Mikey Likes It!: 2022-05-01

Saturday, May 07, 2022

Idiot of last month

First up, Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Biden's Last Remaining Supporter" went up last night.

That's one of three comics Isaiah's done for THE COMMON ILLS this week. He has one more going up tonight and he's also done a comic (as usual) for all of the community newsletters this week. I asked him the reason for the increased out put this week? He said it was because he got a new desk Monday. :D

First up, this is from Ellen Brown's important article at DISSIDENT VOICE:

We have a serious debt problem, but solutions such as the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” are not the future we want. It’s time to think outside the box for some new solutions.

In ancient Mesopotamia, it was called a Jubilee. When debts at interest grew too high to be repaid, the slate was wiped clean. Debts were forgiven, the debtors’ prisons were opened, and the serfs returned to work their plots of land. This could be done because the king was the representative of the gods who were said to own the land, and thus was the creditor to whom the debts were owed. The same policy was advocated in the Book of Leviticus, though it is unclear to what extent this biblical Jubilee was implemented.

That sort of across-the-board debt forgiveness can’t be done today because most of the creditors are private lenders. Banks, landlords and pension fund investors would go bankrupt if their contractual rights to repayment were simply wiped out. But we do have a serious debt problem, and it is largely structural. Governments have delegated the power to create money to private banks, which create most of the circulating money supply as debt at interest. They create the principal but not the interest, so more money must be repaid than was created in the original loan. Debt thus grows faster than the money supply, as seen in the chart from WorkableEconomics.com below. Debt grows until it cannot be repaid, when the board is cleared by some form of market crash such as the 2008 financial crisis, typically widening the wealth gap on the way down.

Today the remedy for an unsustainable debt buildup is called a “reset.” Far short of a Jubilee, such resets are necessary every few decades. Acceptance of a currency is based on trust, and a “currency reset” changes the backing of the currency to restore that trust when it has failed. In the 20th century, major currency resets occurred in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was instituted following a major banking crisis; in 1933 following another catastrophic banking crisis, when the dollar was taken off the gold standard domestically and deposits were federally insured; in 1944, at the Bretton Woods Conference concluding World War II, when the US dollar backed by gold was made the reserve currency for global trade; and in 1974, when the US finalized a deal with the OPEC countries to sell their oil only in US dollars, effectively “backing” the dollar with oil after Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard internationally in 1971. Central bank manipulations are also a form of reset, intended to restore faith in the currency or the banks; e.g., when Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker raised the interest rate on fed funds to 20% in 1980, and when the Fed bailed out Wall Street banks following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09 with quantitative easing.

But quantitative easing did not fix the debt buildup, which today has again reached unsustainable levels. According to Truth in Accounting, as of March 2022 the US federal government has a cumulative debt burden of $133.38 trillion, including unfunded Social Security and Medicare promises; and some countries are in even worse shape. Former investment banker Leslie Manookian stated in grand jury testimony that European countries have 44 trillion euros in unfunded pensions, and there is no source of funds to meet these obligations. There is virtually no European bond market, due to negative interest rates. The only alternative is to default. The concern is that when people realize that the social security and pension systems they have paid into for their entire working lives are bankrupt, they will take to the streets and chaos will reign.

Hence the need for another reset. Private creditors, however, want a reset that leaves them in control. Today a new sort of reset is setting off alarm bells, one that goes far beyond restoring the stability of the currency. The “Great Reset” being driven forward by the World Economic Forum would lock the world into a form of technocratic feudalism.

Now for the Idiot of the Week and we're going with the last three weeks.

It's Jimmy Dore.

I love Jimmy Dore. He's hilarious and he's usually spot on politically.

I used to use every post here to promote him.

I stopped doing that.

Because of his stupidity.

I'm not C.I. She's much more fair than I am.

We both dumped Jimmy from our sites over Scott Ritter. That would be Jimmy's show posted on April 12th.

C.I. -- who actually was assaulted (and kidnapped) by a predator when she was in grade school would have every right in the world for saying, ""F**k you, Jimmy Dore for bringing Scott Ritter on your show." Her position is have on whomever you want but be honest.

That's not my position. She's firmly committed to free speech.

My position? You don't bring on a sexual predator. You want me to watch your show, you don't bring on a convicted sex offender, a sex offender who was in prison for it while Barack Obama was president, a sex offender who is now a registered sex offender.

I have a mother, I have four sisters, I have plenty of women who are friends, Elaine and I have a daughter, I am not going to ever allow my website to be used to promote a predator.

