Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel)

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Crooked Judge Reed O'Connor

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Crowd Envy" went up minutes ago.

So many stupid Republicans.

Reed O'Connor is a Republican. He's also a judge. So we already know this story is not going to end well. Elon Musk is a thug and a weirdo. He's going after the World Federation of Advertisers. Who?

From WIKIPEDIA:

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is a global association for multinational marketers and national advertiser associations. Its membership is made up of over 140^[1] of the world's top brands and national associations in more than 60 markets. WFA's aim is to champion effective and sustainable marketing communications worldwide.

WFA is based in Brussels, Belgium,^[2] and has offices in London, New York and Singapore.

WFA was founded in Stresa, Italy, on 14 May 1953 as the Union Internationale des Associations d'Annonceurs (UIAA)^[3] at the initiative of ten existing national advertiser associations representing Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. In 1984, at the Rio de Janeiro World Congress, the UIAA changed its name to the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)^[4] and opened its doors to corporate members.^[5]

So egged on by crazy Republican Jim Jordan -- who apparently took his eyes off sweaty college boys long enough to 'study' the issue -- Elon Musk is suing them claiming that they have conspired against his business interests. Isn't he one of the richest people in the world?

So he's filing in Texas where he hopes to control the outcome. And he landed the crooked Judge Reed O'Connor.

"Crooked? Betty, he has recused himself from the trial!"

Yes, he did. He filed the paperwork Tuesday.

Yesterday.

But let's not applaud him. He only filed the paperwork on Tuesday because last week NPR reported on him:

Billionaire Elon Musk seems to have found a new favorite federal judge: Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas.

Musk’s social media company X has filed two major lawsuits against groups he sees as antagonists, and O’Connor is presiding over both of them, even though none of the parties is based in Texas.

So far, O’Connor has delivered stunningly pro-Musk decisions, which have gained widespread attention.

What has garnered less attention: O’Connor’s investment in Tesla, between “$15,001 and $50,000” of Tesla stock, according to his most recent publicly available financial disclosure filing.

That investment has fueled questions over O’Connor’s fairness as a judge, since the outcome of the suits filed by Musk’s X could impact his business empire.

“It is absolutely reasonable to question his impartiality in a case where the party and interest is a principal in a company the judge owns stock in,” said James Sample, a professor who specializes in judicial ethics at Hofstra University’s law school.

Others have questioned whether Musk’s legal team intentionally aimed to take their cases to O’Connor’s court — something known as “forum shopping” — in hopes of a sympathetic outcome.

The judge, by the way, is a member of the Federalist Society. I don't know that legal idiot Jonathan Turley went all the way with him but there must have been at least some heavy petting. That's the deal right, how Turley got voted The Sweetheart of the Federalist Society.

So after being exposed by NPR, days after, the crooked judge does what he should have been at the start.

Elon is also suing MEDIA MATTERS and guess who the judge is? That's right crooked Reed O'Conner -- and on that case, he's yet to recuse himself.

Chris Tomlinson (HOUSTON CHRONICLE) reports:

Elon Musk is proving himself a hypocrite when it comes to free speech, behaving like a spoiled billionaire and mobilizing an army of attorneys to bankrupt his critics with costly lawsuits for complaining about his reprehensible behavior.

This form of lawfare has a special name: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, and they are an insidious form of censorship. While Musk claims the universal right to incite civil war during riots in the United Kingdom, he punishes researchers and executives who threaten his profits by speaking out.

[. . .]

While most federal judges would have thrown out the Media Matters case on First Amendment grounds, as the California judge did, O’Connor is forcing the social media watchdog to spend tens of thousands of dollars preparing for a preliminary hearing.

That’s when Musk’s attorneys decided to file the new World Federation of Advertisers suit in the same court.

Even if X loses cases, the lawfare will financially weaken Media Matters and intimidate corporations to remain silent about Musk’s frequent promotion of hate speech. Hence the name Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. They employ fear of litigation to censor.

Musk could not get away with such suits in Texas' state courts. The Legislature passed the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act in 2011, which protects us from state lawsuits seeking to intimidate or keep us from speaking our minds.

If a Texan exercises their right to free speech to criticize something happening in their community, and someone tries to sue them, Texas judges may use the act to immediately dismiss the suit and force the plaintiff to pay attorney’s fees.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, August 14, 2024. The Trump campaign finally gets their viral moment that grabs the internet, lies get Robert Kennedy Junior kicked off the ballot in New York (with larger implications around the country), Iraqis hope next month will see an announcement regarding US troops, Gaza remains under assault and much more.

