Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Stacey wants to run again? Seriously?

Do you have a headache?  If you don't, I may be about to give you one with some news:


Democrats are reportedly worried that former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams may attempt another run for office after two straight failed bids for governor.

Abrams has expressed interest in running for office again, saying on the Drew Barrymore Show in January that she "will likely run again," which has some local Democratic leaders in the Peach State looking the other way.

Yvonne Stuart, chairwoman of the Monroe County Democratic Party, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Abrams lost partly because "she fell into the trap of becoming too much of a celebrity" in between her runs for office.

“I do believe there might be another charismatic Democrat that can take us all the way in 2026. There was major talent on our ticket all the way down the ticket in 2022,” Stuart said.


Stacey does not need to run again.  It's time for her to fade.  She's like that woman Ronan Farrow cheered on by calling her "abortion Barbie" -- what was her name.  Wendy Davis!  Wendy became a national celebrity . . . and lost all credibility in Texas.  It's the same with Stacey and Georgia.  Black men especially rejected her in the last run and she didn't care.  She saw the polling and refused to course correct.  She's not the politician anyone's been waiting for.  


Now let me applaud Zaya Wade, Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union for showing what family and support really mean.   THE INSIDER reports:

 

On Tuesday, March 7, Zaya Wade made her Paris Fashion Week runway debut at the Miu Miu show. In attendance were her father, basketball player Dwyane Wade, and step-mother, actress Gabrielle Union. A video posted of the couple cheering on Zaya and filming her catwalk went viral, with commenters praising their support. 

At just 15 years old, Zaya has become an activist, fashion mogul, cover star, and role model. Since coming out as trans at the age of 12, she has set the bar for embracing her identity and tuning out negativity. But being a public voice for the trans community doesn't come without its challenges. In a recent cover story with Dazed, Zaya says support from family and friends has been vital to her becoming. 

In the cover story, Zaya was asked when it is that she feels most empowered. To that, she responded: "When my family surrounds me. They are such a giant support system and have always been there for me. No matter what happens, I feel strongest when I'm with them."

I love my parents but they themselves will tell you it took them a moment to get on board with my brother being gay.  I was on board from the start.  I loved him and I loved who he was.  It wasn't a shock to me, it wasn't something to be embarrassed or ashamed of.  I believed in Jesus' love for all of us and I just loved him for who he was.  We're older now and I wish the world was further along.  But thanks to families who can love and support their members, we're probably further along than we might be otherwise.  


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, March 21, 2023.  20 years later and nothing has been learned as the same media landscape that sold the Iraq War continues to offer lies, generals and blaming the American people (for the media's failures) while ignoring the voices of peace.


She started out being called "Lard Ass" because her name was "Lourdes" and then she changed it to "Lulu" as though she were a stripper and not a supposed journalist.  Who am I talking about?  Former NPR embarrassment, now fled to THE NEW YORK TIMES, Lulu Garcia-Navarro.  She wants you to know, in her NYT column, about the years and years she covered Iraq.  She implies it was a straight string of time when in fact she was in and out of the country.  And you'd think every report she did was like the one where Iraqi widows were being put into a trailer camp in trailers with on air conditioning so the trailers were nothing but ovens.  No.  Most of the time she was talking to or speaking for American government officials.  And we're usually kinder to her, she's not one of the worst offenders in journalism.  But then she writes garbage like this:


Americans who never went to Iraq do not think much about what happened there. According to a recent survey, the Iraq war is “largely invisible and out of mind" for a majority of us. Even young Iraqis are hopefully putting the war behind them. But amnesia or a will to move on can’t erase what was a colossal and catastrophic mistake.


Lulu, it was your job and your peers to cover Iraq.  If Americans don't think much of it -- something I don't believe -- then maybe take a second to notice how little coverage the Iraq War has received in the last six, eight, ten years.

If it weren't the 20th anniversary, Lulu, you wouldn't have stepped down from your stripper pole to hector the American people, now would you?

And let's be really clear that your work out of Iraq was embarrassing -- yes, as part of the NPR team you won two awards -- as part of the team.  The weakest member of the team.  You weren't Deborah Amos and you weren't Kelly McEvers.  Meaning?  Anyone who knows NPR's coverage knows those were the two star journalists, those were the reporters breaking actual news.  You soft balled a US general here or there, you cooed to Petreaus, you did nothing of real importance and you did that over and over when you weren't rushing off to Israel or to Mexico or to Libya or to . . .

You've got a lot of nerve showing up now and blaming the American people for not knowing what goes in Iraq -- as though they live across the street from Iraq and aren't dependent upon the media to inform them of what's going on over 6,000 miles away?


The media failed repeatedly on Iraq and continues to fail.  Lard Ass wants to blame the American people.  Heaven forbid most members of the US media ever take accountability.  Certainly not the star players.

The war didn't just start with lies.  It continued with lies.  The shameful reporting of THE NEW YORK TIMES -- especially John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins -- was not about reporting, it was about continuing the Iraq War.  Dexter is off to interview someone with the Iraqi resistance.  A US official says he'd prefer Dexter doesn't do that.  Dexter decides he won't do it.  Falluja's being attacked -- for the second time -- and Dexter's some sort of a witness.  He tells people -- I have the names and I even have copies of the e-mails (I also have the break up e-mails with your ex-wife, Dexy) -- that these are War Crimes he's seeing.  But that doesn't make it into the paper.  Instead, he hands his copy over to the US military -- this is the bad copy that we called out the first  week of this site, the bad copy that he won an award for -- and award that should have long ago been pulled.  He lets the military vet his copy.

The paper's aware of it.

They do nothing.