If you're a Jimmy Dore fan, here's some details Jimmy REFUSED to tell you about when he brought Scotty Sociopath Ritter onto his program:

Ritter was the subject in two law enforcement sting operations in 2001.^[30] He was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl.^[31]^[32] He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child". The charge was dismissed and the record was sealed after he completed six months of probation.^[32]^[3] After this information was made public in early 2003, Ritter said that the timing of the leak was politically motivated in order to silence his opposition to the Bush administration's push toward war with Iraq.^[31]^[32]^[33]

Ritter was arrested again in November 2009^[34] over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer repeatedly identified himself as a 15-year-old girl.^[16] Ritter said in his own testimony during the trial that he believed the other party was an adult acting out her fantasy.^[2] The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on a $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included "unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation".^[35] Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a courtroom in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2011.^[16]^[36] In October 2011, he received a sentence of 1½ to 5½ years in prison.^[37] He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.^[1]

That's WIKIPEDIA. Check local reports on the trial itself and you'll learn -- no surprise when it comes to pedophiles -- that therapy between the second and the third arrests did not work and the opinion of the court expert was that it would not work.

He is a registered sex offender.

Jimmy brought him on his show. He identified Scott Ritter . . . for his previous UN work, as an author of multiple books and? That's it. And he chatted with him and cozied with him and he did everything but grab Scott's dick and jerk him off.

Jimmy gave Scott Ritter the Jimmy Dore stamp of approval.

It was more important for him to promote a convicted sex offender than it was to him to be loyal to the women and girls in his audience.

He chose a predator over the females in his audience.

Now C.I.'s approach? Bring on whomever you want but be honest. So her whole point as Jimmy, idiot predator in waiting Jackson Hinkle, Richard Medhurst, CONVO COUCH and others promoted Scott Ritter, was bring him on if that's what you do but tell your audience who he is.

That's more than fair.

And, again, unlike Jimmy Dore or little Jackie Hinkle, C.I. knows what this is about, first hand. She was sexually assaulted as a child by a Scott Ritter type.

She didn't play that up, she didn't use it to make a point. Her stance was not ban all predators. Her stance, because she so strongly believes in free speech, is bring on who you want but tell your audience the truth about your guest

That's not me. My attidue i, don't bring on convicted predators. You know he's a danger and you're bringing him on.

I won't be fair about it.

And Jimmy Dore was a F**KING IDIOT.

The predator was more important to him than his audience.

He picked the predator over his own fans.

And now he suffers as a result.

This is a serious mark on him.

He's a truth teller, that's what he's known for. But he REFUSED to tell the truth with regards to Scotr Ritter.

I've seen this movie before. I saw it with Amy Goodman. Once upon a time, she had respect and real fans. She betrayed them. Each time she did, she lost more supporters.

Her image is mud today except among kooks who are out of touch.

That's what is in store for Jimmy.

He LIED to his supporters. He LIED about who Scott Ritter is.

You don't betray your audience. They will catch on. And without them, you have nothing.

He is an IDIOT because of what he pulled. It was wrong and it was dishonest.

And it gives Sam Sedar and Cenk and everyone else ammo against him, ammo to use against him, "He's the guy who promotes convicted sex offenders!"

I hope that lying about who Scott Ritter is was worth it for him.

Because this will never go away. I saw it with Goodman, I've seen it with others. When you betray your audience, that's the beginning of the end.

Jimmy is too stubborn to apologize for what he did or to note that it was a mistake. But he'd be ridiculing Sam Sedar for show after show right now if Sam did the same thing.

He's betrayed his audience and he's given his enemies the tool to dismantle him.

He is an idiot.

I was a huge fan. I have no streamed him since the April 12th show and wouldn't unless he publicly admitted it was a mistake (Ritter). He never will. So he's lost me. And the next ego step he makes? That's when the ones still watching say, "Wait, first it was Ritter and now it's . . ."

He's destroying his own fan base.

It's sad. Fortunately, I won' thave to watch it.

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

Friday, May 6, 2022. Another severe sandstorm hits Iraq as it still struggles with the political stalemate, Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Barack ask serious questions about intent and purpose in their latest commentaries, and much more.

Let's open with this from Margaret Kimberley's latest at BLACK AGENDA REPORT:

On April 4, 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most significant speeches of his career. In “Beyond Vietnam - Time to Break Silence ” King declared his unequivocal opposition to the war in Vietnam. His very public break with Lyndon Johnson was greeted with derision, including from his own allies, who believed that the president was an ally who should not be attacked. The NAACP board passed a resolution calling King’s statement a “serious tactical mistake” that would neither “serve the cause of civil rights nor of peace.” The media joined in the condemnation, with the New York Times characterizing his comments as “facile” and “slander.” Even Black newspapers such as The Pittsburgh Courier judged his remarks to be “tragically misleading.”