We're now 82 days away from the US presidential election. And campaigns are imploding. Robert Kennedy Junior's grifting scam would be coming to an end if the worm hadn't eaten Junior's brain; however, that assault apparently left him unable to read both the room and the writing on the wall.

Katherine Koretski and Zoë Richards (NBC NEWS) reports he is off the ballot in New York state:

A judge ruled Monday against independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort to be appear on New York's general election ballot this fall.

New York Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba invalidated Kennedy's nominating petition and directed the Board of Elections not to place Kennedy's name on the official ballot. Supreme Court is a trial-level court in New York state.

[. . .]

A Democratic-aligned group, Clear Choice Action, sued Kennedy over the New York address he claimed as his residence on ballot access petition forms. Kennedy resides in California with his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, but in testimony, he said the couple had always intended to move back to New York.

"The fact that Kennedy considers himself to be a 'New Yorker', has fond memories of the years he lived in the Town of Bedford and longs to return there someday, is utterly irrelevant to the issue of whether he resided in the spare bedroom of the 84 Croton Lake Road address during May of 2024 when he circulated and filed the nominating petition," the judge's ruling said.

It gets worse in two ways. First, Michael Hill and Philip Marcelo (AP) report:

Ryba said evidence submitted in trial showed Kennedy had a “long-standing pattern” of borrowing addresses from friends and relatives so he could maintain his voter registration in New York state while actually residing in California, where he has a home with his wife, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines.

“Given the size and appearance of the spare bedroom as shown in the photographs admitted into evidence, the Court finds Kennedy’s testimony that he may return to that bedroom to reside with his wife, family members, multiple pets, and all of his personal belongings to be highly improbable, if not preposterous," the judge wrote.

So, first off, if he voted in New York's 2020 presidential election, he did so fraudulently. This is not a minor issue. It goes to voter fraud.

And there's something really sad about Junior trying to become the President of the United States while he was also engaging in voter fraud. The other issue is the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution. AP covered it when there was speculation that Florida resident Donald Trump might choose Florida resident Marco Rubio:

The U.S. Constitution prohibits a president and vice president from residing in the same state. If Trump, who declared his Palm Beach estate his home in 2019, were to pick U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio or U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the 12th Amendment could prevent the 30 Florida electors from casting their vote if Republicans win the state.

There are several ways for the Trump campaign to overcome this, legal experts say, though doing so might create some inconvenience for the vice presidential candidate.

“It’s just easier to run candidates from two different states,” said Sanford Levinson, a constitutional scholar at the University of Texas School of Law. “It does seem to be easy to evade any problems if you want to.”

[. . .]

The 12th Amendment says that members of the Electoral College shall vote for a president and vice president. It notes that one of the candidates “shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”

The amendment was added to the Constitution in 1804 when large states such as Virginia dominated the nation’s political discourse, Levinson said, as a way of limiting their power.

Sanford Levinson also shares his interpretation at the National Constitution Center. Joey Garrison (USA TODAY) observes, "The judge's decision could pave the way for similar residency challenges targeting Kennedy's candidacy in other states."

And Junior didn't just lie on paper. He lied to the court. USA TODAY notes, "Kennedy testified last week in court that his residency at the New York address began 'sometime around May of 2023' but confirmed none of his pets or family members reside at that address." No, it was May of 2024. He just can't stop lying. Allison Novelo (CBS NEWS) notes, "Barbara Moss, the woman who owns the home, testified that Kennedy paid her $500 a month for the room. She added that Kennedy had spent only one night at the home and that she received the first rental payment from him on May 20 of this year." Clear Choice Action responded to the verdict with the following statement:

Clear Choice Action, which supported the four New York voters' challenge of the validity of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s candidate petitions due to his use of a fake address on his candidate petitions, released the following statement on the New York Supreme Court's decision:

"Today's ruling makes clear that Mr. Kennedy lied about his residency and provided a false address on his filing papers and candidate petitions in New York, intentionally misleading election officials and betraying voters' trust. The Kennedy team will undoubtedly file desperate lawsuit after desperate lawsuit in the coming days and weeks; they will fail, and it will not change the simple truth: he lied, and he's being held accountable."

Remember that the next time one of the whiners says, "Oh, it's so unfair! They're taking me to court!" Did you follow the regulations or not? In Junior's case, he didn't. He lied about his residence and then made it a Constitutional issue by picking the extremely unqualified Nicole Shanahan to be his running mate despite the fact that Money Bags Shanahan was also from California.

In other election news, as all the voter enthusiasm has gone to Kamala Harris' campaign, running mates Convicted Felon Donald Trump and JD Skidmarks Vance have felt left out and unnoticed. But at last Skidmarks has his viral moment. Too bad for him, it entails him slathered in make up, wearing a wig and women's clothes.