When THE WALL STREET JOURNAL learned Gina Chon had let US government official Brett McGurk vet her copy all those years in Baghdad, they called her and they fired her.  Even though she was now married to Brett, it didn't matter.  You don't let others dictate your copy.  Editors for your outlet can dictate your copy but you don't let outsiders dictate it.

I'm looking around and seeing a lot of people show up in the last days wanting to talk Iraq -- it's not an eight year war.  You can't even get the basics right?  And does anyone need to hear from David Petraeus again?  Did you all sleep with him?  Is that why you keep fluffing him and pretending that he's got something to offer?

The corporate media (and some begging outlets) hasn't gotten any better.


The American media paid only perfunctory attention to the Iraq War anniversary. What has been said is aimed at covering up for the colossal scale of the crime, and of the media’s own role in it.

The cynicism, as always, found its most perfidious expression in the pages of the New York Times. A news analysis by Max Fisher under the headline, “20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?” treats the motives of the Bush administration in launching the war as uncertain and even “fundamentally unknowable,” in the words of one “scholar” interviewed by Fisher. 

The Times article flatly rejects the “once-prevalent theory: that Washington invaded to control Iraq’s vast oil resources,” without referring to the prominence of former oilmen like Vice President Cheney and Bush himself in driving the decisions for war. And it attributes the systematic lying about Saddam Hussein’s possession of “weapons of mass destruction” to a form of groupthink, in which “[a] critical mass of senior officials all came to the table wanting to topple Mr. Hussein for their own reasons, and then talked one another into believing the most readily available justification.”

The Times’ “analysis” carefully avoids any discussion of the role of the Times itself as one of the main promoters of the “weapons of mass destruction” campaign. Reports written by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, most notoriously a September 2002 front-page exclusive under the headline, “U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts,” parroted the claims of top Bush administration officials, and were taken up by the corporate media as a whole. White House officials then cited these reports as “evidence” against Iraq, which they themselves had planted.

The motivations for the war are not “unknowable.” Indeed, they were known at the time, with tens of millions throughout the world participating in demonstrations in advance of the invasion, rejecting the lies of the administration and demanding “no blood for oil.” The size and breadth of the demonstrations were so large that it prompted the New York Times to comment that there were “two superpowers”: The United States and “world public opinion.”

On March 21, 2003, the day after the invasion began, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North published a statement laying out the nature of the war:

The unprovoked and illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States is an event that will live in infamy. The political criminals in Washington who have launched this war, and the wretched scoundrels in the mass media who are reveling in the bloodbath, have covered this country in shame. Hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world are repulsed by the spectacle of a brutal and unrestrained military power pulverizing a small and defenseless country. The invasion of Iraq is an imperialist war in the classic sense of the term: a vile act of aggression that has been undertaken on behalf of the interests of the most reactionary and predatory sections of the financial and corporate oligarchy in the United States. Its overt and immediate purpose is the establishment of control over Iraq’s vast oil resources and reduction of that long-oppressed country to an American colonial protectorate.

The war was part of an unending series of invasions and occupations initiated by the United States in the midst of and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, under both Democrats and Republicans. This includes the First Gulf War (1990-91); the bombing of Serbia (1999); the invasion of Afghanistan (2001); the bombing of Libya (2011) and the US-backed civil war in Syria (2011). Far from expressing the strength of American capitalism, the effort of the American ruling class to use military force to conquer the world arises out of extreme crisis.


Noting the same NYT column, Mark Frauenfelder (BOING BOING) points out, "So, while The Times may now be asking 'Why Did the U.S. Invade?' it's worth remembering that The Times was complicit in the lies and propaganda that led to the war, and it should be held accountable for its role in this tragic chapter in American history."


It would be hard to overstate the devastation wrought by the Iraq War. Brown University’s Cost of War project estimates that roughly three hundred thousand innocent Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of direct fighting. Millions more died indirectly from its consequences, such as malnutrition, disease, and poverty. More than nine million were displaced from their homes. Today much of the political instability, corruption, and sectarian violence in Iraq can be traced back to the devastation of the war. Domestically, the invasion of Iraq cost US taxpayers $2.4 trillion and fueled the military-industrial complex. Regionally, it birthed an Islamist insurgency that would become the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), destabilizing the region from Syria to Yemen and Libya.

What was achieved in Iraq?  How are the Iraqi people better off today? 

The MSM either avoids the topic or, in the case of NBC's Richard Engel, they just flat out lie.  "There Are Many Signs of Hope" in Iraq was the title of Richard's ridiculous 'report' yesterday.

The glass is half-full, Richard, of Iraqi blood.

The illegal war reduced the country to a land of orphans and widows.  There is still not a government that serves the Iraqi people.  They do not have jobs.  Corruption continues and sees officials rip off millions while the citizens of oil-rich Iraq live in poverty and don't even have the needed basic infrastructure to avoid flooding in the streets or cholera each summer.  


Kim Sengupta (INDEPENDENT) notes another effect of the war:

The outrage caused by the Iraq War became a call to arms for international jihad the repercussions of which are still being felt today. Islamist terrorist groups continue to use the invasion as one of the reasons for carrying out attacks.

 

Richard Engel and everyone else needs to stop trying to sell the crime that is the Iraq War.  It can't be prettied up.  

It was an illegal war, it was a war of choice.  Even the Pope was trying to avert the US-led war.  Marie Duhamel and Linda Bordoni (VATICAN NEWS) note:


Cardinal Fernando Filoni says one of the toughest periods of his life was the war in Iraq.

He was speaking to Vatican News exactly 20 years after the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle Eastern country, where he served as apostolic nuncio in the early 2000s, remaining at his post in Baghdad amid bombings and suicide attacks. 

