Mikey Likes It!: 2022-04-17

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Jackson Hinkle is a little bitch

I really didn't plan on writing this post. Thought it a lot, but planned to avoid it.

Then he posted a video and Marci e-mailed about it. "I Was Wrong." Went up yesterday. She made the mistake of watching. I would've too, Marci.

She thought the little bitch was going to apologize for bringing on convicted sex offender,

I would've too.

But he's not apologizing for the damage he did to survivors and their families and friends for bring on register sex offender, sent to prison sex offender Scott Ritter.

No, he's not going to do that.

He's a dumb little pice of shit who thinks he's smart. I wish I knew him. I'd punch his fsce in. I'd do that within 30 minutes of meeting him because he's a smug little bitch who thinks he's a big man. And over six feet tall, I could beat the crap out of that little bitch and make clear to him that he had nothing to strut about.

When he did his podcast drunk, with a drunken male friend, and they'd brought two drunken women back to the studio, I wrote it off as youthful stupidity.

Little Jacky Hinkle's not even 25. He's a stupid piece of crap who thinks he knows everything and has some sort of homoerotic obsession with Jimmy Dore. (Jimmy's a funny guy, I'm not denying that, and he's a smart man. But Little Jacky's obsessed -- to the point that she picture him on all fours in front of a seated Jimmy and his snout in Jimmy's crotch.)

If he had any guts, if he was any kind of a man, even a young man, he'd apologize to his viewers not just for using his platform to try to f**k some drunk woman but for bringing on Scott Ritter.

That was an insult and it made clear that there are people who will try take back the night and then are little Jackies who will hold hands with convicted sex offenders and not even have the guts (or balls -- Little Jacky's got no balls) to tell their audience, "This man I'm speaking with? Went to prison in 2009 for being a sex offender."

Little Jacky Hinkle, playing with is dinkle, wishing some day his balls would descend but right now pretending he's a man.

For anyone thinking, "Mike's threatening to beat up Little Jacky!!!!"

No, I'm not.

I'm lucky. I don't know him personally. If I met him tomorrow, I know all I need to know and I would walk away.

But if I had met him a year or so ago and we had been talking, it would take about 30 minutes of his bullshit, faux man nonsense before I would've kicked his ass.

Go play with that tiny dinkle, Little Jacky Hinkle.

Here's Glenn Greenwald doing work to be proud of.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, April 22, 2022. A few electoral related issues.

Sabby Sabs had a really important video this week and we noted it in an entry on its own but I want to be sure it's in a snapshot. Before that, this will probably be a shorter snapshot. My blood suger's out of whack and I'm having to stop and start -- hurling and dictating do not go totether well.

But I actually want to start with a REvolutionary BLACKOUT issue. They had a good video that we've noted on its own already this week (yesterday, I believe). There was one thing that needed clarification. It was taking on Sam Seder (yea!) and this is ot to defend Seder and I was going to let it pass but then Bernie.

Sam was in a debate with a person it is not our goal to promote so we're not even going to name him. RB was reviewing that debate and they noted that Sam lost -- which doesn't suprrise me. We are not and have never been fan of Sam. "We" meaning me myself and meaning this website. We parted ways, this website, with Sam in January of 2005 when he revealed hmself to be acheap whore and one who woud promote corporate interests (Simon Rosenberg). Rosenberg was spitting on the LGBT community and going off on prominent African-American members of the Democratic Party and that was okay with Sam. So he can rot in hell, I'm not here to defend him and that's before you factor in that I know Janeane Garofalo, I like her and I consider her a friend. I don't ever forgive how he ousted her from her program.

So in the debate Sam made some point about people who weren't even Democrats. The ine wasn't qutoed. But Sam was around in 2008 and a lot of peple weren't. If he was referring to 2008, I do know what he meant and I do think it's an isseue if Bernie runs again.

In 2008, a bi-racial man who was attractive ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination -- actually that started in 2007 -- and he wasn't connecting with the voters. John Edwards and his crew of sexist -- female bloggers, you know who you are -- thought he'd win the nomination. Grabby hands and his cult couldn't see the writing ont he wall. The person who coul've won it then was Hillary Clinton.