For those late to the party, David Hudson (QUEERTY) recaps:

A second photo showing JD Vance wearing women’s clothing has gone viral. The first pic appeared on Sunday. Podcaster Matt Bernstein shared it to X

The photo apparently dates back to Yale Law School in 2012. Vance was studying there at the time. A former Yale student named, Travis Whitfill, located the image. He told the Daily Beast it’s from a Halloween party. Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment and did not deny the photo was of Vance.

Of course, the internet had a field day when the photo of Vance, a consistent opponent of LGBTQ+ rights who supports ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills for schools, in drag appeared. Internet users quickly came up with the drag name Sofa Loren for Vance.

The internet reacted with further glee when a second picture of Vance, probably taken at the same Halloween party, popped up yesterday afternoon.

This time, Matt Bernstein linked to a website—jdvanceindrag.com— encouraging people to vote in the November election.

Taija PerryCook (SNOPES) notes the first photo "amassed more than 17.6 million views." He finally got his viral moment. There are even contests to pick out a drag name for Skidmarks. The editors of QUEERTY write, "Of course, Vance’s camp hasn't responded to requests for comment about the photos—girl, if you can't love yourself in busted drag, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? But still, every drag queen needs a proper stage name. We've compiled 10 here. Help us pick the best one." Names include Sofa Loren, Ivana Cushion, Betty Settee and Jennifer Convertibles.

Rudi Kinsella (IRISH STAR) points out, "Many members of the Republican party have spent quite a few years condemning drag queens, which could leave Vance in a position where he does eventually need to address these images. Arizona Republicans even recently approved a bill to criminalize drag shows, with the artform being compared to pedophilia." Alex Bollinger (LGBTQ NATION) offers a longer listing of the senator's hate:

Last year, along with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the House, Vance introduced legislation in the Senate to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth at the federal level and to make such care more difficult for transgender adults to obtain.

A year prior, Vance expressed his support for so-called “Don’t Say Gay” laws prohibiting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identities in schools, writing, “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”

Vance spoke out against laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination following the 2020 Supreme Court Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which found that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a form of sex-based discrimination. Vance criticized the legal reasoning behind the decision, stating it had resulted in a “betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.”

He also opposes the Equality Act, legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity in federal anti-discrimination laws.

He proposed the “Passport Sanity Act,” which would prohibit the use of “X” gender markers on passports and limit gender options to only male or female.

Aurora DeStefano (TWO PARAGRAPHS) notes, "The transgender look doesn’t say 'Republican Vice President' so much as it suggests TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney, whose receipt of a customized Bud Light can so enraged MAGA adherents in April 2023 that they stirred up a massive boycott of what was once the #1 selling beer in America."

Turning to the Middle East, PRESS TV reports:

Resistance forces have fired four missiles from Iraq targeting the US military base in the Washington-controlled Conoco gas field in eastern Syria.

Lebanese television channel Al Mayadeen said US warplanes were flying intensely in the skies of Deir ez-Zor countryside following the attack on Tuesday evening.

Local sources reported that US soldiers shelled towns in Deir ez-Zor following the resistance operation.

Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, claimed that the projectiles did not hit the base and there were no injuries, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon official said that 8 American soldiers were wounded in the resistance operation against Kharab Al-Jir base in a drone attack on their base in Syria on Friday.

Over the weekend, APA noted, "The foreign minister of Iraq will travel to Washington next month to make a formal announcement about the withdrawal of American military forces from the Arab country, informed sources said, APA reports citing TASNIM." Officially, 2,500 US troops remain in Iraq. The number is actually much higher. Last month, someone at the US Embassy in Baghdad shot a woman in an apartment across the way leaving her hospitalized which has increased the calls for US troops to leave Iraq. As noted in this snapshot, the wife of Dr Abdul Amir al-Hazali was praying in her apartment when she was shot. As we noted then, the shooting resulted in another push to expel US troops from Iraq:

Abdul Amir Al-Ghazali spoke with ALSUMARIA and explained to them that the shooting took place on Friday while his wife was praying. The Badr Organization accuses the US government of converting the US Embassy in Baghdad into a "military base," condemns the action citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, and, citing the Iraqi Constitution (Articles 1, 15, 50 and 109) calls for Iraq's legislative and executive branches to expel the US military from Iraq.