Filoni was appointed as the Vatican’s ambassador to Iraq and Jordan in January 2001, and was at the apostolic nunciature in the Iraqi capital during the US invasion which began on 20 March 2003.

“This was the moment,” he said, ”in which not only myself but also the bishops, the priests, the faithful and the people in Iraq, we had the perception of our incapacity to give a different perspective than that of war”.

He recalled that Pope John Paul II spoke often of the conflict and about the possibility of solving it through dialogue.



Here's Germany's DW with the truth Richard Engel won't deliver.


But by all means, Lola, Lardass, whoever you are at this moment in time, let's pretend the problem is the American people and not the US media outlets that they depend upon for their information.


After their ridiculous 'we gave Iraqis disposable cameras' lifestyle segment last week, CNN rolls up their sleeves and lets Dalya Al Masri do a real report:

  

Salah Nsaif was 32 years old when American soldiers imprisoned him in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.

Twenty years later, he has left his country and settled in faraway Sweden with his wife and three children, but the horrors of the war there continue to haunt him.

“What happened to me was very painful. It impacted my personal relationships when I left Iraq,” Salah told CNN, adding that he felt like he was in a prison of his own mind. “I didn’t want to see my baby or anyone else and I isolated myself. It took me a long time to stop having nightmares.”

Two decades after the start of the US-led war in the country, Iraqis say that while some of the physical wounds may have healed over time, the psychological trauma from the conflict and its aftermath persists to this day.        






Over the weekend, protests took place across the U.S. calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war as the world marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the nation’s capital, people rallied in front of the White House and marched in the streets of D.C. This is Claudia de la Cruz from The People’s Forum.

Claudia de la Cruz: “We’re here to let the world know that we are committed as a people to shut the war machine down. The planet and humanity depend on us. We’ve got to fight. We’ve got to continue to demand an end to NATO, an end to AFRICOM, an end to the Southern Command and the levels of sanctions that the U.S. has all across the globe. We need to continue to make the connections of working-class people in the United States to the working-class people all around the world. So we’re here making those demands. We’re also recommitting ourselves to lift up the antiwar movement once again.”

The Costs of War Project estimates up to 306,000 Iraqi civilians have died from direct war-related violence, while hundreds of thousands more Iraqi civilians have died from indirect causes and millions have been displaced. Some estimates put the death toll in Iraq at over 2 million. In the lead-up to the illegal 2003 invasion, tens of millions of people took to the streets in thousands of antiwar protests around the globe.



On March 18, the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. Protesters demanded an end to the endless U.S. wars of the past 20 years, particularly the proxy conflict in Ukraine.

Just in front of the musicians and speakers, eight coffins were draped in flags of various nations struck by the U.S. war machine, representing those needlessly killed in the past 20 years of war and sanctions. The protesters marched to the White House front fence carrying the coffins to confront President Joe Biden for his responsibility for the many deaths because of U.S. aggression.

After half the marchers entered the area near the White House fence, the Secret Service closed the area to the public, expelling tourists and demonstrators alike. Tourists looked on as a Secret Service officer explained that this was the largest protest in some time.

The march then proceeded to the headquarters of the Washington Post. Speakers accused the Post of responsibility for the past 20 years of war as well, calling the Post “the stenographers of empire”. Brian Becker, national director of the ANSWER Coalition, denounced this war mongering publication from the rally’s stage, “We know who you are. You’re not journalists, you’re an echo chamber for the war machine, and you too are guilty for the deaths of all these people.” This sentiment was reinforced by the banner at the front of the march: “Remember Iraq: No more wars based on lies.”

The march continued to the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Speakers from the pulpit closed out the afternoon with calls for the end of U.S. intervention against Eritrea, Ethiopia, Syria, Palestine, and many other nations around the globe. Speakers highlighted the need to end military pollution, such as the mass poisoning of water caused by the U.S. base at Red Hill, Hawaii. 

Nearly 300 organizations, including peace groups, socialist organizations, anti-war veterans’ groups, organizations fighting for Black liberation and many others supported the demonstration that was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum, and Code Pink. Protesters traveled from all over the country, many on all-night drives with little sleep. Associated actions also took place in over a dozen additional cities as part of this powerful day of action.


That should make you think.


20 years later and the same media that failed the public and silenced the voices of peace while parading around generals in front of the camera is still doing it.


I don't give a damn what lie David Paetraeus -- a man who left Barack Obama's administration in disgrace -- has to say.  I didn't care what he had to say when he was lying in Iraq.  But even after the Iraq War is seen as the crime it is, these are the same voices we're still being offered on what passes for 'news' on our TV screens.



Here's some names that Richard Engel and Lulu Large Ass didn't think to include in the conversation:

Camilo Mejia, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman.

Those are war resisters.  They've been excluded from this important conversation and we're not supposed to notice, apparently.


New content at THIRD:



The following sites updated:



 

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Monday, March 20, 2023

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Loud but Smelly

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S MEGA DUB -- THE KOOL AID TABLE   

U.S. HOUSE REP AND PERMANENT HELL DWELLER MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE HAS SOMETHING SHE WANTS TO SAY ABOUT RUMORS OF DONALD TRUMP, THE FORMER PRESIDENT, BEING ARRESTED TOMORROW.


BUT WHAT SHE WANTS TO SAY, NO ONE CAN DECIPHER.


WE SPOKE TO HER AND MARJORIE TOOK TIME AWAY FROM A PERSONAL PROJECT -- GOING TO PET LAND AND PUTTING FLEAS ON PUPPIES -- TO TRY TO EXPLAIN.