Because Barack was pretty and a novelty, all type of sowoning took place. I still rank the most embarrassing moment when Martha read an e-mail from Daivd Lindorff over the phone to me about how people should support Barack because "as a Black man who did drugs" he would be more radical than anything the system could handle. Barack has been called many things by many thinking people but no one with a real and functioning brain has ever called him radical. And never will.

But there were radicals latching on to him -- the friendship with Bernardine Dohrn and her trophy husband wasn't the only thing there. The Weather Underground's Carl stopped giving himself his monthly breast exam long enough to start a fux group for Barack. Carl couldn't hide what he was for the most part. But many did. And if Democrats don't want non-Democrat impacting their primaries, they can make them a closed primary. But here's the problem, a lot of them showed up writing pieces as Democrats. As a Democrat, this is what our party stands for this is . . .

And they weren't Democrats. Be a Socialist, be a Communist , be whatever (yes, even a a Republican), but don't present yourself as a Democrat in order to sway potential overs when you are not a Democrats.

As we noted in real time, that ticked off a lot of people. In 2016, Hillar.y Clinton, again seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, tried to latch onto that angry sentiment left over from 2008 with her remarks about how Bernie wasn't a Democrat (he's a Socialist) and shouldn't be allowed to even run in the primary. She'd already picked her Republican nominee, right? (Her campaign pushed the coverage of Donald in the GOP primary because they thought he'd be the easiest to defeat in a general election.) But here's the problem, Bernie couldn't have run withut the party's okay. As a sitting senator that the Democrats had a policy -- that dated back to Bernie being in the House --which eant that they would never challenge him in an election by running an actual Democrat for the post, Bernie wouldn't have done anything to anger the Party and he ran with the Party's blessing. They didn't think he could win (and, as we now know, various people like Donna Brazile were working to harm his campaign while pretending to be impartial).

They let him run.

So that was a stupid argument. Bernie's enver pretended he wasn't a Scocialist.

But Bernie has pretended And that's why we're addressing the point now.

As a Socialist, if he runs again -- as he says he's thinking about doing -- it will be with the Democratic Party's leadership's approval.

He would get them attention that they would not otherwise receive. And his 'left' or left positions would bring people into the fold -- that he would later try to sheepherd to whatever corporatist won the nomination.

He serves the sheep hearding role, yes. But no one ever comments on the other role he serves. By letting Bernie run and letting him lose, they make the argument that these are good policies, yes, but the man supporting them couldn't win, so we need to just keep working on ait a little bit harderr.

That's how they deny the overwhelmingly popular Medicare For All issue.

He is not helping anyone.

And no one with self-respect who had seen their campaign worked against in 2016 and 2020 would even consider running again.

Bernie has no self respect and has clearly accepted his fole as a sheep hearder and as a denier of needed policies (such as Medicare For All).

He shouldn't run. If he does, no one should be taken in by him.

He folds every time, which is bad enough, but then he tries to whore out the people who believed in the policies and issues he said he believed in. We can't afford his nonsense. He's been a lousy US senator and I've said that long ago. (And had to hear in 2016 when some Bernie supporters were upset that Hillary's campaign was using issues we'd pointed out in years previously. Like when the VA scandal broke about the deaths from waiting for care broke and Bernie, then Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, admonished everyone at the start of the hearing, insisting that that issue would be dealt with but they were to focus on today's issue instead . . . holistic medicine. Wow Bernie, you are so uninspiring.)

We can't afford him. If he runs, I hope people don't mistake him for anything of value again.

Okay, her's Sabby's video. It's important and she's raising serious issue as usual.

I would love to comment on it but my blood sugar is really low and I'm dizzy so I've got to go throw up again. Nouri al-Maliki will be noted in Saturday's entry -- for his words. I think it can wait.

We're doing a Zomm at 6 with the East Coast so I have to stop here and hopefully get over throwing up and get done with it.

The following sites updated:

Here's C.I.'s "

Friday, April 22, 2022

Jimmy Dore?

I like him.

But I love my daughter. I love my wife. I love my mom. I love my four sisters. I love my friends who are women.

Sorry, the need to promote Scott Ritter? Not a need I have. He is a convicted sex offender who went to prison who the expert at his own trial said he'd learned nothing from counseling. He is a registered sex offender.

If you want to promote him or make him a guest, you are required to disclose that.

Why don't you?

Because you know your audience will turn on you if you do.

If you can't be honest about your guest, you shouldn't have him on.

Scott Ritter's three pedophile arrests are public record as is his conviction and his presion sentence.

