for violent offences. A further 16 inmates were held for offences related to terrorism, including four people who planned to carry out terrorist attacks. Assange himself has never been charged with a violent offence.

“I think they keep him in Belmarsh because they can get away with it, because it’s the most effective way of silencing him, precisely because of this extreme regime that Belmarsh is known for,” Stella says.

“It’s a punishment in itself. The very fact that he is in prison for having exercised his right to seek and actually obtain asylum…that’s a right that’s enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is a long recognised right that every person has. And it violated a technicality, and it’s usually treated as a technicality if there is a sufficient reason for violating the bail. In this case, there undeniably was.”

Stella, whose real name is Sara, continues: “Very rarely is it actually punished with prison time, and he finished serving that prison sentence in October 2019. But effectively it’s an indefinite sentence because while he exercises his right to challenge the US extradition request, the UK keeps him in Belmarsh at the request of the American government.”



Stella Assange also speaks with franceinfo:

franceinfo: How is Julian Assange today?

Stella Morris: He has been in Belmarsh high-security prison since April 11, 2019, when he was arrested outside the Ecuadorian embassy, ​​and his health has been declining ever since. The conditions of detention are very harsh. He had a mini heart attack in October last year. And it is of course very difficult for him to be in isolation. He’s not serving any time, he’s here because the United States wants him extradited because he did his job.

Where are you in the fight for his extradition?

Julian appealed the decision of the British government, which agreed to his extradition. Since that decision in January 2021, we have discovered that there were plans to assassinate Julian in the embassy, ​​to kidnap him etc., when Mike Pompeo was at the head of the CIA. So we defend the fact that Julian cannot be extradited to the country that tried to plan his assassination. There were incredible abuses of process that involved criminality. And we have much more evidence of that today.

When can you present these conclusions and get the final answer to his incarceration?

This is the uncertainty of this whole procedure. We don’t even know if he will be able to appeal, there is no legal obligation to accept it. It can also try to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but the United Kingdom is trying to free itself from its obligations to this Court. 




Saturday, Iraq saw heavy rains.  They are needed because the rivers are drying up.  



IRAQI NEWS AGENCY notes the Deputy Special Rep of the UN Secretary-General.  These are the Rep Ghulam M. Isaczai's statements:


 

When I traveled to Baghdad a month ago to assume my mission in Iraq in order to help in coordinating our support for the government and the people of Iraq, Mesopotamia was completely different from what I had in my mind two decades ago when I first worked in Iraq. Dust is everywhere stirred by hot air. There are also wide areas of desert in which palm trees exist, standing with patience against desertification. It wasn’t Mesopotamia which was described by history as the cradle of civilization. 
And when I asked Iraqis and others who spent years here, I was told that it wasn’t  likethis before. It’s clear that weather has bad effects on this country. 
 
In my career, I have visited many countries and seen many problems, but the effect of climate change is massive here. This beautiful fertile land known through history by its civilizations that flourished around the great Tigris and Euphrates is now confronting the international climate crisis as the fifth of the most vulnerable countries in the world.
 
I was hoping to be more positive in my first speech to the Iraqi Public, but it is hard to hide reality. I must say that we’ve not lost everything, that there is hope in changing the course of things and the Iraqis should take the lead.
 
With holding the UN 27th conference for Climate Change COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, it is important to discuss environmental issues and challenges in Iraq and what should be done in their concern.
 
COP27 will rely on the results of COP26 and respond to the intense international climate state of emergency, providing the most needed efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses and building the ability to adjust to the inevitable effects of climate change.
 
COP27 needs to fulfill its obligations to fund climate work in developing countries, including Iraq. COP27 is regarded as an important chance to governments of the world to hold on their climate obligations keeping to develop them ( nationally specified participations) in accordance with conveying awareness of climate change to Iraq again.
 
We are all aware of the problems here: extreme weather and climate changes such as heatwaves, heavy rains, rising temperatures, increased precipitation volatility and unpredictability, sandstorms and dust droughts, land degradation, inundation, and water scarcity.


The Iraqi people are living in a toxic land and they endure a government that refuses to take action despite Iraq being identified as one of the countries that will be the most harmed by climate change.  Owen Pinnell (BBC NEWS) reports:


Far removed from the world leaders making climate pledges at COP, are people like Ali Hussein Julood, a young leukaemia survivor living on an Iraqi oil field co-managed by BP. When the BBC discovered BP was not declaring the field's gas flaring, Ali helped us to reveal the truth about the poisonous air the local community has to breathe.