"DONALD TRUMP MAY BE PFFFT TOMORROW AND HE MAY SSSSS BE BUT REGARDLESS, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT PBBBBT  TO PROTECT THPPTPHTPHPHHPH."


WITH THAT, SHE LOOKED AT EACH ONE OF US AND NODDED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO APPROXIMATE A SMILE -- OR THE BEST FASCIMILE THAT SATAN'S BRIDE IS ABLE TO OFFER.


WE WANTED TO FOLLOW UP WITH A QUESTION BUT EACH OF US WAS EITHER USING A HAND TO HOLD OUR NOSE OR FANNING WITH A HAND TO GET THE STENCH OF MARJORIE AWAY -- FAR, FAR AWAY. 


WHILE WE WERE SHAKING OUR HEADS IN DISGUST, MARJORIE'S FORMER ROLL DOG, THE ILLITERATE AND INCONSIDERATE LAUREN BOH-BOH BOHBERT CAME RUNNING OVER TO EXPLAIN THAT MARJORIE'S BEEN PACKING ON THE POUNDS SINCE HER HUSBAND WALKED OUT ON HER SO SHE'S GONE ON OZEMPIC "AND THE SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE GAS AND LOUD FARTS."  


STINKY GAS, BOE-BOE, POSSIBLY LETHAL.  


MARJORIE MIGHT AGREE WITH US OR SHE MIGHT NOT.  SHE OPENED HER MOUTH TO SPEAK BUT ALL ANYONE COULD HEAR WAS "PPPPPPFFFFFFFFFTTTTT."


 

FROM THE TCI WIRE:



Last night, I said SALON won The Big Idiot Sweepstake because yesterday they 'honored' the Iraq War by printing the whore Norman Solomon who whored in his piece on Iraq as he always does.  We noted the way that he left Barack Obama out of the history and that he lied in real time when he was pimping Barack because he didn't tell audiences he was a pledged delegate for Barack.  We noted how he spent the eight years of Barack's presidency ignoring Iraq.  And we noted how, in the middle of Lt Ehren Watada's court martial, Norman started publicly calling for him to drop everything to defend a journalist who didn't want to reveal her sources -- as though that were the biggest issue on Ehren's plate.  

I always forget MOTHER JONES exists.  And that they allow vermin like David Corn to occupy space there.  David spent the lead up the war and the early year attacking anti-war people -- like members of ANSWER.  He also felt the biggest tragedy of the Iraq War was the outing of Valerie Plame (a CIA agent).  But it takes a lot of gall for David Corn -- who still hasn't apologized for his many lies about Russia and the whole pee-pee Trump tape or, for that matter, lying about Bill Clinton pardoning two members of the Weather Underground -- to write a piece about the lack of accountability and how the liars and cheerleaders of the Iraq War were rewarded and publish it at MOTHER JONES where the blogger that they hired after the start of the illegal war was . . . Iraq War cheerleader Kevin Drum.

Oh, are we still pretending his health problems are about to send him to a grave? 

I remember those e-mails, should we publish them here, from the two dumb women who run MOTHER JONES?  About we shouldn't criticize Kevin because of his health.   What was that?  10 years ago?  I think there are over a million dead Iraqis with family and friends that with the dead had even two -- let alone 10 -- more years of life.  


No link to their garbage.  MOTHER JONES is garbage island.  Since those two women took over, it has become worthless -- that's David Corn, that's Kevin Drum, that's their attack on rape victims.  It's really past time that the left policed itself and  grasped that Clara and Monika don't belong anywhere on the spectrum of the left -- or, for that matter, in publishing.

By the way, David rushes to praise John McCain -- who pushed for the Iraq War -- but can't take a moment to credit any of the many activists around the world who stood against the illegal war.  It was that way in real time, please remember.  He spat on protesters in one column after another and he ignores them and the Iraqi people in his column today which is nothing but his usual garbage of shirts-and-skins with him choosing political sides.  

Let's note some of the people who had skin in the game.

Janeane Garofalo comes immediately to mind.  

She didn't mouth something once in London so I guess it doesn't matter that she spoke out publicly against the war before it started and after it started.  She took it to Bill O'Reilly's face.  She was right.  He was wrong.  It would be nice if Sam Seder -- who stabbed her in the back -- could take a moment this week to credit her -- we'd even include a video of it  here -- for being a brave voice who spoke out against the war.  


She became more prominent as a progressive when she voiced opposition to what became the 2003 Iraq War, appearing on CNN and Fox News to discuss it. She said that she was approached by groups such as MoveOn.org and Win Without War to go on TV, because these organizations say that the networks were not allowing antiwar voices to be heard. Garofalo and the other celebrities who appeared at the time said they thought their fame could lend attention to that side of the debate. Her appearances on cable news prior to the war garnered her praise from the left and spots on the cover of Ms. and Venus Zine. Garofalo has had frequent on-air political disputes with Bill O'Reilly, Brian Kilmeade, and Jonah Goldberg.[22]

Prior to the 2003 Iraq War, she took a position on the alleged threat posed by Saddam Hussein. For example, in an interview with Tony Snow on a February 23, 2003 episode of Fox News Sunday,[23] Garofalo said of the Iraqi dictator:

Yes, I think lots of people are eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction. But there's no evidence that he (Hussein) has weapons of mass destruction. There's been no evidence of him testing nuclear weapons. We have people that are in our face with nuclear weapons. We've got Iran and North Korea. We've got a problem with Pakistan. You know, I don't know what to say about that. There's a whole lot of people that are going nuclear. And I think that Saddam Hussein is actually, with the evidence, the least able to use nuclear weapons and the least obvious offender in that area at this moment.

— Janeane Garofalo, Fox News interview

In March 2003, she took part in the Code Pink anti-war march in Washington, D.C. That autumn, she served as emcee at several stops on the Tell Us the Truth tour, a political-themed concert series featuring Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Tom Morello, and others. Throughout the year, Garofalo also actively campaigned for Howard Dean. While on Fox News' program The Pulse, O'Reilly asked Garofalo what she would do if her predictions that the Iraq war would be a disaster were to turn out wrong. Garofalo stated:[24]

I would be so willing to say, 'I'm sorry'. I hope to God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say, 'You were wrong. You were a fatalist.' And I will go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, 'Hey, you and Thomas Friedman were right ... I shouldn't have doubted you ...'

— Janeane Garofalo, Fox News interview

There was Harry Belafonte, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Samuel L. Jackson, Marjorie Cohn, Martin Sheen, Jessica Lange, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Ralph Nader, Lynne Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Lloyd Doggett, John Conyers, Michael Ratner, Heidi Boghosian, Michael Smith, Robert Altman, Gloria La Riva, Phil Donahue, Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, Daniel Ellsberg, Maxine Hong Kingston, Cynthia McKinney, Howard Dean, Gore Vidal, Stan Goff . . .

So many people stood up.  And you don't see that in the coverage.  You see War Hawks like John McCain applauded because -- one foot in the grave right before he died he admitted it was wrong.  Wow.  That was so important.  That brought back from the dead how many Iraqis?



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    "Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Cyndi Lauper, Jamie Lee Curtis"

    "Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin"

    "Sassy grandma?"

    "Weekend box office"

    "What is Cheynne Jackson's chest"

    "Raging Williamson -- Marianne is bi-polar"

    "John Stauber gives Scott Ritter a San Diego Thank You"

    "We will survive"

    "Talking Oscars"

    "Lance Reddick"

    "Graham Elwood, THE GOLDBERGS"

    "SUPERMAN AND LOIS and John Stauber gets more stupid"

    "Idiot of the week"

    "John Stauber flaunts his ignorance of women in history"

    "The only word for Wolf Pack is . . . amazing"

    "It was never about protecting children"

    "Old man John Stauber's brain stopped working long ago"

    "Reading in the 21st century"

    "Nero married two men"

    "Buy and Sell"

    "WOLF PACK, Alice Cooper"

    "Return of the Cat (Stevens)"

    "Pat Schroeder"

    "Dashboard Confessional and Counting Crows"

    "the world according to joan"

    "raging and nondisclosure agreements"

    "how much money did john stauber's group take from soros?"

    "john stauber whores for mother tucker"

    "glenneth greenwald shows up late again"

    "Native Americans and the bog buck moth"

    "James Hong"

    "Streisand"

    "Drag"

    "That awful Jussie"

    "Biden family corruption"

    "TRUE LIES is a good show and John Stauber is a bad person"

    "A third person emerges"

    "The Secret Service failed and is responsible for the JFK assassination II (compilation)"

    "Hunter Biden is a pig"



    "TV: The Tired and The Disappointing"

    "We pick Lauren Boebert's tiny brain"

    "THIS JUST IN! LAUREN BOEBERT TALKS STUPIDLY ABOUT STUPIDITY!"




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    Thursday, March 16, 2023

    Native Americans and the bog buck moth

    Ripping off the Native Americans -- that's the real story of America.  Doubt it?  Michael Macagnone (ROLL CALL) reports:


    The Navajo Nation will argue Monday at the Supreme Court that the United States must meet the water needs of their reservation in Arizona, amid long-standing tensions about how to apportion the dwindling flow of the Colorado River.

    In the first oral arguments of a two-week sitting of the high court, the Navajo will defend a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that kept alive their long-running legal effort to force the government to come up with a plan to provide enough water.

    In court filings, the tribe contends that an 1868 treaty promised both land and water sufficient for the Navajos to return to a permanent home in their ancestral territory.

    Many Navajo households live on a small fraction of the water most Americans use per day, the tribe states. More than 30 percent of the reservation lacks running water. And water hauled from miles away costs multiple times more.

    “How did we get here, in this country, in the twenty-first century? Broken promises,” the tribe’s brief said. “The basic human rights of hundreds of thousands of Navajos, fellow U.S. citizens, hang in the balance.”


    Reality is that no one's had it good in the US unless they owned property and, of course, Native Americans weren't about private ownership.  


    Are we any better today?  I'd like to hope so.  I'd like to believe that, as we learn, we become more caring.  

    The Endangered Species Act, for example, didn't exist in the 1800s.  That act is now 50 years old and The US Fish and Wildlife Services issued the following Tuesday:



    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today a final decision to list the bog buck moth, a large black-and-white moth found in central New York and Ontario, Canada, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. A review of the best available science indicates the species is at risk of extinction throughout its narrow range. The bog buck moth is also protected in Canada and by the State of New York. 

    Down from five known historical populations, the three existing populations of bog buck moth — one in the U.S. and two in Canada — face growing threats from habitat loss, invasive species , and increased flooding associated with climate change . The populations in the U.S. and Canada are isolated from each other and are more vulnerable to threats during natural population fluctuations, or “boom-and-bust" cycles. In years when conditions are favorable, bog buck moth populations can grow, or “boom,” but during years when conditions are unfavorable, the populations can crash, or “bust,” in response to disease, predation, or parasites. Federal protection will raise awareness about the threats this species faces and strengthen existing partnerships to support its recovery.  

    Habitat loss or alteration resulting from land-use change has made it harder for the species to recover from these periodic steep declines in part because they cannot disperse to sites where conditions are better. To persist into the future, populations of bog buck moth need to be large enough, and have access to enough suitable habitat, to withstand natural fluctuations. Maintaining healthy populations at different climate gradients is also important to ensure this species retains the ability to adapt to changing conditions. 