The Badr Organization is part of the alliance that controls the Parliament. Over the weekend, another group began echoing the call. SABA reports, "State of Law Coalition member Ahmed Al-Sudani on Sunday said that Washington is procrastinating in determining the withdrawal paragraph from Iraq, stressing that the withdrawal of US forces is necessary to achieve national security. State of Law is former prime minster and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki's coalition. Arabic social media is showing some excitement about the upcoming September trip to DC with the hope that an announcement will be made that US troops are leaving.

Love to see that happen but don't see it happening.

In other Iraq news, Cathrin Schaer (DW) reports:

The Iraqi government's attempt to change what is often called the most liberal personal status law in the Middle East has been met with protests and social media outrage.

"Here is Baghdad," Ali al-Mikdam, a journalist and human rights activist, wrote on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend about a demonstration in the Iraqi capital attended by about 500 people.

"The capital of our Iraq was not and will not be Kandahar!" he said, referring to drastically restricted women's rights in Afghanistan.

Personal status laws, or family laws, govern marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. In the Middle East, many of these are based on religion, but Iraq's Personal Status Law No. 188, passed in 1959, is less so. It basically replaced Sunni and Shiite Muslim religious courts with a civil judiciary and more liberal interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence.

But now, Iraqi politicians affiliated with conservative Shiite Muslim parties want to try and change this. Their draft bill to amend Law No. 188 was read in parliament on August 4. In response, a coalition of activists, politicians, and human rights organizations formed Alliance 188, named after the law, to organize protests all around Iraq last weekend.

"We have a civil law, and we should be changing it for good, not bad. We should not be going backward," Rasha, a local who attended the protests, told DW. The 53-year-old didn't want to give her full name because some of the protesters had been harassed. In the central Iraqi city of Najaf, police had to separate angry groups of demonstrators.

"I don't even know why they want to do this," Rasha continued. "I think they just hate the rights of women, and that's why they want to change this law. Really, I thank God I am not married, that I don't have to worry about my children in the future."

Meanwhile, in Gaza, ALJAZEERA notes, "At least 20 Palestinians have been killed across the central and southern Gaza Strip this morning in Israeli strikes on Nuseirat, Maghazi, Khan Younis and Rafah." Each day the deaths continue. There is no cease-fire or even a stop-gap measure passed off as a 'cease-fire.' Ghaya Ben Mbarek (THE NATIONAL) reports:

UN officials condemned Israel's recent attack on Al Tabaeen school, in which at least 100 Palestinians were killed

The August 10 strike on the school in eastern Gaza city – where more than 2,400 displaced people were sheltering – was one of at least 21 strikes on schools recorded since July 4, the UN Security Council in New York heard.

The Al Tabaeen attack highlighted “the desperate need to reach a ceasefire, free the hostages and scale up humanitarian aid”, Rosemary DiCarlo, under secretary general for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, told Security Council members in a meeting called by Algeria, a non-permanent member of the council.

Ms DiCarlo said the situation in Gaza “remains catastrophic”, while hostilities continue.

“No place is safe in Gaza, yet civilians continue to be ordered to evacuate to ever shrinking areas,” she said.

We keep hearing people -- officials -- condemning what's taking place. We don't see anyone stopping it and that includes the international court.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 313 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 39,965 with 92,294 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."

Lastly, e-mails to the public e-mail account about 'poor' Trashy Garbage -- Trina's nickname for the hideous Tulsi Gabbard. Oh, she was the victim!!!! All her life. Matt Taibbi is part of this because liars stick together. Whatever Turlsi did or didn't do, we covered the ongoing investigation against her in our community newsletters. And if Fatty Matty, that Uncle Fester looking piece of trash, needs a news tip -- go for the military records because that's where the investigation into Tulsi started and it started in 2023. The e-mails I had access to began in September of 2023 and the USARMY Reserve USARC HQ were cc'd on them. Tulsi's actions concerned her military supervisors so why don't you go digging there.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

The Crooked Court and Crooked Clarence

Our crooked Supreme Court has perverted the law and destroyed precedent. When will it end? According to Kaitlin Lewis (NEWSWEEK), it could end right now:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could be subject to a federal investigation over undisclosed gifts that he accepted from Republican donors, according to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Thomas has been under immense scrutiny since reports surfaced that the conservative justice had failed to disclose luxury travel expenses and other forms of gifts from his wealthy friends, including prominent GOP donor Harlan Crow. Details of Thomas' benefits were first reported in April 2023 by ProPublica, which estimates that the gifts' total value adds up to millions of dollars.

Democrats have pressed for expanded oversight of the Supreme Court in light of reports on Thomas' gifts. Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in July seeking an ethics investigation pertaining to Thomas. The lawmakers specifically asked Garland to investigate a $267,000 loan that the justice used to purchase a luxury motor coach in 1999, which was not reported by Thomas at the time.