Considering that he used the internet to pursue young girls, he actually should be banned from social media.

Jimmy Dore, CONVO COUCH, Richard Medhurst, Jackson Hinkle and others made their choice. Lying for Scott Ritter meant more to them than the safety of girls and women -- meant more to them than the truth, in fact.

I don't have time for it and I will not use my site to amplify the voices of people like that. Sorry.

There's been no effort to acknowledge that they did wrong, let alone apologize.

I don't have time for it and I don't have time for them.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, April 21, 2022. Julian Assange, the only person the US government has ever wanted to punish for the illegal Iraq War.

Starting with Julian Assange who is being persecuted by US President Joe Biden for the 'crime' of journalism. Julian, the publisher of WIKILEAKS, exposed War Crimes the US crried out in Iraq and Afghanistan As a result, 8he remains held by the UK as they decide whether or not they're going to turn him over to Joe Biden so that Joe can isolate and torture Julian.

We've gotten a little smarter over th98e last few years. Partisan trash used to think they could get away with Ju8lian was guilty of some disloyalty to his government charge. No. Julian is not8 an American citizen. He's an Australian citizen. And the government of Australia has made clear that they are too weak and too pathetic to protect their own citizens -- see also their refusal to assist Robert Pether who remains rotting in an Iraqi jail.

Julian published the truth and did so with the help of many -- including THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHIGNTON POST, THE GUARDIAN and many others around the world. These same outlets ow fail to come to his defense8. Talk about RELIABLE SOURCES, huh? But don't expect human trash Brian Stelter to talk about Julia8n because he knows he's on iffy ground. He's got to be a good whore and dance for his corporte masters now more than ever as new internal polling at CNN found that viewers find him grotesque. That's only a surprise if Brian's never looked in a mirror. His ratings are poor and just his face is enough to run off viewers. He'll keep lying and distorting and distracting while thanking his personal savior that someone is stupid eough to put him in front of the cameras.

Brian will die as he has lived -- having done nothing of note, having done nothing at all.8 He chose to waste his life. Julian chose to stand up for important issues and expose crimes.

Joe Biden is a 8failure and his war on The First Amendment only adds to that. His polling is appalling and that's with the usual whoring going on, the usual excuses, the usual refusal of the press to hold a sitting president accountable. Can you imagine how much worse his reputation will be ten or twenty years after he's out of office?

Who's going to salvage his reputation hen? That creepy sister who has always given vibes or perversity? That corrupt son that 8should be in a court of alaw answering for all he's done?

No.

Joe ha8s no defenders. None who can't alter public opinion.

So he'll go down as the man who declared war on the First Amendment while inflation soared, while homelessness increased, while he made statements telling the American people to prepare for food shortages.

Depressing Joe seems intent upon restoring The Great Depression.

He could really use a win of some kind for his legacy. He's not going to find it by persecuting Julian Assange.

Jake Johnson (SCHEER POST) notes:

A British judge on Wednesday granted formal approval to the U.S. government’s request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces espionage charges for publishing classified material that exposed war crimes by American forces.

“The home secretary must act now to protect journalism.”

The judge’s new and widely expected procedural order, the culmination of a drawn-out legal battle, places the final decision on Assange’s extradition in the hands of U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel, leaving the WikiLeaks publisher with dwindling options to fight his removal to the U.S.—where he could be hit with a 175-year prison sentence.

Patel is expected to make a final decision by May 18, after which Assange can attempt to appeal via judicial review, Reuters reported Wednesday. As Patel weighs the extradition order, Assange will remain jailed in a high-security London prison, where he has languished for years under conditions that experts have condemned as torture.

Human rights organizations wasted no time urging Patel to reject the extradition order. Allowing it to proceed, they warned, would endanger press freedoms around the world, given that the charges against Assange seek to punish a common journalistic practice.1

At this point, the only thing that an save Julian is public outcry and it needs to be aimed at the right targets. In the UK, that's the home secretary. In the US, that's Joe Biden. Those are the two who can stop this travesty. They choose not to.

Reporters Without Borders has a petition: You can sign at the link, here's the opening paragraph:

On 20 April, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court signed an order confirming the alarming next step in the more than decade-long case against Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. Following more than two years of extradition proceedings in UK courts, Assange’s fate has once again become a political decision for the Home Secretary – the very office that made the political decision to green-light the US extradition request in 2019.

