Tuesday, June 27, 2023

That crooked Court

It is a crooked Court, it is an illegitimate and it's been revealed in my lifetime.  It's not enough that we have to suffer under leaders -- around the world -- who refuse to address climate change, we also have to deal with a corrupt Court.  Jonathan Allen (NBC NEWS) reports:


A group of 18 House Democrats wrote a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts Tuesday urging him to establish an independent investigative arm within the Supreme Court — and pressing for that office to probe Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with a wealthy GOP donor.
The letter, led by Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and co-authored by 17 colleagues who have worked as prosecutors, judges and law enforcement officials, criticizes Roberts for saying the court can convince the public that it "adheres to the highest standards of conduct" without taking new action to address recent ethics questions.

In April, ProPublica reported that Thomas has been a repeated guest on GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow's jet and yacht, traveling across the country and the world without disclosing those gifts and others.

This month, the same outlet reported that Justice Samuel Alito traveled at the expense of another top Republican donor, hedge fund giant Paul Singer, to Alaska on a fishing trip. Since that 2008 vacation, ProPublica wrote, Singer's hedge fund has had cases come before the high court at least 10 times.

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not disclose his sale of a vacation property, along with partners, to the head of the powerful law firm Greenberg Traurig, according to Politico.

"Despite your insistence that the Court can police itself, you have provided no rationale or vision for how the Court will do so," Goldman and 17 co-authors wrote. "Moreover, the Court’s failure to conduct a meaningful, independent investigation into allegations against Justices Thomas and Alito only underscores widespread concerns that the Supreme Court is not subject to a code of ethics or an adequate enforcement process." 


I'm glad that they asked but the Court is not going to do that and it will remain corrupt and unanswerable. 

Dr Uman.  Or 'Dr Umar.'  Keesha nailed it.  I can't stand Cornel West and his nonsense.  Keesha e-mailed to tell me he's a shuck and give artist just like Dr Umar.  Both think the louder they get and the more they speak like fools, we'll love them.  Instead, we're just thinking, "Fool, sit you crazy ass down, you ain't in church and we don't need your preaching."  


Seriously in 2023, we're having to listen to this racist stereotype known as 'Dr' Cornel West.  Just like 'Dr' Uman.


I'm not in the mood.  Keesha, you called it.  You are 100% right. 

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, June 27, 2023.  John Kerry lies about the Iraq War yet again, RFK Jr prepares to hump hate group Moms For Liberty, THE NATION has a major piece on the war on transpeople, and much more.



Let's start with pathetic and legacy ending.  Aidan McLaughlin (MEDIAITE) reports:

A French TV anchor confronted John Kerry over whether U.S. condemnations of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s bloody and baseless invasion of Ukraine come as hypocritical in light of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Kerry, who serves as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate and was in Paris for a climate summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, appeared for an interview with veteran journalist Darius Rochebin on French news channel LCI Sunday night. They discussed Kerry’s work to combat climate change and the Russian war against Ukraine, which prompted Rochebin to bring up recent criticism of President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 from countries in South America.

[. . .]

“We have to judge Putin for crimes of aggression, of course. But you, the Americans, you committed the crime of aggression in Iraq,” Rochebin said. “These countries of the Global South say, should we judge George Bush? Why isn’t Bush judged in the same way?”

“No,” Kerry shot back.

“Why?” Rochebin asked.

“Because there’s never even been a direct process or accusation or anything with respect to President Bush himself,” Kerry said. “Have there been abuses in the course of that war, yes.”



Rochebin asked: "Was it not a crime of aggression to enter Iraq based on a lie?"

Kerry, the U.S. presidential envoy for climate issues, replied: "No, no, no... Well, we didn’t know it was a lie at the time. You know the evidence that was produced, people didn't know that it was a lie. So no, again, I think, you’re stretching something. That’s not constructive."


"But he lied," the French journalist said about President George W. Bush. "He lied, he lied."

"Sir, I’m not going to re-debate the Iraq war with you here right now," Kerry said. "We spent a lot of time doing that. I opposed to going in, I thought it was the wrong thing to do. But we gave the president the power, regrettably, in the Congress, based on the lie. And when we knew it was a lie, people stood up and did the right thing."


It's all so shameful and embarrassing.  And let me do a confession before we go further: I supported John Kerry for the 2004 presidential Democratic Party nomination.  I'd known him for years.  He was talking big about how he'd stand up to the press, no buckling to NEWSWEEK this time, blah blah blah.  The party never wants who I want.  That was the first time in my lifetime that a non-incumbent got the nomination after I'd supported them in the primary.  And what a huge disappointment and disaster he was.

And still is.  Actually, he's much worse now.  Oh, sure, he's not 'entangled' with reporters covering the State Dept, but his outright lying has gotten even worse.

"I opposed to going in."

He just can't stop lying.  In 2004, he made a mockery of himself by trying to explain his vote for the Iraq War by saying "I was for it before I was against it."  And he was for it.  He voted for it.  Despite everyone laughing at him for that ridiculous "I was for it before I was against it" -- more laughter than he even garnered -- Wait, we'll come back to that. 



Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Monday he would not have changed his vote to authorize the war against Iraq, but said he would have handled things "very differently" from President Bush


That's two years after the vote.  He wasn't opposed to it when he voted for it.  He wasn't opposed to it two years after. 

Then John dropped the for-it-before-against-it pose and just started lying that he'd been against it all along.  He told that lie on MSNBC in September of 2013 prompting FACTCHECK.ORG to call him out:


Of course, Kerry knows he voted on Oct. 11, 2002, to give Bush authorization to use military force in Iraq, along with 76 other senators, including Hagel. He was reminded of it throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, when he was the Democratic Party’s nominee. During a presidential primary debate in May 2003 — about seven months after the Senate approved the use of force and two months after the war started — Kerry was asked by moderator George Stephanopoulos about Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
[. . .]
It’s not inconsistent for Kerry to authorize Bush to go to war and then criticize the president’s execution of the war. But for Kerry to say he “opposed the president’s decision to go into Iraq” ignores the ample record that shows the Democrat agreed with Bush that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and should be forcibly removed from power, and it ignores his vote that allowed Bush to do just that.
 

And he's still lying today.  He just can't stop lying. 

He's a huge disappointment and a huge screw up.  And I realized that when he ruined my 2004 suggestion.  The GOP convention that year was going to be hate filled -- that was a given and they were going to try terrorize people into voting with fear-fear-fear.  Months before anyone had seized the nomination -- though, outside of Howard Dean, it did appear it was going to be John Kerry -- there was a big meeting for strategy on another issue.  Someone brought  up the upcoming conventions, I want to say it was Harold Ickes -- and we were talking -- all of us -- about how fear based Bully Boy Bush's campaign had to be for him to win the election.  How do we counteract that?  

I said with normalcy.  I said sunshine -- openness.  And then I said, because I have a home in Hawaii, that the candidate should go there during the GOP convention.  First of all, few presidential candidates go there and it does lead to the state feeling ignored and dissatisfied so this could be an opportunity to fix that growing attitude.  Second, Hawaii's beautiful.  Strolling through the streets, hanging out on the beach?  The news crews would love it and get tons of stock footage that would air and wouldn't require a lot else.  Bully Boy Bush and company are preaching destruction and yet, here in sunny Hawaii, is  our candidate strolling around and greeting people suggesting that, yes, the world continues and goes on and it's not all doom and gloom the way the GOP is portraying it.  

How was I to know, when they decided to run with the idea, that John's vanity was so great, he'd squeeze himself into what resembled sausage casing and do a sport that was seen as elitist.  I was talking about strolling through the streets, relaxing on the beach, a luau.  Things that would make the point, we can all breathe and relax to counter the fear mongering.  Instead, John's showing off stalk and tip in a ridiculous outfit that no man his age should have been wearing.


He took what was a solid photo-op with a subtle message and turned it into weeks of laughter -- at him -- because he was so damn stupid.

And, yes, we did know ahead of time that Colin Powell lied to the UN.  We did know that Bully Boy Bush was lying.  That was why Senator Bob Graham repeatedly begged other senators -- most of whom, like Hillary Clinton, refused -- to go look at what they were calling 'the evidence.'  Go to the secure room, read it over.  

John's just a cheap liar.

I know Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well.  And -- what do you say there?

I can't hold it back anymore.  What? The destruction of Cheryl's career.  

I've begged friends not to judge her by Robert.  But it's over for her now.  And it's a shame because she's a nice person and she's a talented actress and director.  But her husband's decision to appear at a Moms For Liberty event has shredded any wall that those of us who like Cheryl have attempted to build.  She's done nothing wrong herself but studio exec and producers and everyone down the line are now referring to her as "that bitch."  She didn't do anything wrong.  I hope Robert realizes as he appears to sink his own campaign, that his getting chummy with hate merchants destroyed his wife's career.

The vax argument isn't one I get into, I've discussed that here before.  Autism is a cause I've worked my whole adult life on and I don't get into that debate, it hurts fundraising and its hurts people's feelings.  And it's not my intent to do either.  

But that stance that Robert has?  It didn't hurt Cheryl.  There are some who are inclined to side with Robert on that in the entertainment industry and most are sensitive enough to grasp that there are no points to be scored on this issue.

But Moms For Liberty?

For Marianne Williamson, this is perfect timing.  She needs a win bad.  And the same week Robert's buddying up to Moms For Liberty, she's supposed to be delivering a major statement regarding the attacks on the transgender community.  If she does and delivers it and does it even half-way well, this could see her get the campaign on track finally and also move up in the polls (Robert has been sinking of late).





A right-wing inquisition is singling out young transgender Americans, their parents, their teachers, and their doctors as targets in the battle over what kind of nation we are and want to be. Since 2021, roughly half the states have passed at least one law designed to eliminate medical or educational policies that recognize trans youth and protect them from abuse. According to the ACLU, 20 states enacted 72 new anti-trans laws in the first six months of 2023; more than 200 are in the pipeline.

Anti-trans campaigners seek to create a blanket of repression. Because the recent wave of anti-trans laws was not triggered by a landmark event like the rush of anti-abortion laws enacted in the wake of the Dobbs decision, this new reality has crept up on the country. Major media outlets have struggled to keep up with which laws have been passed in which states. With the exception, perhaps, of the trans people who find themselves in the cross hairs of these new laws, almost no one saw it coming.

The geography of gender panic illuminates the right wing’s stranglehold on a large swath of the United States. As of June 1, 24 states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona, account for almost all of the recent explosion of anti-trans legislation. More than 140 million people—42 percent of the US population—live in these states. All but Arizona and Georgia cast their electoral votes for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020, and of the states that voted for Trump twice, all but North Carolina, Ohio, and Alaska have binged on anti-trans laws (though North Carolina passed the nation’s first bathroom ban in 2016, which it later gave up after public pressure and business boycotts, and Ohio banned trans athletes from school sports).

As a comparison, the Guttmacher Institute counts 26 states where abortion is now banned or significantly restricted—a nearly identical list. With the passage of a handful of new laws or court decisions, the overlap may soon be complete. Laws attacking “critical race theory,” which also came on suddenly and are now widespread, have less of a complete overlap because such resolutions often arise in local school boards rather than in state legislatures. Nonetheless, according to a report from the UCLA Law School’s Critical Race Studies program, anti-CRT laws now affect 22 million public school students, almost half the nation’s total.

Given the avalanche of anti-trans legislation, it might be surprising to learn that the bulk of Americans are turned off by the extremism and cruelty of these laws. According to Roll Call, recent polling found that 64 percent of Americans believe that the sudden onset of anti-trans bills this year amounts to “too much legislation,” with politicians “playing political theater and using these bills as a wedge issue.” On youth access to gender-affirming medical care, an NPR/Ipsos poll found that 47 percent of Americans oppose restrictions while 31 percent support them, with 21 percent declining to answer. On allowing trans girls to compete in girls’ sports, however, the same survey found that 63 percent oppose. A Pew survey from June 2022 found that the number of people who think American society has gone too far in accepting trans people (38 percent) is roughly equal to the number who think it hasn’t gone far enough (36 percent).

How is it possible that a country with so little demand for anti-trans policies produced such an onslaught of anti-trans laws? The most important characteristic that these states share with states that have passed new anti-abortion and anti-CRT laws is a legal structure that reinforces minority control of governance—in effect, a democracy deficit. Political scientist Jacob Grumbach calls such states “laboratories against democracy.” Eight of the 24 states that have passed the worst anti-trans laws rank among the worst states for legislative gerrymandering, according to ratings issued by either the University of Southern California’s Schwarzenegger Institute or the World Population Review.




Nan makes solid points and writes a great article.  I would quibble with the "how" aspect above.  It wasn't just that.

It was a group of people egging it on.  It was supposed leftists like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald (again, Glenn was never left, he was a Libertarian who had a whatever as his hag and people mistook him for a liberal) making 'jokes' and be insulting to transgenders.  (Again, Chelsea Manning saw Glenn's transphobia before anyone did -- certainly before I did.)  It was Max Blumenthal's wife attacking and mocking the transgender community. 

It was THE KATIE HALPER SHOW, USEFUL IDIOTS, and so many more refusing to treat this war on LGBTQ+ as a serious issue and devote time to it.  Not everyone was silent and those who deserve credit for speaking out include BLACK POWER MEDIA, Karen Hunter, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE VANGUARD, etc -- and Olayemi Olurin especially deserves credit for her strong work -- which included calling out -- on air -- to their faces, not one but two hosts of RISING who were laughing at and mocking transgender people.  No surprise, while White YOUTUBERS mocked and ignored, it was people of color who spoke up maybe because they historically know the importance of standing together to stand up.


It was RISING on THE HILL doing one transphobic segment after another.  It was BREAKING POINTS trying to use MonkeyPox to target gay men.


It wasn't just the people working in the shadows (often advised by Jonathan Turley -- everything Lawrence Tribe said about Turley was true), it was also a pathetic left that refused to stand up and say, "Stop it."  That refused to say, "These people are our family and we're not going to be silent while you attack them."  What's so interesting when we speak with people around the country is that, in their areas, people stood up.  It's just the left media that didn't.  Especially those people on YOUTUBE. 

And when super-cool Matt Taibbi's laughing at transgenders, well don't we all want to be cool and laugh at them like he does.  I don't but maybe some do -- you know the ones who want to suffer from male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction.  

The left media didn't stand up and immediately call this out.  Instead, they ignored it or they joined in.  

A lot of people now live at risk because of this.