McCabe broke down what it would take for the federal government to launch an ethics or financial investigation of Thomas while speaking with legal analyst Allison Gill on the pair's weekly podcast, Jack, which follows the Department of Justice (DOJ) probes of former President Donald Trump. McCabe noted in an episode released Sunday that the FBI can open a full field investigation if "information that a federal crime has been committed or that a threat to national security ... might exist."

"There's no law or policy that prohibits DOJ from doing that," McCabe continued. "In fact, they are tasked with investigating and prosecuting violations of federal law. This could easily be that, and so it would fall well within their authority to do it. But it would be very, very, very controversial."

So launch the investigation. Make an example of Crooked Clarence and maybe the others fall in line and stop taking bribes to avoid being investigated. It is outrageous that our Supreme Court is so crooked that Clarence has taken over a million dollars in bribes and yet remains on the bench.

Sarah Fortinsky (THE HILL) reports:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s favorability with the public has cratered in the past two years, amid a wave of reporting about his financial disclosures and, particularly, gifts from wealthy donors, a USA Today/Ipsos poll published Monday revealed.

Thomas’s net favorability sits in the new survey at negative 15 percentage points — 27 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable — down 24 points from a net positive of 9 points in April 2022.

[. . .]

The recent poll shows all conservative justices declining in their net favorability ratings by at least 10 points. All currently have negative net favorability, when none did in 2022. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s net favorability was the lowest in 2022, at 0 percentage points.

The three liberal justices on the court all have positive favorability ratings between 11 percentage points and 16 percentage points.

Why?

Because the six are crooks who lied during their confirmation hearings. They need to be removed from the bench. Lifetime appointments need to end immediately and an enforceable code of conduct needs to be created.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, August 13, 2024. Election realities and a news tip for the useless Matt Taibbi.

A voting reform we support is Ranked Choice Voting. FAIR VOTE notes:

Ranked choice voting (RCV) — also known as instant runoff voting (IRV) — makes our elections better by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

RCV is straightforward: Voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so forth. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice.

RCV works in all types of elections and supports more representative outcomes. RCV means better choices, better campaigns, and better representation. That’s why it’s the fastest-growing voting reform in the nation.

Some day we might be able to use it across the land in our presidential elections. That time has not yet arrived. But while we don't yet have it in all states for presidential ballots, we do have it within our own decisions. An election is rarely a single issue. Iraq? Yeah, I based my votes on Iraq. We sent US troops into the country and we destroyed it. Some people pretended to care -- including some in Congress -- but the US government just exhausted and distracted them which is why it's not an issue that US troops remain on the ground in Iraq to this day or that two died in Iraq last month.

Some people, especially foreigners like Caitlin Johnstone, are trying to turn the US presidential election into a referendum on Gaza. They then try to push Jill Stein as who you must vote for. Jill Stein has been the Green Party's presidential nominee twice already -- yes, she is that old. And the end of this week will likely demonstrate the lack of vision on the part of the national Green Party as she becomes their nominee for the third time. The winner of the 2020 election, Joe Biden, got over 80 million votes. In her best outing, Jill got a million votes (1.4 million). She's not electable -- that's been made clear in all of her runs for public office throughout her many, many attempts. She's off putting and it used to bother people that she was anti-vaccine.

Jill's not going to win the election. And if you're voting for her, your voting for a vanity campaign. I don't say that about a vote for Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party) or Cornel West (independent candidate). They probably don't have a chance of getting elected either but they are running real campaigns. Chase, however, does have the best chance of anyone outside the Democrat and Republican parties because the Libertarian Party has put in real work over the years building a party (which includes not running the same failed candidate over and over). Jill is a vanity campaign. She only cares during a presidential election -- a problem for the national Green Party as well.

So when you her carping about measures and rules every four years, grasp that the three years in between were the time to work on changing ballot access rules, not when your months away from a presidential election.

Robert Kennedy Junior is another fake ass run.

Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) notes:

This is a political rule I didn't think we needed – if one of the first things voters think when they hear your name is, "Oh, a worm ate part of that guy's brain," then you're doing it wrong.

But Kennedy, in May, acknowledged to The New York Times that doctors did find that an actual worm "ate a portion" of his brain before dying. (The worm, not his brain. I think.)

As that worm turned, so did polling data for Kennedy, who has long coasted on name recognition and Camelot nostalgia as the nephew of an assassinated president and son of an assassinated presidential candidate.

Kennedy, who started his campaign as a Democrat before switching to an independent run, was polling nationally at nearly 20% last fall, according to a tally of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics. The RealClear average now puts him at just 5.5%.