I first saw videos shared on Twitter of burning skies and clouds of black smoke over people's houses in Iraq's oil fields in 2019, and learned that this was a common procedure known as gas flaring - burning off the toxic excess gas that is a by-product of oil drilling.

We discovered through satellite data that Rumaila in Basra, southern Iraq, is the world's worst offender for gas flaring. Gas flaring is not only a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, it is also known to emit benzene - which heightens the risk of cancer, particularly childhood leukaemia.

Dozens of people we spoke to living in five different communities near oil fields like Rumaila, told the same story - that they had a close relative or a friend who was suffering from cancer, often leukaemia. 

One of those was Ali, then 18 years old, whose father had sold everything in his house to raise money for his son's cancer treatment in Turkey. Ali said that the cancer hospital in Basra was full of people like him who lived near oil fields. Rumaila, home to several thousand people, has been given the nickname "the shadow town" by locals, because it is cut off and lacking in basic services. Ali and his friends call it "the cemetery".

"We'd be playing football, then we'd have to run inside, because of the clouds of smoke suffocating us and oil raining from the sky," Ali told us.

"When I told the doctor [in Basra Children's Cancer Hospital] I lived in this area he said: 'This is the main reason for your illness.'"


And RUDAW reports:

Severe drought has taken its toll on the wetlands of Iraq's southern province of Dhi Qar, turning them into a barren desert and threatening them with extinction.

Walking towards the little boat that he used to use for fishing in the Hammar Marshes south of Dhi Qar, Abu Hussein, a man in his fifties, is deeply worried about the drying up of the waters of the marshes, and the livelihood of his family of more than ten members.

The family's sole breadwinner, Abu Hussein told Rudaw that he ponders leaving the region in order to secure his livelihood and his children elsewhere, calling on the government to take measures to reduce drought and provide water.

Hundreds of families used to live in the Hammar marshes in Dhi Qar, but they migrated after these marshes turned into a barren desert due to drought and climate changes.ports:


Climate change isn't making the Iraqi government take action, leukaemia isn't making them take action.  What will?  Who knows?  But Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:


Iraq must take quick action to combat climate change as its affects would make it one of the most water scarce countries in the world, the UK’s ambassador to the country told The National.

Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable country to climate breakdown, impacted by high temperatures, droughts and frequent dust storms, presenting a serious threat to the public’s livelihood, according to the UN.

“There are a range of challenges for Iraq, reduced rainfall, desertification and increased droughts. There’s a wider list of things that needs to happen for Iraq to curb climate change,” Mark Bryson-Richardson told The National.

He said the new government in Baghdad must focus on water management as a “real priority” to improve its usage and prepare for and manage droughts.

“It’s going to be a challenging journey, Iraq will be one of the most water scarce countries in the world in the coming years,” Mr Richardson said during a visit to the UAE this week,

The diplomat’s comments come as world leaders gather for the UN climate summit in Egypt this week.


Kat's "Kat's Korner: Robbie Williams re-evaluates his own work on XXV" went up Sunday morning.  The following sites updated:




Posted by at

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Now the press tells you Stacey Abrams is a failure

 

I liked the NYT article.


My kids and I live in California now but I grew up in Atlanta and spent most of my adult life there.  My folks still live there as do my sisters.


And I blogged here repeatedly about how the Black voters felt abandoned.  I noted that Black men were more vocal but it was community wide.  And that's what NYT reported after the election.  She blew off Black fraternities and sororities, Black business groups, you name it.


I told you she was acting like she was better than Georgia and NYT includes her insults to the state and how she was talking about how she wanted to be president, while running to be the governor.


My only question is why NYT wasn't covering all this when I was?


Yeah, I'm Black but NYT doesn't have any Black people on staff who could've registered and reported how Stacey was alienating what should have been her core audience?

What's next for Stacey?


Maybe she can be a media pundit in the Donna Brazile tradition?  You know, an older woman who never accomplished much but acts like an expert on TV while your grandparents cluck over how the poor dear hasn't been able to find a man her whole life and everyone under 60 knows that's because she's a closeted lesbian?


Maybe that's Stacey's future.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, November 11, 2022.  DON'T RUN JOE launches, and much more.



I wish the theme to THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW were true and love was all around -- instead it seems to be spin and lies that are all around.  "Misinformation" will always exist.  Like this garbage.