I've noted repeatedly that when DOBBS was overturned, LGBTQ+ people rushed to the front to stand with us.  And, unless you're a lesbian that gets raped, unwanted pregnancy was really only something the B in LGBTQ+ really had to worry about.  But they, as a group, stood up.  NETFLIX had a comedy special on LGBTQ+ and these comedians made DOBBS part of their act and called it out.

But we couldn't speak in support of them.  We couldn't call out the hate being directed daily at them.  And when THE NEW YORK TIMES staff pointed out that the paper had used extreme and sensationalistic stories to get clicks and sell copies, who stood up for those employees.

I know who stood against them.  Glenneth Greenwald.  The empress was not amused by unruly employees who would disparage their employer.  The empress was not used to serfs being so unruly.  Glenneth Greenwald's royal "we" was not at all amused and felt the need to trash them over and over.

When in fact, it is THE NEW YORK TIMES that has repeatedly been behind on the science as anyone knowledgeable about science was aware.  Yes, there was the AIDS crisis and their attacks on gays and ignorance on science.  But even something like extinction level events -- check the archives of the paper -- they got that wrong as well.  Despite being known for their science section of the paper, they repeatedly fail on that topic.

And they failed transgendered people by refusing to report accurately and by who they sought out for sources to their bad articles.


But, hey, uptight prig needs a laugh -- and apparently his reflection in the mirror of that still bad dye job out of box to cover his gray hair wasn't doing it.  He got a lot of laughs, didn't he?  And played like he was Demi Moore in ST. ELMO'S FIRE -- only I don't believe Jules, as much as she wanted that "fabulous talk show," would have abandoned her dying husband in the hospital.  (Yes, Glenneth, tea was spilled by your ex to us about that college infatuation.)


Oh.  And Tucker.  Don't forget that Mother Tucker.  Lying over and over, trashing the LGBTQ+ community over and over.  They didn't object -- not Aaron Matte, not Jimmy Dore, not Max Blumenthal, not Glenneth, not any of the whores who went on Tucker's show.  No,  they all worshiped at his crotch -- Glenneth, Matt, Tara Reade, all of them.


These are the ethics of the people who couldn't stand up for transgender people as they were clearly under attack.  The hate merchants only got as far as they did because too many of us refused to object and let our silence -- or giggles -- feed and encourage the hate merchants.  A united front over nine months ago and we might have been able to stop it.  Instead, we just grinned at the big wooden horse and fell asleep as the hate merchants emptied out of it and took over our world.




This is probably a good time to note that we're said goodbye to Naomi Wolf.  I don't like a dog pile.  I was fine with giving her a platform when she was under attack.  She was getting banned by everyone and she was humiliated.  We could have looked the other way and ignored her.  I'm not a good person so if I'd known that she'd get in bed with hate merchants like Moms Of Liberty, I wouldn't have been kind.  Her downward spiral (I believe she's on meds, by the way) started with -- wait.  Did it start with the custody battle?  I don't know.  It's been so long since I gave a damn about her.  As Ava and I had established at THIRD, she had a racist streak and identified with authoritarianism among other things.  We established that with her actual work.  She practically brought herself to orgasm while describing White Victoria Woodhull who, honestly, looked like a young boy, not a pretty woman.  And then, mere paragraphs later, this is her book FIRE WITH FIRE, by the way, she's referring to Madam CJ Walker as ugly.  Look it up.  Didn't even enter her airheaded head that (a) she'd fallen into her own beauty myth and (b) Madame CJ Walker wasn't ugly -- unless you don't believe Black Is Beautiful.  


We called her out for PROMISCUITIES -- that's the book where she lets slip (did she even read what she wrote) that she kept silent when a college woman was raped.  Naomi was there.  She heard that night and then the men joking about it the next morning -- bragging about it.  It gave her pause.  Not enough to make her report it, not enough to make her walk out, not enough to make her break up with the frat boy she was seeing, not even enough to stop eating her eggs,  but, hey, it brought her buzz down during breakfast and, after all, isn't that enough of a sacrifice for her?


Judith N. Shklar.  Very important political theorist.  I loved her work.  I spoke with her about her work many times.  I wouldn't use the word friend but I knew her and liked her.  And that's why I never bought into Naomi Wolf's THE BEAUTY MYTH which largely cribbed from Judith's Oxford lectures.  Oxford.  Who went to Oxford?  Oh, that's right -- Naomi Wolf and she went when Judith was lecturing.  Did no one else notice that all the literary examples first popped up in Judith's THE FACES OF INJUSTICE -- which is based upon the Oxford lectures.

I love Judith's work.  In November of 2004, after a group of us finished a lengthy post mortem on the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry and after I suggested we needed to think about the things we didn't do, I did just that.  I asked myself to think about that.  It was a Friday.  I knew nothing about blogging.  I knew it had impacted the election.  And I knew I needed to do something that I hadn't already done.  I was at my desk and nervous -- I probably ran to the bathroom three times in the thirty minutes it took to set up this site on Blogger/Blogspot. (It is much quicker now but it's also true I didn't know what I was doing so that took longer too.)  Everything about it made me nervous.  (I'm someone who can cold call for an issue like the Iraq War but someone who wouldn't answer the home phone myself many times, people find it hard to believe but I am shy.  That's also why I don't plan what I'm going to say in front of groups.  If I spend time planning, I'm going to be nervous.)  So, creating this site, I got to the point where I had to name it and I went with "The Common Ills" in a nod to Judith's work.  


I don't think Naomi grasped, when she was stealing from Judith, how obvious the theft was or how some of us would immediately catch on.

Again, Ava and I have called her out for all of that and more.

When she published OUTRAGES in 2019, she finally committed career suicide.  Turns out the primary research for the book was wrong.  Not flawed, wrong.  You can search and find  where, in a roundtable at THIRD, Ava and I are expected to be gleeful but instead refuse to join the dog pile and I say that the publisher is responsible for fact checking so they bore part of the blame.  She misunderstood the records she was examining.


If we were doing the roundtable today, I would say, however, she needs to return her doctorate.  I wasn't aware that the 2019 book was actually the work she'd done on her doctorate.

That book has been pulped -- something that rarely ever happens without the threat of a lawsuit.  That's how wrong it was.  I don't think she is entitled to have that doctorate now.


And we're not defending her anymore.  OUTRAGES was actually a book where she examined the treatment -- mistreatment -- of gay people historically.  She'd turned her back on so much of the left during her manic period.  So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that now she's in bed with the anti-LGBTQ+ hate mongers Moms for Liberty.

You've made your bed, lay in it and lie from it.



I could pull quote Nan B. Hunter's entire article (it's that strong and that important) but we have to note at least one more section:



Despite its massive impact, there is a temptation to dismiss the anti-trans campaign as merely another battle confined to the domain of cultural politics. Some on the liberal left agree that the cruelty is unconscionable but believe that the underlying problem is less significant than questions of economic redistribution. But the flood of anti-trans, anti-abortion, and anti-CRT laws is much more than a distraction from economically regressive legislation. Instead, the attacks on women, people of color, and trans people work hand-in-glove with attacks on the social institutions that we all depend on.

The inseparable nature of attacks on trans people and on our democratic institutions can be seen in the debates over public schools. The anti-trans campaign is a bonanza for groups engaged in a war against public education, which has long been a major target for the right wing, in spite of the fact that public education has support even in some deeply conservative states.

Painting schools as dens of “woke indoctrination,” as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis put it, facilitates disinvestment, which has direct material consequences. Of the 23 states most actively targeting trans youth and their families, the Education Law Center gave 16 grades of either an F or a D for their per-pupil funding level relative to the national average. In effect, however, there is a sectarian carve-out: Religious schools are often shielded from policies that starve public schools. A report issued in September 2022 estimated that by the end of that school year, Florida would shift an estimated 10 percent of its education budget from public to private schools. Most of the schools receiving those funds are religious and lack accreditation. In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee has plans to start dozens of conservative charter schools by partnering with the K-12 school management arm of Hillsdale College, a Christian school in Michigan that DeSantis wants to use as a model for a public liberal arts college in his state.

In fact, there is a growing nationwide movement to reallocate public funds to private schools, including many religious schools using the same rhetoric of “parental freedom” that the anti-trans campaigns deploy. The Supreme Court opened the door for it, especially with its decision in 2021 in Carson v. Makin, which struck down a restriction on public tuition assistance funds going to religious schools. Although billions of dollars are at stake, the shifts in funding have gotten far less attention than anti-trans bills and the attacks on CRT and school libraries. The right wing is building a potentially massive edifice of religious, pro-market, and highly profitable education institutions in the same states where anti-trans hysteria has taken root, but the two issues are rarely discussed together.


Having failed to stand up and stop it when it was gathering steam, we now have a lot of work to do.






The following sites updated:


 

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Monday, June 26, 2023

That corrupt Court

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cornel's Crackpot Cracker Parade" went up Saturday night. 

cornel


Con artist Cornel West?  He could soak in chapstick for six hours straight and he'd still be Old Crusty Ass.  He needs to take that tired chitlin's circuit act off the road.  He's not just a throwback, he's an offensive stereotype -- which is why you see so many White people falling for it.  It's like they get to enjoy AMOS & ANDY all over again.


Turning to the corrupt Supreme Court,  HUFFINGTON POST reports:



Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in an interview Sunday that she believes that Supreme Court justices should be subject to term limits as well as ethics regulations.



The former House speaker spoke with Jen Psaki for a segment of MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” about the court’s credibility being called into question in light of recent news stories about Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito receiving lavish gifts or going on luxury trips sponsored by GOP figures.

The former White House press secretary pointed out that a recent Quinnipiac University poll found that just 30% of American voters approve of the court. The number is notable given that it’s the lowest since the polls began in 2004. 

[. . .]

“Here we have a body, chosen for life, never had to run for office. Nominated, confirmed for life with no accountability for their ethics behavior. 30% seems high,” Pelosi said, directing the latter part of her response to the poll.