    With black-and-gray wings that span nearly 2.5 inches — the length of your index finger — bog buck moths are large and bold. They have fuzzy black bodies and translucent black-and-gray wings with wide, white bands and eyespots: circular markings meant to mimic eyes to scare away predators. Males have feathery antennae, which have receptors to detect the pheromones of females, and red tipped abdomens. 

    The final rule and supporting information are available online in the Federal Register reading room. 

    Today’s announcement comes as the ESA turns 50 years old in 2023. Throughout the year, the Department of the Interior will celebrate the ESA's importance in preventing imperiled species' extinction, promoting the recovery of wildlife and conserving the habitats upon which they depend.  

    The ESA has been highly effective and credited with saving 99% of listed species from extinction. Thus far, more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted based on recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened based on improved conservation status, and hundreds more species are stable or improving thanks to the collaborative actions of Tribes, federal agencies, state and local governments, conservation organizations and private citizens. 


    Here's a video I found on YOUTUBE about bog buck moths.




    "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

    Thursday, March 15, 2023.  The 20th anniversary of the Iraq War looms -- we're told maybe US troops can leave in . . . five years, John Stauber continues his lurch to the right and his embrace of hate, and much more.



    The U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq 20 years ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom. President George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer twice accidentally referred to it as Operation Iraqi Liberation, which was definitely not its official name and would have generated an unfortunate acronym.

    The men and women who launched this catastrophic, criminal war have paid no price over the past two decades. On the contrary, they’ve been showered with promotions and cash. There are two ways to look at this.

    One is that their job was to make the right decisions for America (politicians) and to tell the truth (journalists). This would mean that since then, the system has malfunctioned over and over again, accidentally promoting people who are blatantly incompetent failures.

    Another way to look at it is that their job was to start a war that would extend the U.S. empire and be extremely profitable for the U.S. defense establishment and oil industry, with no regard for what’s best for America or telling the truth. This would mean that they were extremely competent, and the system has not been making hundreds of terrible mistakes, but rather has done exactly the right thing by promoting them.


    As we get closer to the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, more publications note (remember) Iraq.  Julian Borger (GUARDIAN) writes:

    There are still US soldiers on counter-terrorist missions in Iraq and Syria. The Authorisation to Use Military Force that Congress first granted to the Bush administration in the run-up to the 2003 invasion has yet to be repealed by the Senate, and has been cited by the Obama and Trump administrations in justifying operations in the region.

    Coleen Rowley, an FBI whistleblower who exposed security lapses leading to the 9/11 attacks, wrote an open letter to the FBI director in March 2003, warning of a “flood of terrorism” resulting from the Iraq invasion. She says now that two decades on, nobody has been held accountable for the fatal mistakes.

    “I think the real danger is that their propaganda was very successful, and people like Bush and Cheney have now been rehabilitated,” Rowley said. “Even the liberals have embraced Bush and Cheney.”

    The terrible mistakes made leading to and during the Iraq war forced no resignations and neither George W Bush nor his vice-president, Dick Cheney – nor any other senior official who made the case the war and then oversaw a disastrous occupation – have ever been held to account by any form of commission or tribunal.


    Terrible mistakes?  Try outright lies.  Peter Van Buren exposed some of the lies in his book WE MEANT WELL.  At RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT, he writes:

    The Iraq reconstruction failed to account for the lessons of Vietnam (the CORDS program in particular.) The Afghan reconstruction failed to account for the lessons of Iraq. We now sit and wait to see the coming Ukraine reconstruction fail to remember any of it at all.

    “It is obvious that American business can become the locomotive that will once again push forward global economic growth,” President Zelensky said, boasting that BlackRock, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs “have already become part of our Ukrainian way.” The New York Times calls Ukraine “the world’s largest construction site,” and predicts projects there in the multi-billions, as high in some estimates as $750 billion. 

    It will be, says the Times, a “gold rush: the reconstruction of Ukraine once the war is over. Already the staggering rebuilding task is evident. Hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and factories have been obliterated along with critical energy facilities and miles of roads, rail tracks and seaports. The profound human tragedy is unavoidably also a huge economic opportunity.”

    We did worse than nothing. Iraq before our invasion(s) was a more or less stable place, good enough that Saddam was even an ally of sorts during the Iraq-Iran War. By the time we were finished, Iraq was looking closer to a corrupt client state of Iran. Where once most literate Americans knew the name of the Iraqi prime minister — a regular White House guest — now, unless he’s changed his name to Zelensky, nobody cares anymore. And that’s what the sign on the door leading out of Iraq (and perhaps into Ukraine) reads: tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars later, no one cares, if they even remember.


    Unlike the bulk of people weighing in, Peter's tying in then and now and his knowledge of Iraq doesn't stop in 2008.  The November 2008 election of Barack Obama lead 'activists' like United for Peace and Justice to close shop  -- their very own "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" moment -- and media outlets to withdraw -- ABC announced at the end of 2008, for example, that they would be using BBC NEWS reports to cover Iraq instead of their own correspondents.  


    The media withdrew from Iraq.  All this time later, US troops remain in Iraq. 


    At COUNTERPUNCH, Kathy Kelly notes:


    Twenty years ago, in Baghdad, I shared quarters with Iraqis and internationals in a small hotel, the Al-Fanar, which had been home base for numerous Voices in the Wilderness delegations acting in open defiance of the economic sanctions against Iraq. U.S. government officials charged us as criminals for delivering medicines to Iraqi hospitals. In response, we told them we understood the penalties they threatened us with (twelve years in prison and a $1 million fine), but we couldn’t be governed by unjust laws primarily punishing children. And we invited government officials to join us. Instead, we were steadily joined by other peace groups longing to prevent a looming war.