The following sites updated:

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Wednesday, April 20, 2022

THE GOLDBERGS

I think I'm going to have to give up BBQ. I love it but I had it yesterday and talk about heart burn. I'm not joking. I've taking three or four Zantacs (is that what they are) and I've still got this burning in my chest. In fact, I was glad that there was no new SUPERMAN AND LOIS last night. As soon as I saw that, I went to bed and took a three hour nap because my stomach was so upset. Woke up with the burning still in my chest but my stomach had settled down. Jim and Dona had some of it (BBQ_ and they did not have my reaction so it must just be me. I really love the taste but I guess I'm going to have to give it up. :(

And I just had to go throw up. That means no BBQ. My throat was burning and my chest and then I started gagging. I love BBQ and can't believe how bad my reaction to it is. I also can't believe that I threw up pink. I didn't have any pepto bismol. Not read, like with blood, but pink. I had New England clam chowder for lunch and that was really it since BBQ lst night.

If you missed it, THE GOLDBERGS has been renewed for a sixth season. This is with Jeff Garlin out as everyone's noting. No offense but the show could survive without Murray. But can it survive with an immature Adam? Last episode was the first time all season he came off like an 18 year old. I'll be watching next season to see what happens but I don't have a lot of hope for the show. Adam should have grown up a long, long time ago. I don't see how the show runners didn't notice this problem and address it in season nine. I really don't care to see pip squeak go to college and if that's what they're going to do, it's going to be a lot to endure. They really need to beef up Erica, Goeff, Barry, Bev and Tim Meadow's role. In fact, the best new development this season has been Tim Meadows becoming friends with Bev.

Tonight's episode? Adam looked immature yet again. Pop-Pop was played by George Segal until the actor passed away. George was an important part of the show. He is still missed. But Beverly, Bri (Adam's girlfriend) and Adam went to Pop-Pop's old condo and Bev met Pop-Pop's final girlfriend (played by a great Mimi Rogers) and Bev didn't believe her and then was mad at her because her father (Pop-Pop) never introduced them and Mimi told her she was upset because she'd been after Pop-Pop to introduce her to his daughter.

Everything about that storyline was great except for Adam. He needs to grow up.

The secondary story was Erica and Barry and Geoff. And this was great. She saves a man from choking when Barry delays. They're then at each other's throats until Geoff has had enough and screams at them that they need to grow up. He was right. And maybe Geoff should yell to Adam that he needs to grow up.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Lily Tomlin, climate change, Iraq and more.

Actress and comedian (and animal rights activist and feminist and . . .) Lily Tomlin is in the news lately. NETFLIX is about to drop the last episodes of GRACE AND FRANKIE, the show she co-stars with Jane Fonda in, and and April 22nd, she's going to be honored by TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES and she has two upcoming film projects. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER spoke with her and we'll note this section:

Do you think culture and comedy have evolved in the time since you first started out?

[Lily Tomlin}: People are more conscious about misogynistic jokes or homophobic jokes or racial slurs. Those [jokes] are just expressions of anger and fury and dislike and propaganda to separate groups and individuals. I don’t know how well-founded this is, but as tragic as Ukraine is, you think of it as a white European country. I think of the people in Haiti and in all the countries of color where terrible things happened and not as many people responded, and it was not as widely spread in the press. There was just an embrace of the Ukrainian people and a dismissal of people of color in other countries.

Amen.

At BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Ajamu Baraka offers:

U.S. propagandists had learned from the Vietnam experience that it was much safer to shield the public from the brutality that their troops were dishing out to poor villagers, students, ordinary workers, and anyone who dared to resist the military might of the U.S. military on a daily basis.

But the Ukraine war, at least the portion that began with the Russia “special operation” in February, was one of those instances where exposure to the dehumanized reality of war was welcomed.

Why?

The images of the burnt-out buildings and frightened refugees crossing the frontiers of the nations that border Ukraine served an especially important purpose. It was to generate public support for war. War in support of Ukraine and revulsion against the Russian “invaders!” And it did not hurt that the victims were white!

An important lesson was learned from the U.S. and NATO wars to dismember Yugoslavia in the 1990s and it was that white victims made selling war amazingly easy– especially when framed as a humanitarian mission to rescue people from tyranny.