Pelosi also briefly acknowledged the efforts of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Whitehouse, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, sponsored the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which has not yet passed the House and Senate. 

“The legislation would create a much-needed process for investigating misconduct at the Supreme Court, strengthen recusal standards for judges and disclosure rules for special interests trying to influence the courts, improve disclosure of travel and hospitality for judges, and mandate the creation of a binding code of ethics,” according to a press release in February, when the bill was reintroduced.


I happen to agree with Nancy on the above.  And with the Court refusing to either reform or police itself, it's time for Congress to act.  Tobi Raji and Aaron Schaffer (WASHINGTON POST) report:


For months, the Supreme Court has faced a steady drumbeat of reports about the justices’ potential conflicts of interest and other ethics issues. Despite increasing pressure to adopt a binding code of conduct, the justices have yet to show any cracks in their united front over their ethics practices.

But two decades ago, when the Supreme Court faced similar scrutiny, at least one justice — the late John Paul Stevens — disagreed with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s decision not to recuse from a major case.

Stevens’ notes challenging Rehnquist’s decision were included in a newly released collection of thousands of pages of documents belonging to Stevens, the leader of the marble palace’s liberal wing and the third-longest-serving justice in history.

The documents, which The Post first reported on Monday, show just how deeply aware the Rehnquist court was of the appearance of impropriety and the public’s faith in the institution to resolve its high-profile ethical dilemmas. They also show just how quick many of the justices were to push back against ethics concerns.


This is a problem that has been brewing for some time. 


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, June 26, 2023.  Fears that the US is moving ever closer to destroying Julian Assange, increase, Iraq has money issues, Marianne Williamson has a make-or-break moment for her campaign this Wednesday as RFK Jr cozies up to the hate group Moms For Liberty, and much more.

For those who love to watch public affairs porn -- not public affairs programming mind you, but public affairs porn -- fresh off her joint-attack on the Green Party with Chris Hedges, Bri-Bri Joy Gray returns later today to speak with Media I Need Attention Benajmin to deflect on the topic of the sorry state of the peace movement in the US.  

You can be sure Bri-Bri won't ask about the defocused approach of CODEPINK.  You can be sure Bri-Bri won't bring up the summer where CODEPINK was supposed to be sending a delegation to Iraq -- had publicized for it and fundraised off it -- to discuss what peace would look like and that was to take place during an ongoing hunger strike carried out by CODEPINK to bring attention to the issue of Iraq -- but, days before the delegation was to arrive in Baghdad (I believe it was three days), they instead went to Palestine.  This was followed by CODEPINK and others refusing to call a DC action -- local actions everybody! -- because the Democratic Party was in charge of both houses of Congress and did not want a DC action.  That's right, CODEPINK, UFPJ and the rest didn't want to upset the Democratic Party.  When do you need to be in DC?  A year after Dems take control of Congress and have done nothing.  Don't expect Bri Bri to touch on that.

They wanted to end the Iraq War, or so they said, but they didn't want to upset the Democratic Party.
After Barack was elected president, CODEPINK then went around saying that the US couldn't withdraw from Afghanistan.  (Previous sentence corrected 6/26/23 10:40 am -- it wrongly read Iraq and not Afghanistan.)  ANTIWAR.COM's Scott Horton and others called them out for that.  

There are so many examples of how Medea and other so-called leaders destroyed the peace movement but she'll be on with Bri-Bri and Bri-Brive lives and loves to lie so it will pure public affairs porn.

In the real world, an interviewer might bring up the fact that Susan Benjamin has been the public face of CODESTINK for decades -- and started getting serious attention from the media in 2003.  20 years ago.  By 2004, complaints were coming in about how White and elderly CODESTINK was.  And CODESTINK was promising to address it.  All this time later, it's still elderly and White in leadership and all this time later Susan 'Medea' Benjamin is 70 years old.  Is there a reason she can't step aside or is she new Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden?

In the real world, we also have the persecution of Julian Assange.  Sri Lanka's GUARDIAN has a column which notes:

Earlier this month, CNN reported that a British court has denied Wikileaks founder Julian Assange “permission to appeal an order to extradite him to the United States, where he faces criminal charges under the Espionage Act.” Although Assange’s legal team will continue to explore its options, the snare around his neck is clearly tightening. Time is not on his side. The US and British authorities who are pursuing him can afford to wait for any remaining public interest in his case to dwindle in the face of wars, climate change, anxiety about artificial intelligence, and other global issues.

But if we want to manage such challenges, we will need people like Assange. Who else will expose all the abuses and inconvenient truths that those in power want to keep secret – be it war crimes or social-media companies’ internal findings about what their platforms are doing to teen girls?


Wrong.  Also wrong?  The title of the column: "Without Whistleblowers, the West Is Lost."

Without a free press, there's no point in whistle-blowers  That's why the stupid statement against Judith Miller protecting her sources that Robert F. Kennedy Jr's writing partner put up Saturday was so wrong (see "Troubles for RFK Jr.? Abortion and The First Amen...").  Judith Miller went to jail to protect her source.  There's much to boo and hiss Judith for but that's not one because there is no need for whistle-blowers without a free press.  


And the bulk of the US press for far too long has been silent about the persecution of Julian.  Maybe it's time to stop protecting?

I don't mean Julian.  But if the US government is bound and determined to punish Julian, okay, punish all the 'criminals.'  Let's see the arrest warrants for THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST and everyone else.  Let's be fair in our persecution especially since a lot of idiotic journalists don't seem to get that any prosecution of Julian will be used against them.  Oh, not right now, that's not what the US government wants.  It doesn't want a First Amendment battle.  Not yet.  So now they go after Julian and, if successful, ten, twenty years down the line, they start going after press outlets.  

Why wait?  Why not let the US press see the fate that awaits them if they can't find their voice on Julian?



Julian is being persecuted for the 'crime' of journalism.  Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist."  Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



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

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

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

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



The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.



The 2022 Booker Prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka recently remarked: “Julian Assange, divisive figure that he may be—he is a hero to many writers in South Asia because freedom of speech is not something we take for granted… Journalism has been criminalised in our parts of the world and so we are looking to the west to see how this case is prosecuted and how it ends up.” 

There is little doubt that Karunatilaka’s description is representative of the prism through which most of the world views the case against my husband. And that concern does not just exist outside the west.
At Unesco’s World Press Freedom Day event this year, held at the UN in New York, the secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, said: “It is not just what is happening in Iran or in Russia that should worry us, it is also what is happening here. Who is imprisoning Julian Assange? Sadly, the playbook of autocracy, the playbook of control over conscience, or control over speech, has been well learned by our so-called democratic leaders.” The president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Jodie Ginsberg, noted that the US case against Julian “if brought to fruition could effectively criminalise journalism anywhere, for journalists everywhere”.

Russia’s trumped-up “espionage” charges against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for his newsgathering activities mirror those brought against Julian for his newsgathering and publishing. The last US reporter to be prosecuted by Russia for “espionage” was Nicholas Daniloff in 1986. The playbook did not originate in America, but America has sunk to Soviet standards and revived it. It won’t stop there. That is why the Assange case is the greatest threat to press freedom worldwide.

Julian’s US accusers use “espionage” as shorthand for “journalism”. They do not allege that Julian was acting on behalf of—or colluding with—any foreign power. The WikiLeaks publications expose the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; document evidence of torture and assassination squads; and reveal at least one potential war crime involving the slaughter of Reuters employees in Baghdad. The facts of the case are well-known and uncontested: the source, Chelsea Manning, was a US army whistleblower who acted on her conscience. She was sentenced to 35 years. The sentence was commuted by Barack Obama on his last day in office. 

Julian acted for the public’s benefit, and he is accused—of conspiracy to publish, and of receiving, obtaining, possessing and communicating “national defence” information—under a statute from 1917. The classification system was only invented 35 years after that law was written. There is no US “Official Secrets Act”. “National defence” information is whatever the US government says it is. 


We know these things because of a whistle-blower (Chelsea) and because of the press (Julian Assange, NYT, GUARDIAN, etc).  So if Julian's going to be put on trial, put the whole system on trial.  Let's not tip-toe to fascism, let's see the US government make a real charge towards it.  Maybe that will wake some people up and they'll finally find the voice to defend Julian.


The wife of Julian Assange has said the Wikileaks founder may only be a "few weeks away from extradition" during a protest outside Parliament.

Stella Assange was among many campaigners and supporters who marched through central London today as her husband faces potential life imprisonment if taken to the United States.

Assange, 51, has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison for more than four years while US authorities seek to extradite him to face trial on espionage charges linked to the publication of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.




Maher Nazeh (REUTERS) reports that Iraqis are having to turn to ''cheaper natural remedies'' on healthcare -- such as herbs -- due to the Iraq War destroying everything including healthcare:


Iraq's healthcare system, once one of the best in the Middle East, has been wrecked by conflict, international sanctions, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and rampant corruption.

Although public medical services are free of charge, a lack of medicines, equipment and adequate services mean citizens often need to turn to the more expensive private sector.

In recent years, Sabah has seen more herbal centres open in the capital, Baghdad. There are now 460 establishments with a permit to sell herbal medicines, up from 350 in 2020, according to his database.


ALJAZEERA reports on other financial issues:

The Iraqi Council of Representatives passed the 2023, 2024 and 2025 federal budgets on June 12, nearly eight months after Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani’s new government was formed.

This year’s budget is Iraq’s largest at 198.9 trillion Iraqi dinars, about $153bn based on the official exchange rate. The 2024 and 2025 budgets will be the same unless the cabinet requests any changes and Parliament approves them.

[. . .]

However, Iraq’s economy and budget rely heavily on oil, which puts both in a precarious position. Nearly all state revenue is from oil sales. In 2022, Iraq earned a record $115.6bn from oil, but it is a volatile commodity. Iraq is not in control of the global oil market, and it is not a relevant decision-maker in OPEC despite being the second-largest member in terms of production.

This leaves Iraq vulnerable to the precarity of oil markets and the decision-making of other OPEC members regarding output, especially since this budget is based on an ambitious oil price of $70 a barrel. If the price dips, it risks unleashing a cascade of economic woes and public anger.




 Right now, Paul's latest novel is $14.99 on AMAZON KINDLE. 



Pride Month is winding down.  You've seen who you can trust and who you can't, haven't you?



As Ava and I note in "Media: Marianne's campaigning for right wingers, Cornel's trying to destroy The Green Party," Marianne's been silent.  Marianne Williamson hasn't even Tweeted -- in stark contrast to 2019.  This Wednesday, she's supposed to find her voice finally.  Insiders say that if she doesn't, her campaign's over.  Since announcing this run, she's struggle to find her voice (a lot of that is her own fault).  This is do-or-die time and, on Wednesday, she'll either turn the campaign around or struggle along weakly for a few more months before announcing she's ending her campaign.

She's not the only one with a struggle.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins hate merchants Moms For Liberty for an event.  Ruth's "I move from support of RFK Jr. to wait and see" noted:

I want to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Democratic Party presidential primary and in the presidential race.  But?  I am not thrilled with his even with Moms For Liberty next week.  I realize that a presidential candidate has to appeal to many but that is an issue for me.  They are a hate group.  They persecute LGBTQ+ people.  I do not see Mr. Kennedy rushing to stand up on that issue (I know he has a family member who is gay and that he is close to her despite his mother's attack on her not all that long ago).  So I may have to walk away from him.

I am sorry if that happens but my grandson Jayson, who is gay, means the world to me and I will not betray him for any politician.  The hate group is back in the news:



An Indiana branch of the national Moms for Liberty organization apologized Thursday for featuring a quote from Adolf Hitler on the front cover of its newsletter.

The Hamilton County chapter of the organization, recently listed as an "extremist group" by a civil rights watchdog launched the newsletter "The Parent Brigade," Wednesday quickly drawing backlash on social media. Local politicians and candidates for elected offices added to the condemnation Thursday morning.

Moms for Liberty emailed IndyStar, a USA TODAY network paper, Thursday morning to post a statement on the group's Facebook page condemning Adolf Hitler and apologizing for using the quote. A new version of the front page without the quote or explanation was uploaded.



The quote just accidentally slipped past them, did it?  Find another Jewish woman to play the fool because I will not be the one who believes that lie.  You said exactly what you wanted to and then got called out and realized the optics were only getting worse so you rushed to pretend you were sorry.

I do not respect anyone who associates with Moms For Liberty.  That includes the disgusting Tulsi Gabbard.  I have been checking Naomi Wolf's TWITTER feed for the last six weeks to see if she has any association with them.  During the pandemic she did.  They were not known as hate merchants then.  They are now.  Should Ms. Wolf start reTweeting them or praising them, And she has!  C.I. just informed of that.  So I will drop her.  I can disagree with her -- and do on COVID -- and respectfully disagree with her.  I cannot, however, follow on TWITTER anyone who associates with a known hate group such as Moms For Liberty.


The issue also came up over the weekend in the "Roundtable" we did for THIRD:


Jim: Ruth?

Ruth: They are a hate group.  And RFK Jr. is about to do a rally with them so I am candidate-less.  As I wrote at my site finally, that is a big deal for me.  I thought he was different from his mother -- Ethel Kennedy is a raging homophobe.  She apparently blames gay men for not being able to turn her homely self into Jackie Kennedy or even Joan Kennedy.  Joan Kennedy had a lot of style, but no one had the style and chic that Jackie Kennedy did.  So Ethel Kennedy's a homophobe who raged against her own granddaughter and refused to attend the same-sex wedding and is she speaking for her son Robert as well.  Sorry.  It is a breaking point for me.  And to add one more thing, I noted Naomi Wolf.  Since I posted on Friday, she has Tweeted about her 'friends' Moms for Liberty.  Bye Naomi.  Did not have to agree with you on everything.  But when you promote a hate group -- a known hate group -- that is out to destroy LGBTQ+ rights, you have betrayed me, my grandson Jayson and yourself because it was not all that long ago that you had a book -- since pulled and pulped -- about attacks on LGBTQ+ people.  So you are dead to me.  Your looney chem-trail nonsense?  I could agree to disagree.  This?  Not playing.


Not only is Wednesday important for Marianne in terms of finding her own voice, it also has the potential of allowing her to snag some of Robert's supporters in a week where he celebrates hate by standing with Moms For Liberty.


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cornel's Crackpot Cracker Parade" went up Saturday night.  New content at THIRD:


And Stan's "THE SAD AND TRAGIC ENDING OF LUCILLE BALL: VOLUME TWO (1961-1989) OF A TWO-PART BIOGRAPHY" and the following went up this weekend:







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