    In late January 2003, I still hoped war could be averted. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report was imminent. If it declared that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), U.S. allies might drop out of the attack plans, in spite of the massive military buildup we were witnessing on nightly television. Then came Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003, United Nations briefing, when he insisted that Iraq did indeed possess WMD. His presentation was eventually proven to be fraudulent on every count, but it tragically gave the United States enough credibility to proceed at full throttle with its “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign.

    Beginning in mid-March 2003, the ghastly aerial attacks pounded Iraq day and night. In our hotel, parents and grandparents prayed to survive ear-splitting blasts and sickening thuds. A lively, engaging nine-year-old girl completely lost control over her bladder. Toddlers devised games to mimic the sounds of bombs and pretended to use small flashlights as guns.

    Our team visited hospital wards where maimed children moaned as they recovered from surgeries. I remember sitting on a bench outside of an emergency room. Next to me, a woman convulsed in sobs asking, “How will I tell him? What will I say?” She needed to tell her nephew, who was undergoing emergency surgery, that he had not only lost both his arms but also that she was now his only surviving relative. A U.S. bomb had hit Ali Abbas’s family as they shared a lunch outside their home. A surgeon later reported that he had already told Ali that they had amputated both of his arms. “But,” Ali had asked him, “will I always be this way?

    I returned to the Al-Fanar Hotel that evening feeling overwhelmed by anger and shame. Alone in my room, I pounded my pillow, tearfully murmuring, “Will we always be this way?”

    Throughout the Forever Wars of the past two decades, U.S. elites in the military-industrial-Congressional-media complex have manifested an insatiable appetite for war. They seldom heed the wreckage they have left behind after “ending” a war of choice.


    The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is a fairly new think-tank (2019).  It was started by Andrew Bacevich and has recieved funding from the Koch brothers and George Soros.  Where we're concerned is the proposal on Iraq that they've published -- written by Steven Simon and Adam Weinstein:


     Withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq within five years (except Marine Security Guards for the protection of the Embassy and OSC–I personnel under the U.S. Mission), recognizing that temporary combined training exercises, military delegations, and combined planning efforts using TDY personnel would be useful and should continue if both countries wish.


    Five years.  

    It's 2023 and we're talking five years.

    "We want troops out of Iraq!  And we want it now!"

    Was that Jane Fonda at the big January 2007 rally in DC against the Iraq War?

    No.

    It wasn't an activist.

    It was Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 at his rallies and that was also used in the 2008 campaign ads.  

    Did we want that, Barack?  

    If you're part of the 'we' then clearly not.

    He used the Iraq War to get into the White House.

    He did a drawdown in 2011.  Then he began increasing US forces in Iraq secretly the following year -- at the end of September 2012, Tim Arango (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:

     
     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 General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.        


    That was buried in a report on Syria, Jill Abramson would not allow the important news in a report of its own -- with a proper headline.  

    You'll read lies this week by idiots who'll tell you US troops left Iraq at the end of 2011 and didn't return until 2014.  A lie.  Most of them are just ignorant of reality but some are aware that they're lying.  

    US troops remain in Iraq all these years later -- most recent death was in December -- and what a 'statecraft' institute is proposing is that we can get US troops out (minus those guarding the embassy) in five years.

    Fie years. 

    Twenty-five years after the illegal war started.  

    When Barack was lying on the campaign trail -- and he was lying, as Samantha Power infamously told BBC -- he knew no one would accept five years but that's where we are now.



    Cher's political takes?  Not a fan.  I know Cher and I like her but she -- like too many other celebrities -- think they know something when they do not.  They don't understand that the media that lies about them also lies about other things.  It always amazes me when someone can't grasp something so obvious.

    The media is not our friend.  It will destroy us given the chance.  The most honest -- in color film -- about the media ever made was probably 1986's ROCKABYE starring Valerie Bertinelli who ends up being used by a reporter after her child is kidnapped.  (In the days of black & white films, they tended to be more honest about the ruthless nature of the press.  Since then, ROCKABYE is the rare exception.)  Their goal is not to be your friend, their goal is to get a story.  And that story will be pumped and massaged at the expense of the truth.  

    Homophobia exists to this day because of the media.  'Educated' people, 'well' informed by the media in previous decades were taught homophobia.  That is the reality.  

    And that's what the media does: teaches people what to think.  You're the consumer trying to get facts but what you're given is rarely factual and more often it's got a long range plan behind it.

    The war on Russia was obvious when Barack was president.  You can find, at this site, especially after Ed Snowden was in Russia, the point that The Cold War was being restarted.  By the same token, throughout the ongoing Iraq War, there have been attempts to sell war on Iran.  More recently, there's been a strong push to sell war on China.  I do believe WSWS has painted themselves into a corner on the origins of the COVID 19 virus.  I understand how that happened, their desire to avert US war with China.  But they've left themselves no wiggle room and should it be linked to that infamous lab, they're going to be publicly embarrassed.  (I'm not saying the lab and COVID are linked -- I don't know.  And I'm never afraid to say I don't know.)

    The government feeds the media -- sometimes the truth, sometimes a lie -- editors and producers want their reporters 'well connected' and are more worried about angering a powerful government official than informing the public.  


    News consumers need to stop being so willing to be fed. 

    So I'm bringing this up because I have called Cher out before -- and will again, I'm sure -- but I'm factual when I do. 

    John Stauber left the world of factual long, long ago.


    Is the failed writer projecting?

    He can't stop promoting his (co-written) book from two decades ago which I'll assume is because he's done nothing of value since.  

    Cher doesn't do drugs, ''sweetie.'' Drugs clearly damaged your brain, John, but Cher doesn't do drugs.

    I know that because I know her, yes.  

    But it's equally true that that's never been a secret.  Sonny & Cher fell out of popularity in part because their anti-drug stance in the late sixties put them out of step with the youth who had celebrated them.  While starring in her own variety series in the 70s, she went to a party and was able to help save the lives of a few people because, unlike them, she didn't take the drugs being offered. This was a big story covered even by her own network CBS.  In addition, there's the whole Gregg Allman coupling and her statements there.  

    Cher loves to tell the story about Mike Nichols coming backstage during the Broadway run of COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN and offering her the tole in SILKWOOD and stating he was wrong (he'd turned her down for the female lead in THE FORTUNE years before.  She likes to say that it was like being on acid and then adding that she's never dropped acid.

    I get it, John, I do.  Your pathetic life got you run off from the body you created.  You became such pariah that even Ruth Conniff was able to get laughs at your expense.  Your career ended long ago and, honestly, even when it was active, it didn't amount to anything.

    Of course, you'd want to trash Cher, a singer who's had hit singles in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s.  Of course you'd want to trash Cher whose career includes starring in TV variety shows.  Cher who is a successful actress who's been on Broadway and who's won an Academy Award. 

    What have you done in your professional life, John?

    That's right, nothing much.  Nothing much at all.

    And the reason for that is clear in your Tweet.  You don't care about facts, you just Tweet whatever you think will get you attention.  You're a smug little bitch whose Tweet doesn't hide the fact that you've accomplished nothing with your pathetic life and that you have to resort to lying to even attempt wit -- attempt but, of course, fail.



    So sad -- sad and pathetic with your transphobia and, as Ruth pointed out last night, your efforts to elect Ron DeSantis president of the United States.   Five Tweets praising him, why don't you just come out as the right-winger you are?  And we need to note that "Don't say gay" Ron is your guy.  You have no foundation.  Your beliefs change from one moment to the next.  

    Cher's Tweet's embarrassing.  And it's embarrassing because she doesn't have the background to Tweet about what she's Tweeting.  It's also embarrassing because she's worked herself up so much because there are so many idiots in our industry.  They're misled because they don't have the education background behind them.

    But you do, John, so what's your excuse for promoting a hate merchant like Ron?

    You know Keith Olbermann was a star on MSNBC and often said things that I agreed with.  But I didn't write him about him here, I didn't advance him because he's disgusting.  He was always disgusting.  He was always a sexist and abusive.

    You are so far from where you once were.  I'll take Cher who cares a great deal but make mistakes based upon the propaganda from the 'news' media over someone like you any day.

    You've chosen your side and you need to remain there now.  It's sad for you because I was one of the few people defending you over the last years.  You know you're a joke in independent media and you know how people in that media hate you -- it's why you're not invited on any programs.  I'm done defending you.  DOBBS changed everything.  We know who are friends are and we know who the trash is.  You've decided to stand with trash: Registered sex offender and convicted pedophile Scott Ritter, transphobe con artist Glenn Greenwald, etc, etc.  

    Those are your people now.



    And here's QUEER NEWS TONIGHT reporting on the crowd John Stauber hangs with now.





    A new report published last week by the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism found that an “all-time high” number of “white supremacist propaganda” incidents occurred in the United States in 2022, eclipsing the previous year’s record total of 4,876 by nearly 2,000.

    “Our data shows,” the ADL wrote, “a 38 percent increase in incidents from the previous year, with a total of 6,751 … the highest number of white supremacist propaganda incidents ADL has ever recorded.”

    In addition to an increase in white supremacist incidents, the ADL recorded a more than doubling of “antisemitic propaganda” incidents, rising from 352 in 2021 to 852 in 2022. These included banner drops on roadways, in-person demonstrations, leafleting neighborhoods and projecting images on buildings and stadiums.

    The ADL found that propaganda efforts were undertaken in every US state except Hawaii, with the most active states being Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Utah, Florida, Connecticut and Georgia. These propaganda efforts were organized by “at least 50 different white supremacist groups” according to the ADL, however, “three of them—Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League (GDL) and White Lives Matter (WLM)—were responsible for 93 percent of the activity.”

    White supremacist “events” such as demonstrations at state capitols, parades and local businesses, organized by WLM, GDL, Patriot Front, the Proud Boys and others increased by 55 percent last year, from 108 in 2021 to 167 in 2022.

    The only area where ADL recorded a decrease in fascist activity was on school campuses, where the ADL found 219 incidents of white supremacist propaganda in 2022, a slight 6 percent decrease from 2021. Fascist propaganda, overwhelmingly distributed by Patriot Front (74 percent of all incidents), was discovered on campuses in 39 different states, led by Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

    This is the second report released by the ADL in the last month that has documented an historic rise in far-right agitation and violence in the US.

    Last month, the ADL reported that every single “extremist” mass killing in 2022 was linked to far-right ideology. Notably, the ADL did not mention that every mass killing linked to in their report was directly inspired by Republican Party politicians and their sycophants in right-wing media. This is also the case in the March report, which likewise does not mention Trump or the role of the Republican Party in cultivating these right-wing and openly fascist elements.

    While the Republicans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, have advanced some 420 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation so far in 2023, violent Republican rhetoric is translating into threats of real-world fascist terrorist violence.


    This is the world of hate that John Stauber, Glenneth Greenwald and so many others have decided to help create.  


    Two days from now, there's an action in DC.








    The following sites updated:






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