We know what emerged from this discovery. The ideological weapon of humanitarian intervention and the mantra, “responsibility to protect” became invaluable to justify imperialist war, even when the victims were not white, because an appeal could be made to another powerful force – liberal white saviorism!

However, in this short essay I want to address something even more insidious and dangerous than the general propaganda efforts to generate support for the war against Russia, and that is: in the process of building support for war, the white supremacist, ultranationalist, and neo-Nazi elements in Ukrainian society and in the state were downplayed, if not ignored.

That whitewashing, coupled with the inordinate attention given to the war, with the inevitable sympathy for the white victims of this war – a war motivated by the desire of Ukrainians to join Europe, to “defend Europeanness,” and European “civilization” – revealed a contradiction that has always been present at the heart of the emergence of what became Europe. That contradiction was the hyper-valuation of white lives, of “whiteness,” in relationship to the racialized “others,” a contradiction that I refer to as the “white lives matter more movement.”

This whitewashing of Ukraine is particularly dangerous because it is occurring at a historical moment of deep crisis for the global capitalist order, producing proto-fascist movements across Europe that are becoming more visible and bolder. As I said in previous writings on this subject, U.S. authorities and the U.S. and Western European press understood that Ukraine had an active problem with white supremacist ultranationalists and literal neo-Nazis. Nevertheless, in order to engender support for Ukraine and to set the stage for the performance of a lifetime by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s actor president, Ukraine had to be recreated, minus the ultranationalist influence and Nazis.

Herein lies the danger for non-Europeans.

The coup in 2014 saw for the first time since the second world-war, literal neo-Nazis serving in the government of a European state. Moreover, even though the ultranationalists and neo-Nazis did not have a commanding electoral base, their non-state presence controlling the streets of major cities and towns across Ukraine was significant. They were notorious for their attacks on LGBTQ populations, anarchists, non-Europeans, and Roma peoples. Their violent opposition to communists and communism and socialism of any sort was officially amplified with repressive legislation that outlawed and repressed most left political tendencies.

Beginning in 2014, white supremacists from throughout the European world traveled to Ukraine, with over four thousand “volunteers” traveling to Ukraine recently to fight in response to Zelensky’s call to help fight the Russians. It did not matter to Zelensky or the European nations supplying weapons and paying the salaries of these “volunteers” that most of them were self-identified white supremacists.

Again, we do not need to make the case of the presence of these forces in Ukraine. That has already been done, here , here, and here . The political issue is that the sanitizing of the right-wing Ukrainian state has strengthened the far-right not only in Ukraine but globally. The whitewashing by liberals and the liberal/left in the U.S. that transformed these elements into “moderate” Nazis is having the effect of legitimizing their proto-fascist racialized politics, a politics that is emerging across the white world. There is a reason Marine LePen has a chance to defeat Emmanuel Macron, even after he moved further to the right after being elected.

Liberals pretend to be opposed to the right, but they do not because they aligned themselves with the neo-liberal right more than two decades ago. The right will never defeat the far-right – the dilemma of the democratic party in the U.S. But in embracing the illusion of being in opposition and conceding ideological terrain in the elusive quest for “bipartisanship” the far-right is further legitimized and emboldened.

The whitewashing of the right in Ukraine in order to support its U.S.-backed government will have domestic political consequences. For example, the liberal and left/liberal argument for opposing Trump was that his supporters were infected with racism and his movement represented a proto-fascist political development in the body politic of the U.S. The political and ideological challenge now is to square this support for white supremacists in Ukraine with their opposition to Trump. How do you condemn Trumpian racism after embracing a government and society infested with white supremacists and literal neo-Nazis?

In a few yers, when everyone looks back at this time period, there's going to be a lot of shame -- and there should be. Shame on the part of the media, shame on 'caring' actors. They should all be on the receiving end of some version of Jesse Jackson Jr.'s 2008 speech/attack on Hillary Clinton -- where he listed all the things she dind't cry over but felt that she had cried over her poorly run campaign.

A lot of people will have to answer whe the hysteria dies down.

Hysteria?

Most Americans, despite the media whoring, don't care. They care that people are at war in the abstract. But, no, this isn't seen by the majority of Americans as a US priority.