More voters had held a favorable view of Kennedy than unfavorable, according to polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, until mid-May, when that reversed on him for the first time. His unfavorable rating Thursday was nearly 8 percentage points higher than his favorable rating.

Kennedy presses on, unfailingly confident that he will win an election he will certainly lose. He seems impervious to recent news stories that have made him more of a punchline than a politician.

A quick run-down:

The New Yorker told the tale this week of Kennedy picking up New York roadkill a decade ago, a dead bear cub, with plans to skin and eat it that went awry, so he instead staged a Central Part scene to look like it was killed by a bicyclist. Kennedy tried to preempt the magazine by releasing a video of him telling the story to Roseanne Barr. As flexes go, this, too, was roadkill.

Kennedy claimed on election forms that he lives in New York, but his "residency" is a room in a house he started renting after the New York Post reported that he rarely visits the property. He now faces a legal challenge for his status on New York's ballot in November.

A former babysitter, in a Vanity Fair article, accused him of sexual assault. Kennedy responded by texting her this: "If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.” The Boston Globe asked if more women might come forward. "We'll see what happens," he replied.

Junior has no chance of winning, it's a vanity campaign. The same with Jill. They're desperate for attention.

Elections are about choices and they're about reality. When the media attached the narrative of senile and too old to Joe Biden and he was unable to push back in his ABC interview a week after the debate, I joined the call for Joe to step aside. Every week until the election, now that the narrative was in place, was going to be about has Joe completely lost it yet or not. With the election a little over three months out, the only way to change the narrative was to change the nominee. It's about being realistic.

If you care about Gaza, you need to be realistic. Donald Trump will not help the Palestinians. You can see that in his treatment of Muslims in his previous term, in his relocating of the US Embassy, in his comments during this campaign.

I don't know what Kamala's going to do. I hear some YOUTUBERS say, "I believed Barack and I'm not going to fall for this again." You believed Barack? Strange. I knew he was lying about Iraq and wasn't surprised at all. Before he got the nomination, we were telling you that he wasn't going to keep his promise on Iraq -- and he didn't. True, I met him when he was running for the Senate. Elaine and I were thrilled that an 'anti-war' candidate was running. We showed up at the big fundraiser willing to max out on donations and then we met him. And then he told us that the US was in Iraq now so . . . He wasn't a peace candidate to be sure, but he wasn't an anti-war one either.

So you got that wrong because, frankly, you were stupid. But that explains your faith in him, it doesn't explain your silence. It doesn't explain how you willfully denied what went down.

Barack ended up doing some good things. I can say that. I have no problem with that. But he was a huge let down on Iraq, he was a huge let down on unions, he was a huge letdown on Guantanamo Bay, -- go down the list.

But so were you, The Cult of St Barack. You refused to hold him accountable. When the figures made him the deporter-in-chief, for example, you didn't rally around the immigrants, you attacked the sources calling him the deporter in chief.

So if you think today that Barack from January 2009 through January 2017 was a disappointment, you need to look at yourself, Cult of St Barack, and ask yourself what you did. Because you enabled and encouraged all that followed the 2008 election.

Again, he did do some good things. Many more than I ever thought he would.

But he wasn't a great president and big part of the reason why was The Cult of St Barack which refused to hold him accountable.

If Convicted Felon Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, there will be no way to pressure him on Gaza -- or anything else. I have true excitement over Kamala's campaign. I am donating, I am campaigning and I am voting for her. She can beat Donald. But a Kamala Harris presidency doesn't mean everything becomes perfect. It means we work to make her address climate change, Gaza and all the other issues that matter. And there is so much to be done.

Nothing's moving forward with Donald. If he's re-elected, this country and the world will face even more nightmares. Project 2025, for example.

From yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. It’s “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at the far-right policy plan to overhaul the federal government, known as Project 2025. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is trying to downplay his connection to the plan. And last week, Kevin Roberts, head of the influential right-wing Heritage Foundation, postponed the release of his Project 2025 book until after the November election. The book’s foreword is written by Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance.

Trump’s campaign insists it has no connection to the right-wing blueprint for immigration, almost a thousand pages long — a blueprint for immigration, reproductive rights, climate policy and more. But many of the key figures working for Project 2025 are former top Trump administration officials, some of them featured in newly released videos that were created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy.

In a major new development, the independent news outlets ProPublica and Documented have now published dozens of these videos, some of which we’ll feature today. In this clip, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff at USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bethany Kozma, discusses climate change.