It is important to remember this speech in which he declared that the United States was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” There are individuals and organizations who routinely claim King’s mantle until they fall prey to the war propaganda promoted by the present day purveyors of violence.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber is sadly one such person. In an April 30, 2022 email on the subject Moral Clarity About Our Own Atrocities he made many specious arguments on the issue of war as it pertains to U.S. policy in Ukraine.

“To see the butchery at Bucha or the massacre at Mariupol and do nothing would be to forfeit any claim to moral authority. We know this instinctively. It is why, despite the political gridlock on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have acted swiftly to approve historic military aid to Ukraine. In the face of such a moral imperative, it would be anathema for either party to ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”

There is no independent investigation of what the Biden administration and corporate media label as “massacres.” No one who claims to act in the interests of humanity should praise the historic levels of military aid to Ukraine, an oligarchic kleptocracy under U.S. control which depends upon military and police support from openly neo-Nazi formations. So blatant are the connections that in past years members of congress have moved to ensure that these groups are denied U.S. aid .

Furthermore, Rev. Barber ought to know that questions of funding for domestic needs must always be raised. Joe Biden is requesting $33 billion in aid to Ukraine, which means money for the military industrial complex, after ending stimulus payments and other support for struggling people in this country. Barber opens his email with the story of a woman who lost children in her care to a child welfare agency after the termination of the child tax credit program plunged her into poverty. It is disturbing to see Barber’s attempt to have it both ways, demanding help for the poor while also supporting the system that keeps them in their condition.

The child tax credit which kept families afloat disappeared, along with enhanced unemployment benefits, anti-eviction protection, and free covid related treatments to the uninsured. The much vaunted Build Back Better bill is dead and Biden seems uninterested in resurrecting it. It is reasonable to ask the Biden administration for a monetary accounting and for an explanation of how their actions led to a humanitarian disaster for the Ukrainian people, mass theft from Americans’ public resources, and a risk of hot war with the Russian Federation.

Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are preparing for a Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls taking place on June 18, 2022. His ill conceived email was meant to bring attention to this event but instead he brought attention to the deep connections that liberal politics has with right wing forces.

Another severe sandstorm has hit Iraq.

There have already been two severe sandstorms in Iraq in the last five weeks -- see "AFP needs to learn to count -- over 429 is not 'dozens'" and "Iraq snapshot." Their frequency is on the rise and this is not by chance but an effect of climate change. Sandstorms "increased from 243 to 272 days per year over the past two decades, and is expected to reach 300 dusty days annually in 2050." Louise Franco (NATURE WORLD NEWS) notes:

Although sand storms are common in Iraq, they have become more frequent over the years due to various weather and climatic factors, such as declining rainfall, desertification, and drought, according to Amer al-Jabri, director of Iraq's meteorological office, as cited by France 24 news.

And PHYS.ORG adds, "In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20 percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change."

BBC notes:

One person has died and more than 5,000 people have been admitted to hospitals with breathing problems in Iraq after a seventh severe dust storm in a month.

A health ministry spokesman said 2,000 of the cases of "suffocation" had been reported in Baghdad province, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.

He advised people with asthma and other chronic diseases to stay indoors.

AFP observes, "Residents of six of Iraq's 18 provinces, including Baghdad and the vast western region of Al-Anbar, awoke once again to a thick cloud of dust blanketing the sky. As the storm swept across Iraq, it shrouded the capital Baghdad and the holy city of Najaf in ghostly orange clouds of choking dust." Click here for a photo essay. Australia's ABC adds, "State media reported Thursday's sandstorm was the seventh to hit the country in the past month." Isabella Kwai files a report for THE NEW YORK TIMES which includes:

Although it is difficult to directly link individual weather events with climate change, experts say it is one driver behind sandstorms that are growing in frequency and intensifying. And climate change will likely compound the challenges ahead for a country like Iraq, which is already facing water shortages after low rainfalls and increasing temperature.

Twenty years ago, Iraq could expect about two sandstorms each year, said Professor Jaafar Jotheri, a geoarcheologist at the University of Al-Qadisiyah. This year, it is expected that about 20 sandstorms will hit Iraq, he said.

Visibility was so poor during a sandstorm this week that flights from the Baghdad and Najaf airports had to be grounded, according to the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority.

“It is a disaster,” Professor Jotheri said, adding that sandstorms were becoming a regular feature of TV weather forecasts in Iraq. The increase in sandstorms could cause respiratory problems, road accidents and changes to the economy — pushing people to consider migrating away from the country’s drier west, he said. “The sandstorms are changing the Iraqi way of life.”

Mary Gilbert (ACCUWEATHER) explains:

In April, environment ministry official Issa al-Fayad warned Iraq could face "272 days of dust" per year in the coming decades, according to INA, the Iraqi state news agency.

This projected increase in the overall number of dusty days is due to Iraq and much of the surrounding areas becoming hotter and drier over time due to climate change. A lack of rainfall has led to a lack of moisture in the area soils and sands for Iraq.

And PRESS TV points out, "The World Bank has already warned that Iraq - a country of 41 million people - could suffer a 20 percent drop in water resources by 2050. "

Iraq is no different from most countries in the world when it comes to not dealing seriously with climate change. Around the world, citizens lives are devalued and the earth destroyed by faux actions and outright ignorance on the part of their so-called representatives.

In Iraq, a country still at war and still occupied by the US, it may be a little worse because (a) they are predicted to be one of the fie most harmed countries in the world by climate change over the coming decades and (b) they really don't have a government.

October 10th. That's when the country held elections. Since then, the only high level position filled was Speaker of Parliament with the same person who held the office before the election). They have yet to name a president or a prime minister-designate.

In four days, it will be seven months since the election. As we speak to students, they ask how does this not get huge coverage?

The answer can be found in 2010. The western press bent over backwards to ignore what was taking place. In the US that was to protect the administration. A cable news friend explained at the time that they couldn't cover it too prominently because it would look like they were attacking Barack Obama, the sitting president.

In march 2010, Iraqis had voted. The western press had whored for Nouri al-Maliki who was the incumbent seeking a second term. They did that despire the fact that it was already known he was running secret prisons and torture chambers and despite the fact that it was clear the CIA's projection that Nouri's paranoia would make him easy to control was not the case.

That political stalemate lasted eight months with Nouri refusing to tep down and Barack -- on the advice of Samantha Power and Susan Rice -- deciding that demoncracy sidn't matter, toss out the Iraqi votes and give Nouri a second term. He lost the election. But the US government crafted a contract, The Erbil Agreement, that they got various political parties and blocs to sign off on which gave Nouri a second term. The day after that contract was signed, Parliament held a session and named a president who immediately named a prime minister-designate (which was Nouri).

Now when THE GUARDIAN did an editorial calling out the comments by Barack about what a success the election was, a cable network finally felt that they could seriously cover what was gongon.

That's who a 'free' press works in the US.

As bad as the coverage in the US was prior to THE GUARDIAN editorial, it did get a tiny bit of attention. Thats really not the case with this stalemate which, again, hits seven months in four days.

The Iraqi people are suffering and there is no government assembled all this time later. That's a detail that the western press is normalizing -- again normalizing.

Harry Istepanian Tweets:

#Iraq - The local media reports: the name of Abdul Latif Rashid, the former Minister of Water Resources is emerging as compromise candidate for Iraq presidency.

10:57 AM · May 3, 2022

Another topic the western press loves to ignore is the way Turkey is committing Acts of War in northern Iraq as they continue to bomb the Kurdistan, continue to maintain ground troops and bases in the Kurdistan and continue to violate Iraq's national sovereignty. PERSECUTION.ORG notes:

As a result of the Turkish offensive and conflict with the PKK, at least eight predominantly Christian villages in the Amedi region of Duhok province have been completely abandoned. Turkey announced its latest air and ground offensive, Operation Claw Lock on April 18, which follows twin offensives in 2021 and 2022.

Though the PKK is also dubbed a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, Turkey’s indiscriminate bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan has led to the displacement of residents of many Christian villages. As reported by Rudaw, more than 500 villages have been emptied in the Kurdistan Region in the past three decades of Turkey-PKK fighting.

Simultaneously, the Iraqi army is combatting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliates, resulting in the displacement of over three thousand residents as of earlier this week from Sinjar. The majority of the displaced fled to Duhok. The army later declared control of a Sinjar village that had been controlled by armed groups post-Islamic State.

We'll wind down with this from Ajamu Baraka's latest column (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):

Rev. William Barber, an indisputable champion of the poor and a consistent voice demanding an end to poverty, may have made a serious moral and ethical error that effectively placed him outside of the “Kingian” framework that informed Dr. King’s work especially during the last year of his life.