And what they see at home only appalls them. A member of Congress telling the homeless to go home. To go home. And it's not a Republica snarling at them. No, it's a Democrat. The once powerful and righteous Maxine Waters. Sunk by her own corruption. Mayb it's time the ethics review board over Congress was taken out of the hands of Congress? Between Nancy Pelosi's profits from the stock market and all the family scandals for members of Congress, something needs to be done.

But we don't have money to care for the homeless, we are told. Yet Joe Biden keeps sending more and money to fight Russia.

Ma8rgaret Kimberly (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) notes:

The United States, its NATO allies, and their partners in corporate media are engaging in an unprecedented war propaganda effort. Their goal is to get and maintain public support for their actions against Russia which are playing out in Ukraine. The messaging is constant and isn’t at all subtle. One cannot go online for any purpose without seeing exhortations to help Ukrainian children, buy products colored in blue and yellow, or somehow “stand with Ukraine.”

What passes for news about Ukraine is usually little more than anti-Russian screeds, sourced by “anonymous officials” eager to reveal claims that Vladimir Putin has untold billions of dollars stashed away, or that Russians are protesting, refusing to fight, or fleeing their country. In these stories Putin has been fooled by his aides, is purging the intelligence apparatus and is either depressed or in fits of rage, depending on the source of the anti-Putin invective. We are told that the Russian economy is crumbling, every atrocity is committed by Russians only, and that Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelensky is a perfect human being. Documented proof that he has a fortune in offshore accounts has been disappeared by the media which once reported on these activities.

Joe Biden and his foreign policy team of incompetent ideologues hope to convince Americans to accept food shortages, rising gas prices, and the risk of a hot war. The steady diet of dangerous nonsense is a necessity for them. The game is up if the people begin to question what they are being told.

Then again, while there may not be mass rejection of the Ukraine narrative there is certainly a mass rejection of Biden himself. The latest opinion poll shows him with a very low 33% approval rating. The average person may not be well versed in the history of U.S. policy towards Russia, but they know when things don’t add up and they know that the president is not a well man. Rambling, incoherent speeches punctuated by shouts of “war criminal” and “genocide” don’t cut it when working people can barely afford to put gas in the tank. We are left with a mass gaslighting effort that has created the desired effect of generating fear and or hatred towards Russia, but that hasn’t increased satisfaction about the country’s direction.

Biden’s actions aren’t very surprising. He was the Ukraine point person after the Barack Obama coup in 2014. He was always one of the most hawkish democrats and came into the presidency with Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and the same cast of characters who first violated Ukraine’s sovereignty. He hoped to instigate Russia and kill the NordStreamII pipeline and sanction Russia. He didn’t expect the full incursion that he spent months saying would happen.

Now he is hoisted on his own petard, trying to bully other nations into condemning Russia when it isn’t in their interests to do so, and causing world wide suffering in a futile effort to destroy Russia’s economy. Sanctions against Russia have increased fuel prices all over the world. Disruptions in wheat production will reduce Ukraine’s harvest and decrease supplies in places that had no connection with this ginned up conflict. The anti-Russian propaganda is working but the pro-Biden effort is not, hence the public disapproval.

Nothing is working for Joe. And he's so feeble and out of touch that he's whispering about running for 2024. Does he think he'll be able to hide in basements and avoid the campaign trail again?

The 'peop' shots they gavee him befor the debates -- the Democratic Party debates -- did wake him back up once thy started but they also brought out his aggressive nature and he looked really angry.

That won't work in 2024. Equally true, Joe's been abusing the same 'pep' shots since he got into the White House, he thinks they help him thihnk better.

Nothing in a needle will ever do that trick, Joe.

Among his many failures? He'll be remembered for doing damn little to save the planet. April 22nd, Lily gets honored (rightfully so) but that day is also Earth Day.

AFP reports:

Wed, April 20, 2022, 6:06 AM·1 min read

Iraq was hit Wednesday by its third heavy dust storm in two weeks, temporarily grounding flights at Baghdad and Najaf airports, as the weather phenomenon grows increasingly frequent.

The air in Baghdad was thick with a heavy sheet of grey and orange dust, while the state news agency INA cited the meteorological office as saying the latest storm was expected to lift on Thursday.

Flights were suspended at Baghdad International Airport due to poor visibility.

The airport serving the Shiite holy city of Najaf to the south also released a statement announcing flights were grounded.

Two dust storms struck the country earlier in April, leaving dozens hospitalised with respiratory problems and temporarily grounding flights at a number of airports.

"The dust is affecting the whole country but particularly central and southern regions," Amer al-Jabri, an official at Iraq's meteorological office, told AFP.

The dust storms are worse and more frequent due to climate change. And the world sits by waiting . Or fretting over nonsense.

The following sites updated:0

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Earth Day

This Friday, April 22nd, is Earth Day. Let's start with a video for kids so we're all on the same page.

So that bring us up to speed and we did a little deeper. Here is some information about Earth Day:

Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

Let’s take a look at the last half-century of mobilization for action:

ORIGINS OF EARTH DAY

In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.

However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.

Earth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness, and putting environmental concerns on the front page.

The Environmental Protection Agency notes:

It may be hard to imagine that before 1970, a factory could spew black clouds of toxic smoke into the air or dump tons of toxic waste into a nearby stream, and that was perfectly legal. They could not be taken to court to stop it.

How was that possible? Because there was no EPA, no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act. There were no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect our environment.

Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen have an interesting column at COMMON DREAMS:

In a 1970 poster for the first Earth Day and a cartoon the following year, Walt Kelly's Pogo offered a hard truth about ecological crises: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

That doesn't mean there are no differences in individuals' contribution to those crises. Landowners, not agricultural workers who harvest crops, bear responsibility for chemical contamination of the soil. A fast-food restaurant cashier who has to drive to work and the CEO of an oil company cashing in on hydrocarbons are not equally culpable.

But how much are landowners' choices constrained by economic realities outside their control? If all the energy companies stopped producing fossil fuels in the coming decades, would consumers happily embrace a major down-powering and the accompanying lifestyle changes? Kelly's statement may have lacked nuance, but so do many of the environmentalists' platitudes that ignore the depth of change necessary in both economic institutions and people's expectations.

We assess people's choices and understand that those with a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and power are more of an enemy than the "us" who lack such status. Those judgments are necessary, but not sufficient to deal with the multiple cascading ecological crises we face. Whatever our individual contributions to an unsustainable society, collectively we have to embrace down-powering in a dramatically different world, like it or not.

We use "crises" deliberately, to focus not just on rapid climate disruption but soil erosion and degradation, chemical contamination, and a dramatic reduction in biodiversity. Climate change be the most compelling crisis, but all of these threats are a derivative of overshoot, of too many people consuming too much overall.

We know that consumption is wildly skewed. We can focus on the worst offenders in the top 1% or top 10%, and at times that can be an effective strategy for incremental change. We shouldn't hesitate to go after people who own yachts.

But the larger problem is the routine expectations of people in the developed world more generally. Even if resources were equitably distributed, the ecosphere cannot sustain 8 billion people indefinitely at anything like the current level of aggregate consumption. Politicians of all stripes love to champion the middle class, but middle-class living is unsustainable. Eliminating disparities is the first step. What comes next?

It's time to talk honestly about "fewer and less": fewer people consuming less energy and materials.

A lot to think about. Let's do another video, this one by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Press whores are so overwhelmed with their whoring duties that they can't even save their former precious while the political stalemate continues in Iraq.

In November, the US mid-term elections will be held. Traditionally, the hose controlling the White House loses seats in Congress during the midterms.

Joe Biden's polls8ter says, "The worst political environment for Democrats in my lifetime.""

AOC and the Fraud Squad can't rally because they've been exposed as worthless.

They tried to bring in Bar8ack Obama this month to help Joe. Even if the catty behavior between Joe and Barack hadn't taken place at that event, Barack couldn't have helped.

The press whoring just isn't working.

He was still in the White House when I pointed out that The Cult of St. Barack wouldn't be able to keep him afloat after he was out of the White House. No, people would begin to notice how he did nothing for him and how various 'media' outlets were really just Democratic Party organ who covered for Barrack and Barack's many failures inste8ad of holding him accountable.

He wa8s never held accountable. He was going to end veterans homelessness, remember? He didn't8. He was going to close the gulag at Guantanamo. He didn't He was going to pull all US troops out of Iraq -- he never did and he started sending more back in in the fall of 2012 -- as THE NEW YORK TIMES finally reported in September of that month, buried in a story on Syria. He then began sending more in in8 the second half of 2014 and they remain in Iraq today. "We want to end the War! And we want to end it now!" Remember him thundering that in his 2008 rallies? Remember his alleged superior judgment and how he used the Iraq War to bash Hillary Clinton?

He was really good a words, they just didn't mean anything.

We constantly, while Barack was in the White House would use Joni Mitchell's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" to describe Barack and his cult back when he was president.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh he said you think you're immune
Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies

Pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're just pretty lies?

The press whored for him constantly. See Ava and my "TV: The Myths" for some of his many broken promises. And I was right. The media whores couldn't devote all the attention they did to covering for him and lying for him when he was out of the White House. No.

They ahve othere politicians to whore for today. They still will rally around Barack and they did for that awful documentary. That's the reality. It was awful. NETFLIX knew they had a dog on their hand, i8t was a NETFLIX exec that provided us with the documentary ahead of time and told us that NETFLIX knew they'd wasted money. It debuted last week and never made it higher than number 3. It's dropped. QUEEN OF THE SOUTH, a USA network series, had its final season show up on NETFLIX and it performed better. WHITE HOT THE RISE & FALL OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH just started streaming on NETFLIX and already it's creating more excitement.

Barack never helped anyone but himself. By the time Michelle Obama's book came out, the bloom was off that rose. It did not meet the publisher's expectations despite a huge promotional push.

Barack's only accomplishment was overseeing the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. He was the hero of the 1%. 8And this was made clear as he worked to destroy a Chicago neighborhood by mposing his official library there, by yachting with David Geffen and limp noodle Bruce Springsteen. By getting millions from NETFLIX despite him never having produced a film or TV show.

His documentary was an embarrassment. But the press whores worked the p.r. material they were handed and went around, as the p.r. material did, comparing Barack to a man who has spent his lifetime -- and he's nearly 100 now -- covering environmental issues in films and TV shows. That was so insulting and outrageous and, no surprise, beyond the whores 8that lie never got traction.

He c9984an't save them. Bill can't save them -- he has to run from reporters these days to avoid facing the questions regarding Juanita and Monica. Hillary can't do press? She's seeing campaign aid after campaign aid pulled into an investigation on how the Russia myth was created by her campaign and paid for by her campaign and how aid how one person with her campaign after another lied to the US government.

In the Iraq that the US destroyed, the political stalemate continues. No president named since the October 10th elections, no prime minister-designate named. Six months and counting. QANTARA offers:

Iraq’s fragility and compounding problems are nothing new. The country has witnessed three devastating wars within three long decades, in addition to international sanctions, sectarian war and foreign influence. By the time Saddam Hussein’s statues were toppled, Iraq found itself in a devastating situation, in which bets were being made that Iraq would splinter into several countries based on sectarian and ethnic lines. Although Iraq defied these expectations, it remains a fragile state edging towards failure.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric who won 73 out of 325 seats in the recent election, is however promising major change. The young cleric wants to break away from the political tradition of forming a national unity government after each election where all parties representing Iraq’s sects, ethnicities, and religions share the spoils. This type of political arrangement is one of the main causes of corruption and social division.

Instead, al-Sadr wants to form a majority government that can begin implementing desperately needed reforms – beginning with controlling the unruly militias and fighting corruption. He also aims to curb foreign influence from countries like Iran and make sure Iraq remains neutral regarding divisive regional issues. But will he succeed?

Al-Sadr will face many challenges in his efforts to brighten Iraq’s future. Even if he can form a majority government, further change will be an uphill battle because reform in Iraq is a formidable task that requires tremendous effort. Furthermore, some aspects of reform might take decades.

The western press, doing the US State Dept's bidding, whored for Moqtada and declared him a kingmaker and other things. He's a cult leader who is responsible for the deaths of many Ir8aiqs as w8ell as many US troops. But in August8, he took the bribe from the US State Dept -- that was made with US tax dollars -- a8nd they began promoting him lilke crazy.

Well he had t8hree tries. Three times, he called for a vote in Parliament to elect his nominee for president.

Three times he failed.

He's now in the midst of a 40-day, self-imposed exile

His oppontents are stupid. There was some initial excitement that the coordinating framework would be able to put together a government.

Then they learned that their answer was to pimp the same person for prime minister and the same person for president. Moqtada had already installed the same person for another term as Speaker of Parliament. So if the three top positions in government weren't going to change, what was the point8 of those October elections?

It's a question the already disenchanted are asking even louder these days.

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