BETHANY KOZMAN: Climate change, allegedly, is everywhere. And if the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere. And according to our intelligence community, the number one threat facing our country today is — drum roll — climate change — not Russia, not China, not AI, climate change. This shows how the federal government is all in on this issue. And climate change activists wield a lot of power. This is an issue to pay attention to, as it has infiltrated every part of the federal government.

Now, when I think of climate change, I immediately think of population control, don’t you? I think about the people who don’t want you to have children because of the “impact” on the environment. Perhaps not everyone will make that connection, but after spending time in the international space trying to protect life, I can tell you that this is part of their ultimate goal: to control people.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s conservative activist and former Trump official Bethany Kozma in a newly released Project 2025 training video.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Andy Kroll, investigative reporter for ProPublica, whose new exposé is headlined “Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos.” ProPublica has posted the full 23 videos, totaling more than 14 hours of content, on its website.

Andy, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain how you got the videos and their significance as we go through some of them.

ANDY KROLL: Yeah, the videos come from the Presidential Administration Academy, which is one of the main pillars of Project 2025. We’ve heard a lot about, you’ve talked about on this show, the extreme policy proposals that Project 2025 put out in its 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” document. What’s gotten less attention but is no less important to Project 2025’s long-term goal here is to train thousands of future political appointees, so that if a conservative president, which, of course, now means if Donald Trump — a conservative candidate wins in November and we have a Republican president, that there will be a bench of thousands of vetted and trained appointees who can go into the government and fill openings in that government, so that, as Project 2025 itself says on its website, that conservative administration can be ready from, quote-unquote, “day one.”

Now, these videos were provided to us by a source who had access to them. I won’t get into the sourcing on it, but with any kind of situation like this, the key things for us at ProPublica are: Are these videos real? Are they authentic? And are they newsworthy? Obviously the substance is newsworthy. In our reporting process, we talked to people who are in the videos. We verified them, authenticated them and fact-checked them ourself. And now we’ve published on them and, as you helpfully pointed out, also published all of these 23 videos, totaling more than 14 hours, on our website. Anyone watching today can go and watch them now.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy, if you can just give us some background again on Project 2025? Because, of course, President Trump has disavowed this, but, meanwhile, the director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, a former top adviser in Trump’s administration, has been forced to step down, and, of course, that book which is headed by the head of Heritage Foundation, which is behind this blueprint, is now — they are putting off the publication of this, with the foreword by none other than Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance.

ANDY KROLL: The Trump campaign has clearly come to the realization that Project 2025 and the policies that it lays out are extremely unpopular. And it’s not really surprising to understand why. Just a few of those policies are, for instance, closing the entire Department of Education; further restricting abortion rights in this country, especially mifepristone, also known as the abortion pill; slashing Medicaid; and then, of course, reclassifying tens of thousands of career government employees so that they can be more easily fired and then replaced by more loyal, vetted political appointees chosen by the next conservative president, which, again, in this case would potentially be Donald Trump. So there’s a reason the Trump campaign is distancing itself from those unpopular policies: It is hurting their campaign.

However, as you pointed out and as we report in our story, the number of connections between Trump’s political operation in his administration from '17 to ’21 and Project 2025 are many. As we write in the story, of the 36 different speakers in these videos, 29 of them have a connection to Mr. Trump. They worked in his administration across the government — the White House, National Security Council, a number of departments, including Justice, Interior, Health and Human Services, Office of Management and Budget, Presidential Personnel Office, across the board. There are people who ran his 2016-'17 transition team, that led him into the first presidency, and, lastly, I would point out, the Trump reelection campaign spokeswoman, who sent us a comment reiterating, in their view, that there’s no connection between 2025 and the Trump campaign. She herself, Karoline Leavitt, actually appears in the videos that we posted on our site. So, it’s really impossible to say that there is some bright line here between Trump’s political campaign, his team, and this Project 2025 effort.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy Kroll, I want to play a series of clips that you have just released. This is another Project 2025 training video featuring Katie Sullivan, who was acting assistant attorney general at Department of Justice under Trump. In this clip, Sullivan says the next conservative administration will need to eradicate all equity plans.

KATIE SULLIVAN: I think you can expect that equity and all of the equity executive orders under Biden will be repealed early in the next administration. This is going to require a very detailed plan to execute the eradication of the dictates in the equity orders. For instance, there’s a gender adviser position created by one of these executive orders. That position has to be eradicated, as well as all the task forces, the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites, and a complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is another Project 2025 training video, featuring Dan Huff, former legal adviser in the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, laying out how political appointees should be ready to enforce dramatic changes and face blowback when they do.