Is Greatscottwii an idiot or a liar?  He's saying that, in 2004, he voted for Bully Boy Bush because the Democrat, John Kerry, wanted to restart the draft.  Now I supported John Kerry in the 2004 primaries and, for the first time ever, my candidate finally won the nomination.  And I know John.  John never supported reinstating the draft nor did he campaign on that.

But there's another problem.  

Greatscottwho explains that he "was tricked into being a Republican" -- which doesn't appear to be that hard of a trick for him -- because "then came the Iraq war, and I changed my party and never looked back."

Great Scott certainly never looked back at facts or reality.

The Iraq War started before the 2004 election.  That's why John Kerry's most infamous moment was when he was trying to explain why he voted for it in 2002 "I was for it before I was against it'" -- remember that?

Scott's either a liar or an idiot.  

And we're screwed if Joe Biden is the 2024 nominee.  In nine days, Joe limps and scoots to 80.  He's too old to be president now.  And it is disgusting and outrageous that he might be the nominee in 2024.  The greatest foreign policy crime and misadventure of the 21 century is the Iraq War.  And Joe voted for it.

No one has ever paid for that.  Joe wants to make Julian Assange pay for it -- pay for exposing War Crimes.  But no one responsible for it has ever had to pay for it in this country.  And every presidential election since the Iraq War started in 2003 has had an idiot on the Democratic Party presidential ticket who supported that war.

2004: John Kerry and John Edwards -- both voted for it

2008: Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- Joe voted for it 

2012: Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- see above

2016: Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine -- Hillary voted for the war

2020: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris -- Joe voted for it


Every ticket.  Five presidential tickets.  And, for those who don't know, when only one person voted for it on the presidential ticket, it doesn't mean the other didn't.  No one who voted against the Iraq War has been on the presidential ticket.

156 members of Congress voted against the Iraq War.  Not one of them ever made the Democratic Party's presidential ticket.


State Congress Name Party Notes
Alabama Rep Earl Hilliard D retired from office
Arizona Rep Ed Pastor D  
Arkansas Rep Vic Snyder D  
California Sen Barbara Boxer D  
California Rep Joe Baca D  
California Rep Xavier Becerra D  
California Rep Lois Capps D  
California Rep Gary Condit D  
California Rep Susan Davis D  
California Rep Anna Eshoo D  
California Rep Sam Farr D  
California Rep Bob Filner D  
California Rep Mike Honda D  
California Rep Barbara Lee D  
California Rep Zoe Lofgren D  
California Rep Robert Matsui D deceased
California Rep Juanita Millender-McDonald D  
California Rep George Miller D  
California Rep Grace Napolitano D  
California Rep Nancy Pelosi D  
California Rep Lucille Roybal-Allard D  
California Rep Loretta Sanchez D  
California Rep Hilda Solis D  
California Rep Pete Stark D  
California Rep Mike Thompson D  
California Rep Maxine Waters D  
California Rep Diane Watson D  
California Rep Lynn Woolsey D  
Colorado Rep Diana DeGette D  
Colorado Rep Mark Udall D  
Connecticut Rep Rosa DeLauro D  
Connecticut Rep John Larson D  
Connecticut Rep James Maloney D  
Florida Sen Bob Graham D  
Florida Rep Corrine Brown D  
Florida Rep Alice Hastings D  
Florida Rep Carrie Meek D retired from office
Georgia Rep John Lewis D  
Georgia Rep Cynthia McKinney D  
Hawaii Sen Daniel Akaka D  
Hawaii Sen Daniel Inouye D  
Hawaii Rep Neil Abercrombie D  
Illinois Sen Dick Durbin D  
Illinois Sen Bobby Rush D  
Illinois Rep Jerry Costello D  
Illinois Rep Danny Davis D  
Illinois Rep Lane Evans D  
Illinois Rep Luis Gutierrez D  
Illinois Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. D  
Illinois Rep Bill Lipinski D retired from office
Illinois Rep Jan Schakowsky D  
Indiana Rep Julia Carson D  
Indiana Rep John Hostettler R  
Indiana Rep Pete Visclosky D  
Iowa Rep Jim Leach R  
Maine Rep Tom Allen D  
Main Rep Baldacci D  
Maryland Sen Barbara Mikulski D  
Maryland Sen Paul Sarbanes D  
Maryland Rep Benjamin Cardin D  
Maryland Rep Elijah Cummings D  
Maryland Rep Connie Morella D  
Massachusetts Sen Ted Kennedy D  
Massachusetts Rep Michael Capuano D  
Massachusetts Rep Bill Delahunt D  
Massachusetts Rep Barney Frank D  
Massachusetts Rep Jim McGovern D  
Massachusetts Rep Richard Neal D  
Massachusetts Rep John Olver D  
Massachusetts Rep John Tierney D  
Michigan Sen Carl Levin D  
Michigan Sen Debbie Stabenow D  
Michigan Rep David Bonior D  
Michigan Rep John Conyers Jr. D  
Michigan Rep John Dingell D  
Michigan Rep Dale Kildee D  
Michigan Rep Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick D  
Michigan Rep Sandy Levin D  
Michigan Rep Lynn Rivers D  
Michigan Rep Bart Stupak D  
Minnesota Sen Mark Dayton D  
Minnesota Sen Paul Wellstone D deceased
Minnesota Rep Betty McCollum D  
Minnesota Rep Jim Oberstar D  
Minnesota Rep Martin Olav Sabo D  
Mississippi Rep Bennie Thompson D  
Missouri Rep William Clay Jr. D  
MIssouri Rep Karen McCarthy D retired from office
New Jersey Sen Jon Corzine D  
New Jersey Rep Rush Holt D  
New Jersey Rep Robert Menendez D  
New Jersey Rep Frank Pallone Jr D  
New Jersey Rep Donald Payne D  
New Mexico Sen Jeff Bingaman D  
New Mexico Rep Tom Udall D  
New York Rep Maurice Hinchey D  
New York Rep Amo Houghton R  
New York Rep John LaFalce D  
New York Rep Gregory Meeks D  
New York Rep Jerrold Nadler D  
New York Rep Major Owens D  
New York Rep Charles Rangel D  
New York Rep Jose Serrano D  
New York Rep Louise Slaughter D  
New York Rep Edolphus Towns D  
New York Rep Nydia Velazquez D  
North Carolina Rep Eva Clayton D retired from office
North Carolina Rep David Price D  
North Carolina Rep Melvin Watt D  
North Dakota Sen Kent Conrad D  
Ohio Rep Sherrod Brown D  
Ohio Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones D  
Ohio Rep Marcy Kaptur D  
Ohio Rep Dennis Kucinich D  
Ohio Rep Thomas Sawyer D  
Ohio Rep Ted Strickland D  
Oregon Sen Ron Wyden D  
Oregon Rep Earl Blumenauer D  
Oregon Rep Peter DeFazio D  
Oregon Rep Darlene Hooley D  
Oregon Rep David Wu D  
Pennsylvania Rep Robert Brady D  
Pennsylvania Rep William Coyne D retired from office
Pennsylvania Rep Mike Doyle D  
Pennsylvania Rep Chaka Fattah D  
Rhode Island Sen Lincoln Chafee D  
Rhode Island Sen Jack Reed D  
Rhode Island Rep James Langevin D  
South Carolina Rep Gresham Barrett R  
South Carolina Rep James Clyburn D  
Tennessee Rep John Duncan Jr R  
Texas Rep Lloyd Doggett D  
Texas Rep Charles Gonzalez D  
Texas Rep Ruben Hinojosa D  
Texas Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee D  
Texas Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson D  
Texas Rep Ron Paul R  
Texas Rep Silvestre Reyes D  
Texas Rep Ciro Rodriguez D retired from office
Vermont Sen Jim Jeffords D  
Vermont Sen Patrick Leahy D  
Vermont Rep Bernie Sanders I  
Virginia Rep Jim Moran D  
Virginia Rep Bobby Scott D  
Washington Sen Patty Murray D  
Washington Rep Jay Inslee D  
Washington Rep Rick Larsen D  
Washington Rep Jim McDermott D  
District of Columbia Rep Brian Baird D  
West Virginia Sen Robert Byrd D  
West Virginia Rep Alan Mollohan D  
West Virginia Rep Nick Rahall D  
Wisconsin Sen Russ Feingold D  
Wisconsin Rep Tammy Baldwin D  
Wisconsin Rep Jerry Kleczka D retired from office
Wisconsin Rep David Obey D  

And don't go to Crapapedia -- they've got people on their list who didn't even make it into Congress until five years after the vote took place.

But none of those people above made the ticket.  The idiots like Joe who got it wrong make the ticket.

We need better.

Joe Biden has spent the week trying to do a victory lap -- at his age, any form of movement is difficult.  There's no victory lap to be had.  The House is probably going Republican.  The Senate could go either way.  And he's trying to claim victory.  

The exit polls show the American people don't want him to run and that they think the country is going in the wrong direction.


Mid-week, Gloria Borger rightly called Joe out on CNN for his response that he not changing anything he's doing for the next two years.  Gloria stated, ""Now you have 75% of the country saying that we're headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-five percent believe we are in a recession. And then the president, you know, in a way to try to brag about himself and what he's done" says he's not changing anything.



He's a Moron with a War On -- even if he needs Viagra to get it up.



Inflation rose at an unadjusted annual rate of 7.7 percent in October, according to data published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Thursday morning. The report noted that consumer prices rose by 0.4 percent over September, the same rate as the previous month.

While consumer prices are still rising at a pace not seen since the early 1980s, with devastating consequences for working class living standards, the October rate was less than the 7.9 percent that had been predicted by analysts.

The BLS Consumer Pricing Index (CPI) summary said the inflation rate for October was “the smallest 12-month increase since the period ending January 2022,” and was down from the September rate of 8.2 percent.

The statement said that the “all items less food and energy index rose 6.3 percent over the last 12 months.” But in the critical categories of energy and food, prices increased by 17.6 percent and 10.9 percent respectively.


There's a group getting media attention, Roots Action.  They're site is DON'T RUN JOE -- if they had any humor it would be DON'T RUN, JOE, YOU MIGHT BREAK A HIP.  If they had a sense of grammar, it would be DON'T RUN, JOE.  Their mission:

Democrats will need bold leadership in 2024. We're calling on Joe Biden to announce that he's not running for re-election.

They note:

In 2024 the United States will face the dual imperatives of preventing a Republican takeover of the White House and advancing a truly progressive agenda. The stakes could not be higher. The threat of a neofascist GOP has become all too obvious. Bold and inspiring leadership from the Oval Office will be essential.

Unfortunately, President Biden has been neither bold nor inspiring. And his prospects for winning re-election appear to be bleak. With so much at stake, making him the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in 2024 would be a tragic mistake.

“Moderate” policies have failed to truly address such pressing concerns as the climate emergency, voting rights, student debt, health care, corporate price-gouging, and bloated military spending in tandem with anemic diplomacy.

Biden triumphed over Donald Trump in 2020 with vital help from extraordinary grassroots efforts in swing states by progressive organizations (including RootsAction). A president is not his party’s king, and he has no automatic right to renomination. Joe Biden should not seek it. If he does, he will have a fight on his hands.

Contact: info@rootsaction.org | Learn more at our FAQ


Can you imagine the GOP putting a presidential candidate in a debate with Joe, someone under 62, who stands on the stage with energy and awareness?  The Democratic Party cannot afford Joe.



On June 13, 2022, Suadad al-Salhy, a senior reporter for Middle East Eye in Iraq and a former correspondent for Reuters, checked her phone to find that three people had texted her a screenshot of a post on the social network Telegram. The post, on a channel run by a government-affiliated Iraqi paramilitary group, asked followers whether they were aware that Salhy’s sister was an opposition politician. It included images of the two women. 

Salhy is Iraqi, and in 2004 covered the Battle of Fallujah and the American invasion. She is not easily frightened. But as Iraq changed in the years since, paramilitaries have taken prominent roles in the country’s economy, security, and government and operate with practical impunity. Since the end of 2019, paramilitaries are suspected to have been behind at least thirty-six assassinations, with activists and journalists as their primary targets. In November 2021, they went as far as to conduct a drone attack on Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Khadimi, an assassination attempt that was widely seen as retaliation for his attempts to bring a paramilitary “death squad” to justice. 

Social media attacks can serve as a precursor. In May 2020 Hisham al-Hashimi, a renowned analyst of paramilitaries and terrorism, saw an uptick in posts targeting him. Just weeks later, on June 9, 2020, he was shot by two gunmen on the back of a motorcycle as he returned home. 

Salhy’s sister is in fact a politician, and the two had kept their being related a secret to protect each other. Salhy did not want her sister to become a target because of what she had written; nor did she want her work to be associated with her sister’s political positions. Now the paramilitaries were letting them know that their relationship was not only understood but monitored. “It was just telling me they can reach me,” Salhy said. “And if they cannot reach me, they can reach my family.” 


Iraq remains a war zone and no one has paid for their role in harming that country.  Instead, they get away with it.  They don't even have to answer questions as the Tweet below demonstrates.


Let's close with BROS.











The following sites updated:


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