In an attempt to make a point about the flawed priorities of the duopoly, Dr. Barber wrote in an email to the “movement family” on Saturday, April 30, 2022 that, “despite the political gridlock on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have acted swiftly to approve historic military aid to Ukraine. In the face of such a moral imperative, it would be anathema for either party to ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”

He then went on to suggest that the “moral clarity” that informed the decision to provide military support to Ukraine was contradicted by the lack of moral clarity or support for addressing the pressing needs of the poor. He identified those two contradictory policy orientations – money for war but no money to pass “Build Back Better” legislation, for example, as representing the moral and ethical contradiction at the heart of U.S. politics.

I will give our dear brother the benefit of the doubt. He was making the point that the duopoly will support in a bipartisan manner those items that it deems a priority. For Rev. Barber and the Campaign, the issue of poverty and its devastating social consequences should be a priority for the U.S. state. However, in trying to make that point Rev Barber seemed to support the Biden’s administration’s war policies which as a follower of Dr. King would seem like a major contradiction. It would seem that to equate a moral imperative for providing military aid to Ukraine to wage war, no matter if it is claimed to be defensive, would be a dramatic departure from the non-violence ethos at the center of Dr. King's worldview.

Dr. King said himself that it was his silence on the war that presented a moral contradiction that could only be ultimately resolved by him speaking out in opposition to the Vietnam war . It is unimaginable that Dr. King would give his blessings to a military aid package that Rev. Barber’s language appears to do while simultaneously not demanding an end to the conflict as Rev Barber clearly failed to do in his communication to the movement family. We must now ask Rev Barber if his characterization of the military aid package as a moral imperative was just a clumsy use of words or does he actually support the ultimate expression of violence – war?

We all know the history. After the student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and all the radical Black liberation and socialist organizations had condemned the war in Vietnam, Dr. King finally broke his silence, as he framed it, and began to speak out against the war in early 1967 with the most extensive and important speech on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York. The capitalist rulers understand symbols and so on April 4, 1968, Dr. King was murdered in Memphis where he was supporting a strike of Black sanitation workers against the Memphis city government.

Rev. Barber claims that “King was gunned down for his efforts to build a Poor People’s Campaign.” There is no doubt that the poor people’s campaign was a significant factor. The rulers understood the danger of Dr. King venturing into class politics, especially with his social democratic positions becoming more evident. But what Barber glosses over is that while the poor people’s campaign was seen as a threat, it was King’s break with the democratic party establishment, and at that time the majority position of the U.S. public who supported the war effort, that made Dr. King the most hated man in the country.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Experts" went up last night and his "21 DUMPSTER" the night before. He's planning on posting one tonight and one Saturday as well. The following sites updated:

Thursday, May 05, 2022

THE GOLDBERGS

Starting with Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Experts" from tonight.

ABC airs THE GOLDBERGS on Wednesday nights. Latest episode?

Bev announces she's quitting her school job -- self=created, remember, she went to the school's history to find its Quaker beginnings and basically became the school's warden. She's goin go be going to New York in the fall to be with her schmoo.

Adam only looks more pathetic, by the way. And that would be bad for next season but there was a glimmer of hope this episode and I'll get to that.

The principal wants Bev to leave. He tells Adam he has to fix it. Adam's fix results in Bev's announcement.

That's not what Adam was going for. Dave Kim, Bria and everyone is bummed. Adam ends up making a video that talks about how important Bev is to the school and she decides she will stay. She announces the new decision at an assembly. Then the principal stands up announces that he's going to leave. So Bev sands up and announces she is leaving. Then he stands up and announces she is staying. Back and forth with the kids noting that Bev is not catching on that the principal doesn't want to work with her. Finally, Bev catches on. She is upset and Adam stands up and gives a speech about the good they can do together so both the principal and Bev decide to stay.

The secondary story? Geoff's parents use him. Every Sunday, he and Eric go there for dinner and the parents then have a ton of chores they need Geoff to do, the fire alarm, change the light bulb in the freezer, tighten the arms on his glasses, etc. Erica's tired of the sameness. She notes that Geoff's sister always gets to leave with Barry while the parents push the work off on Geoff. She makes him agree to stop Sundays.

So Barry is filling in and does a Barry job. Which means everything goes wrong. The fire alarm battery is not replaced. It wakes up Geoff's dad. He goes to fix it and then, since he's up, decides to read some of his wife's Jackie Collins book. He grabs his glasses. They fall apart. He goes to get something to drink but the fridge light is out and he can't see, he tips something (the orange juice) and it spills on the floor and he slips and is injured.

When Geoff visits with Erica, he blames her for giving him the ultimatum. And she doesn't argue. But he blames his parents for their own demands. It's agree that they will visit every other Sunday.

The glimmer? Yes, the Geoff storyline was a good one. And that does bode well for next season. But the other thing was Bev's planning on remaining at the school. Which means the next season does not have to revolve around kiddie Adam in a dorm room.

It was a good episode with a lot of laughs -- special praise for Tim Meadows -- the friendship between him and Bev truly was an inspired development. The two actors really spark off each other and make a great comedy duo like Lucy and Ethel or Abbott & Costello. I can't wait to see what they get into next season. :D

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

Thursday, May 5, 2022. The preening and posturing of our Congress needs to stop and we need to stop being such huge "f**king idiots."

On Roe v Wade, a number of e-mails to the public account are coming in about how they are upset that I am not commenting on this or that.

First, I have addressed this issue with community members via HILDA'S MIX. Second, because Elaine's asking me to address it again this morning, I will. Be sure to read Jonathan Turley's take on the issue. Third, don't think that you want my commentary, don't make the mistake of thinking that. You probably wouldn't like it to begin with.

I am firmly pro-choice, full on board with privacy rights and support safe and legal abortions for any woman who needs one.

Other than that, you may not be pleased.

I actually know the law. I'm not going to pretend I don't to say something that will soothe you and make you feel better.

People can disagree on the law. I think Jonathan Turley should be sitting on the Supreme Court and yet I will even disagree with him from time to time. I think he's the finest legal mind in the country but I do not agree 100% of the time. That's because sometimes something new comes along that we have to address. There is no building solely on precedent and there may be other issues. So he may offer a learned and wise opinion on a topic but I might beg to differ. Doesn't mean he's right and I'm wrong or vice versa, just means that we are interpreting the law and there may be more than one way to come at it in some instances.

Yesterday (believe it was yesterday), White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked a question by a reporter in the press briefing. It was about how revelations from Hunter Biden's laptop make it very hard to continue the fairy tale that Joe Biden was not involved in his son's business practices. The FOX reporter was clear that she was asking about the past -- this would be when he was vice president -- time covered on e-mails found on the laptop.

What did Jen respond?

No one seems to have gotten it right. They've quoted her correctly but they don't seem to have actually listened.

That's a real problem with politics today. A lot of stupidity.

Donald Trump says X and we're supposed to be outraged because, if you look into the original Psaki is being asked about an issue regarding Joe's vice presidency and is responding about President Joe Biden. It's a doge and even FOX NEWS didn't seem to note that reality.

For years, professional dram a queen Matthew Rothschild told you at THE PROGRESSIVE -- and on THE PROGRESSIVE RADIO HOUR -- that Bully Boy Bush was going to lock away al dissidents, that this or that national alert or FEMA measure was about that. He wasted a great deal of time. If only he had poured that energy into Iraq. Was he really worried about US government abuse because, if he was, strange, just like NEW YORKER whore Jane Meyer, he gave up the topic the minute Barack Obama was elected president.

To point a finger at myself, Rahm Emanuel, who I've known for years through his brother, told me I was a "f**king idiot" and he was right. We'll come back to that.

But we do tend to write a lot of things to fit however we want to see things.

I'm not going to offer nonsense about this justice lied!!! No. Susan Collins is an idiot. She proved that in 2002. She's a dumb idiot who hears what she wants to hear. Excepting her support for the Iraq War, I'm really not that vested in her one way or the other. And it's not fair to pin all the blame on her. The Democrats have done a lousy job and their work has been worse than Susan's.

But, for the future, don't hear what you want to hear. Examine the response youre getting.

Roe v Wade is settled law?

Yes, it is. Up until the Court chooses to hear a case on it. At which point, it is any judge's role to figure out if there is a conflict in the law, if the law applies, if . . . So you were an idiot -- this goes to various Democrats in the Senate and not just Republican Susan Collins -- hearing what you wanted to hear.

Quit nyou're whiing.

And if you produce a tape recording where some one on the Court promised you that they would enver vote to overturn Roe, first off we'd have ethical issues regarding your own behavior.

Second off, whether you like it or not Christian beliefs have had a significant role in the history of the US and one of those beliefs is redemption. Meaning, you can change. So let's use Alito. Alito promised not to overturn Roe (he didn't, this is a hypothetical) and Chuck Schumer has a recording of that office visit and makes it public.

After the outcry against Chuck died down, the point would be that Alito made a promise before he was a sitting Justice and he can easily argue that his opinion changed as his faith was renewed, as his faith grew, as he discovered a new religion, etc, etc.

And he wouldn't even have to bring in religion (but Alito would). He could merely argue that at that date in time, he meant what he said but that his years on the Court had increased his knowledge base and his opinons had changed.

So stop whining that you were lied to. And stop insisting that you had some promise before the justice sat on the Court Again, it's the law of the land (anything) up until you're asked to rule on it and then it is your role to interpret it and analyze it.

Again, don't ask for opinions if you 're not sure you want them. I'm not going to offer easy, pleasing takes that are devoid of reality.

If we're going to talk about this, we need to talk reality.

First off, no ruling has come down yet. Drafts are circulated all the time. The Justices confer and discuss and debate and some change their minds as a result of the give-and-take.

This draft may be destined for the trash heap.

That is not offered to say, "Cease working on this issue."

That is offered to say: Work smart.

Christine Pelosi thinks she's a feminist. She's not. Nepotism is not a feminist value. She's got a ton of opinions and they're all the opinions of entitled woman who has garnered every break the rich can receive in this country. She is not a learned mind.

As Margaret Kimberely has documented on her Twitter thread, when people were rightly noting that Ruth Ginsberg should step down, Christine showed up screaming sexism and ageism.

She was a stupid bitch then and she remains one today. Shooting out of Nancy Pelosi's vagina did not make Christine an expert on anything and we really don't need her faux wisdom.

Ruth was ill and she should have retired. She gambled and WE LOST. A lot of today is on her.

But let's get to Rahm correctly calling me a "f**king idiot."

Nancy, Steny Hoyer and Rahm controlled the House back then. There was concern over the ongoing Iraq War. I was so sure that the Democrats -- who were using it as an election issue in 2006 -- would end it as they promised. Rahm told me I was an idiot and explained why. It was big talk and it was nothing but an effort to get votes. The votes that had taken place where someone made a grand stand of voting against a buget for the war? Nancy had signed off on that. She had done so only after she had secured enough votes for the itme to pass.

It was all posture and play.

Rahm was right. I was wrong. I've said here many tiems I can be the world's biggest idiot.

How does that apply to today?

Democrats had years to make this a law. They didn't. They've used abortion as a political football and attempted to use it to get out the vote.

No one should accept them at their word in an election year if they promise that, come January, they'll pass it into law if you just vote for them.

They control the House, the Senate and the White House right now. If they can't get it done now, they can't get it done.

Nancy can -- and has -- kept her party in line when it comes to the votes she wants. That can take place in the Senate and in the House. Yes, even Joe Manchin can be put into line.

If they want votes this November, they need to deliver right now.

If they're uanble to do so when they control both houses and the White House, don't believe them that they'll do it at some point in the near future.

They could have stopped the Iraq War before it started. They could have ended it after it started.

They didn't.

They ran in 2006 on the promise to end the war. But they won both houses. And suddenly the Iraq War -- that they waffled on in the 2005 election -- was something they saw as a vote getter in the upcoming 2008 election. So they didn't end it. Not when it could be used in an election.

And I'm not prepared for the same thing to happen over and over with regards to abortion.

This would be chipping away at privacy rights. But I do not buy into the claim that this would mean that we'd lose the right to interracial marriage or to same-sex marriage.

I don't believe there's enough support for that. Abortion is a different issue that has other implications. Those who are strongly against it will argue that they can't do the live-and-let-live option on this (because they believe it's murder). With regards to who marries whom, that's a different approach and America is not fond of being told what to do.

I think trying to build that argument at this time is wrong and a distraction.

I think the focus needs to be on how Congress must ask and must ack right now.

The draft might end up in the trash. That's not breathe a sigh of relief time. We need legislation that can prevent this from happening again. Our right to privacy should not be held hostage.

The legislation should have come a long time ago.

In addition, we need a Democratic Party that actually acts. Do you remember Barack's last years as president?

The Republicans refused to allow his Supreme Court pick to be confirmed. So why did Democrats allow Donald Trump's picks -- that they were all over the news objecting to -- to be confirmed?

The party wants votes, they better start fighting to win.

And votes better stop accepting 'someday' promises and demand that politicians deliver first and then they can win our votes.

Adding this from The Feminist Majority Foundation:

Dear Common Ills,

If you ever doubted that a vote for Republicans is a vote to endanger women’s lives, the leaked Supreme Court draft majority decision eliminated any doubt.

Although we await the final decision it now appears that 5 Republican-appointed Justices—three of them placed on the court by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump—may reverse Roe v. Wade triggering the criminalization or banning of abortion in some 26 states.

It’s even worse. Not only would this decision outlaw abortion in many states, the anti-choice/anti-woman right-wing axis will now move aggressively to elect a Republican majority to both the House and Senate in November. Their number one goal: a federal law to outlaw abortion in every state.

The critical time to mobilize and organize is right now – the 183 days between now and Election Day in November.

That's why I'm rushing you the Feminist Majority's action plans to make sure you're on board for the critical months ahead and why I'm asking for your support.

We're counting on you.

You see, if we don’t fight like hell to help maintain Democratic control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate everything we’ve fought for over the past 50 years could be lost—beginning with the right to safe, legal abortion. We’re focused on electing Democrats because the essence of today’s Republican party is profoundly anti-choice, anti-women and anti-democracy. This is not the time to be calm and neutral.

I'm not being alarmist when I tell you we’re in a political sprint for the survival of women’s rights and lives. Just look at what we face:

The loss of safe, legal access to abortion if Roe V. Wade is overturned and the draconian anti-abortion laws now pending in some 26 states go into effect while extremist assaults on the few remaining clinics are on the rise. Even birth control is now threatened.

Yet another hurdle for the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, 50 years after the ERA was approved by Congress (1972) and sent to the states for ratification, we now have met the two requirements for amending the Constitution—a 2/3 vote of Congress and ratification by ¾ of the states. (2020). But neither the House nor the Senate have taken final action to declare the ERA valid and ratified.

Remember: The ERA is a CONSTITUTIONAL Amendment—the only guarantee—insurance—against a denial of rights on the basis of sex.

Forget the Doomsayers

WE CAN prevail only if we organize like never before to maintain control of the House and Senate in the next 183 days.

This means defending all four toss-up Democratic seats and flipping 2 Republican seats for a solid 52-48 majority in the Senate. And holding a net of 4 House seats to maintain the Democrats’ majority.

Believe me, we can win. We’ve done it before –against equally immense odds – because when it comes to advancing women’s rights and equality it’s always been an uphill fight.

So, forget the naysaying of the cable pundits and political consultants who seem all too eager to pronounce a Democratic majority in Congress lost in the November midterms.

Here’s how we win. And why we will win.

Laser-like focus on key swing races to maintain the pro-women, pro-equality control of Congress.

That’s why we’re focusing our grassroots organizing and Get-Out-The-Vote teams on 51 college and university campuses that will determine the all-important young people’s vote. Our massive mobilization in 2018 and again in 2020 posted major wins that helped make the difference in gaining control of Congress.

That’s why we’re counting on you.

Laser-like focus on the Youth Vote. Make no mistake young women and men—those immediately affected by an abortion ban—will decide key races that are often decided by only a few percentage points and this is why we’re focused on key districts and states where young people can have a decisive impact on the outcome.

Just look at these recent and very encouraging poll numbers from the Institute of Politics at Harvard: 37% of voters ages 18-29 say they will definitely be voting in the midterms. In 2018 that number was 36% --a record-breaking level of turnout for a mid-term cycle.

Women and Young Voters give Dems a big lead in the race for Congress. That same Harvard poll found that 40% of young voters (18-29) want Democrats to hold onto control of Congress, while 28% prefer Republicans. The rest are unsure.

AND...a raft of prominent polls place the Gender Gap for the mid-terms at a WHOPPING 33%. Usually it’s between 8% and 11% so this year it’s really a “Gender Canyon” and the Feminist Majority has a 35-year history of widening and winning with the Gender Gap.

To help plan and budget for our major mid-term organizing effort I urge you to respond today to make sure you’re on board for the critical months ahead.

We’re counting on you.

Doing Your Part to Win

Together we can and will win with what is nothing less than a sprint for the survival of women’s rights and lives.

You have been with us when your support mattered. For this I’m most grateful. Today, your support means more than ever. The stakes have never been higher. May I count on you?

For Victory and Equality,

Eleanor Smeal
President

P.S. In a just-released national poll, half of women voters say that they are more likely to vote in this year's elections as a result of increased restrictions on abortion—one-third say they are "much more likely." And for young women 18-29, an even higher 56% say they are more likely to vote. Please contribute today.

Contributions to Feminist Majority are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes because of our lobbying and electoral work for women's rights. Donations may be used for political purposes. By contributing you confirm that you are a citizen or permanent legal resident of the U.S. and are donating your own funds. Feminist Majority is solely responsible for this communication. Feminist Majority does not engage in any electoral activity or make political expenditures in cooperation or coordination with any candidate or candidate committee.