DAN HUFF: If the next Republican president does not execute a dramatic course correction, there may never be another chance. So, if you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it will damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially, look, I get it. That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But, please, do us all a favor and sit this one out.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is another Project 2025 training video, titled “The Political Appointee’s Survival Guide.” It features Max Primorac, a former deputy administrator at USAID during the Trump administration.

MAX PRIMORAC: Now, in terms of a tip, survival tip, do not let career bureaucrats hinder you from advancing the president’s agenda. Keep in mind, you’re coming into a place, Washington, D.C., that does not share your conservative values. They’re even hostile to it, because you’re here to do something that’s not in their interest. They’re not going to be your friend, or they’re not going to help you succeed.

What are you doing? You’re here to cut government. You’re here to cut spending. You’re here to cut regulations. You’re here to stop the waste, fraud and abuse that’s going on. But a lot of careers have been made from that. A lot of money has been made from that. Fiefdoms have been built around it. So you’re going to get a lot of opposition here. It’s an entire industry of opposition, from lobbyists, professional associations, contractor groups and, disappointingly, faith-based organizations.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, I want to turn to a Project 2025 training video featuring Alexei Woltornist, a former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. In this video, he encourages future appointees to avoid mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, instead take their message to conservative media.

ALEXEI WOLTORNIST: The American people who vote for a conservative presidential administration, they’re not reading The New York Times. They’re not reading The Washington Post. Actually, to the contrary, if those outlets publish something, they’re going to assume it’s false. So the only way to reach them with any voice of credibility is through working with conservative media outlets.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Andy Kroll, investigative reporter for ProPublica, if you can respond? This is just an excerpt of the videos that you have released, “Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos.”

ANDY KROLL: Yeah, I would pull out a couple of key points for your audience, Amy. I would say first that there is a level of extreme rhetoric in these videos, even down to the choice of words in these different clips. We hear the word “eradicate” a lot, and then we hear “eradicate” in the context of removing the word “climate change” from any federal government document that a future appointee sees. Obviously, that would not move the country in the right direction in terms of combating this existential threat that we face with climate change. You hear “eradicate” in terms of getting rid of policies that are responding to gender inequality, racial inequality. I mean, those executive actions that Katie Sullivan in the second clip discussed, those are things responding to the abuses surfaced by the #MeToo movement or the abuses surfaced, the injustices surfaced in 2020 during the racial uprisings then, as well, getting rid of all of those.

And then you have, with this last clip, the former DHS press secretary, you have someone basically saying, “When you get into government, just talk to conservative media. Shut out everybody else. I mean mainstream media, but just about everyone else, as well. Only talk to the people who you agree with, who like you.” That the audiences served by those conservative outlets are the only ones that matter, that’s not what a presidential administration, Democratic or Republican, is supposed to do. You’re supposed to serve the whole country. But clearly, that is not the advice that they’re getting in these clips.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting that they advise the right-wing administration not to leave a paper trail, yet they have left quite a video trail. As we wrap up, Andy, the most important takeaways at this point?

ANDY KROLL: Yeah, the most important takeaways, I think, for people watching are, the first time that Trump ran and then, surprisingly to many, got elected, his operation was very unprepared. They did not have a bench of people ready. There was chaos. There was confusion. And that set back that administration for perhaps months, maybe even a year or two into the Trump first administration. If he is elected again, that will not be the case. These videos have a lot of extreme content in them, a lot of eyebrow-raising advice, for instance, like don’t leave a paper trail, which you just referenced, but really what they are trying to do is prepare these thousands or tens of thousands of people to get in government and enact a pretty conservative, a right-wing agenda and be prepared and trained to do it from the moment that administration starts. That is different from before. And the voting public needs to understand that when they think about these two candidates, when they think about what that Trump agenda would be if he gets elected in November and takes office in January.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy Kroll, we want to thank you so much for being with us, investigative reporter for ProPublica, his new exposé titled “Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos.” ProPublica has posted the full 23 videos, totaling more than 14 hours of content, on its website. We will link to it.

Turning to Gaza . . .

THE NATIONAL reports:

The UN Security Council is set to meet today to discuss an Israeli strike on a Gaza city school which killed more than 100 people last week.

Algeria called an emergency meeting following the strike on the Al Tabaeen school on August 10, which hit the school, sheltering more than 2,000 displaced people, as they gathered for morning prayers.

It said the request was supported by other members of the council.

Survivors of the strike described horrific scenes of the aftermath to The National, including blood and scattered body parts all around the remains of the school.

Israel claimed it had killed several dozen militants in the strike, a claim refuted by Palestinian civilians and authorities.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 312 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 39,929 with 92,240 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted: