Thursday, July 23, 2020

Political notes

Jimmy Dore.




Jimmy Dore's the only one who's consistent these days.  And he's not afraid to call out the failed leadership and corruption of Nancy Pelosi.


In other political news, is Kamala Harris really as nefarious as Maya Rudolph made her out to be in those SNL debate sketches?  FREE BEACON wants you to believe she is -- that she's getting the press to run negative stories on the women she's competing with to be Joe Biden's running mate.  Speaking of Biden, Hunter Biden's about to be the subject of a Senate probe.  No doubt, hearing that got him a little excited -- probe.  Remember how he gave the stripper cash to go buy a fresh dildo to use on him because he wanted to be sure it was clean before it went up his ass.

Meanwhile Amy Goodman continues her blackout on the news that Howie Hawkins is the Green Party's presidential nominee.

I think Amy's exposed herself as just another mouthpiece for the status quo.

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

 
Wednesday, July 22, 2020.  Dario Hunter wants to blame everyone else for his failed campaign and Cindy Sheehan gives him a place to throw a public temper tantrum.


Starting in the US where there's another candidate trying to win the presidency.  Dario Hunter.  The Green Party candidate?  Yes.  He lost that nomination to Howie Hawkins and now is attempting an independent run for president.  Cindy Sheehan spoke with him on her latest CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX.  He tells Cindy he's "a fighter."

He tells Cindy Sheehan, "I wanted to take that fight to the country as a whole" -- Green Party issues -- "to ensure to move that agenda, that platform forward."  Really?  He lies so very well, doesn't he?

Gate keepers are in the Green Party, he insists.  He doesn't want to tell the world that, you understand, but "It's a truth that I have to share."  He says he and other Green candidates had to claw their way to get access to the voters to . . .

Oh, shut up.

The Green Party may be all of those things.  Howie co-founded it.  He might have reaped the same backdoor benefits that Hillary Clinton did in 2016.  He might not have.

But Dario is not the one to make those charges.  Lazy Dario is not the one to make those charges.

Did the Green Party stop him from Tweeting?  Did the Green Party stop him from posting to FACEBOOK?  

He was a lazy ass candidate.

I agree with Dario on the issues probably 100%.  I was hoping he'd get the nomination.  But months ago, when Jess and Ann turned against him and decided to support Howie, it was because lazy Dario wasn't running a real campaign.  You don't control the media or what it covers.  You do control your campaign site and you do control you social media.  

We started out noting Dario here every Saturday or Sunday that we noted Howie.  Then I wasn't noting Howie.  Why?  I had nothing to note from Dario's campaign.  Was that fair to Howie -- or anyone running a real campaign -- that they didn't get noted because their opponents were too lazy to even Tweet once a week?

No.  

Dario's nonsense plays with Cindy because (a) she likes him and (b) she wasn't paying attention to his campaign -- as she notes, she's not a Green.  I'm not either but we try to note all candidates for president and have done that from the beginning.  Much to David Cobb's displeasure in 2004.  I believe he was our first e-mail complaint from a non-journalist.

I wish Dario had gotten the Green Party's presidential nomination.  I think he has a great stand on the issues.  But Dario didn't get the nomination -- apparently he's this year's Hillary Clinton in that he's just not going to go away -- and that is his fault.  He needs to own that.  

His criticism of the Green Party may be accurate, it may not.  But he needs to start taking ownership for the fact that he didn't run a real campaign.  If Dario was not happy that a co-chair of the party (I believe he means Dr. Margaret Flowers) was on Howie's campaign, guess what?  He had months to object to that.  He could have Tweeted and reTweeted that.

He would have had to have named her and he's too much of a chicken s**t to name her, but we would've noted it.

After he fails as a candidate, he refuses to look at his mistakes, he refuses to be honest.  He also refuses to discuss anti-war or peace in anything but platitudes which may have been the second most disappointing thing about the interview.  And, so no one e-mails me, I don't call US troops War Criminals.  I don't do that for Iraq, I don't do it for Vietnam.  Stephen D. Green was a War Criminal.  His actions were War Crimes.  But I do not use him to smear other troops.  I don't know why, in that interview, we're calling Howie Hawkins a War Criminal because he served in Vietnam but, to be clear, that's their interview, that's not me.

The Green Party needs to respond to Dario's charges.  Flowers -- with or without her husband Kevin Zeese -- needs to respond to this.  If they don't, these charges are going to linger all the way through November.

And people need to tell him that a Green Party convention is not "fascist."  He has no idea what fascism is when he trots out that.  

And he's got no idea of anything.  He needs to close his mouth right now and work on his campaign site.  He's too late on many ballots and he's too stupid to use his campaign site.  Click here.  It's a list of state's where he has ballot access and where he's working on it and --

Oh, no, it's not.  That was published at least three months ago (see bottom of the page).  He's supposedly campaigning as an independent and working on ballot access . . . but he hasn't even updated his campaign site.  If someone believed in him and wanted to work for ballot access, if they visited his site, they would either be misled or wasting their time.

He says he's running as an independent and he says he has left the Green Party but the bottom of this page -- his official campaign site -- says "Green for President."

I'm really disappointed in this interview.  It's one thing to allow Dario to come on and trash the Green Party -- I've got no problem with that -- but considering how lazy he was -- not to mention he hid out in California for weeks not working on his campaign -- to allow him to whine that the nomination was stolen from him, that's outrageous.  

Dario's sour grapes are his own, the rest of us don't need to share them and we don't need to pretend that he was denied anything except by himself.  I've never seen a more fake ass run for a nomination than Dario's and he needs to grow the hell up and grasp that Howie Tweeted repeatedly each day, that Howie's campaign site updated many times a week.  Dario didn't.  



That's him hurling accusations again.  They may be true, they may be false.  But the reality is that no one harmed his campaign more than he did.

And the Green Party better start responding to these charges.  If they don't, they're going to spread and they'll be believed because that's the only information that's out there.


From yesterday, here's Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins speaking on REAL PROGRESSIVES.



Joseph Kishore is the SEP's presidential candidate.  In the last 24 hours, he's Tweeted this:






And this:

Bezos makes $13bln in one day. Meanwhile the #coronavirus rages out of control.
Image
6:45 PM · Jul 21, 2020


And this:

Trump's creeping coup: White House sending federal police into major American cities. On Portland: "They grab a lot of people and jail the leaders... These people are anarchists, people that hate our country and we’re not going to let that go forward."
President Trump sending federal police agents into major American cities
Trump said on Monday said that he was extending the use of federal law enforcement officers to New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore




When Dario was seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination, those three Tweets would have been all he offered for a whole month.  Joseph Kishore's done them in one 24 hour period.  It's about being a real candidate.  Every day, you need to be offering something so that people have a reason to discuss your campaign.  



As ALJAZEERA notes above, Iraq's prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, arrived in Tehran yesterday and met with the country's president Hassan Rouhani.  The leaders share a border and many other things.  Mustafa repeated that he would not allow Iraqi soil to be used for war on Iran.  He's made that comment before.  

Iraq's airports aren't yet open for international travel but Mustafa visited Iran and his oil minister visited Saudi Arabia.  In a country already plagued with corruption and where the leaders are not trusted, how wise is it for them to be traveling when the Iraqi people cannot?  

The pandemic continues around the world and in Iraq.  MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:


Iraqi health workers are warning that patients in need of critical medical care are at risk of death as a result of increased restrictions at checkpoints at the border between Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and the rest of the country.
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, travel between much of Iraq was heavily restricted, particularly between the areas in northern Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
This has left Iraqi patients in need of life-saving treatment unable to travel to better-equipped and resourced hospitals in the KRG.

The following sites updated:















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Wednesday, July 22, 2020

The Pretenders are back

The Pretenders are one of my favorite bands.  This is from SPIN:

 “I’m having the time of my life,” Pretenders’ frontwoman Chrissie Hynde quipped when asked how she’s holding up. It’s a strange sensation releasing an album during a pandemic and not being able to tour. However, music has remained a grounding force for her and her bandmates, as evidenced by the band’s latest (and 11th overall) album Hate for Sale, which came out last week.
For Hynde, the album is a work that was years in the making and a long-overdue opportunity to finally capture the band’s live chemistry on a record. Despite technically being the first album in four years under the Pretenders banner, it’s the first to fully feature the band’s current touring lineup since 2008: Hynde, guitarist James Walbourne, bassist Nick Wilkinson, and founding drummer Martin Chambers.
“We’ve always wanted to do that, but logistically it hasn’t always come together that way,” Hynde says, noting the Rubik’s Cube of getting everyone’s schedules aligned.
She admits that someone who was better at planning might have been able to make it happen sooner. However, Hynde finds that people who “get in a rock and roll band aren’t really plan-makers, fixing-a-plan, having-a-schedule-type people.”

My favorite Pretenders album?

It's three studio albums.  PACKED, GET CLOSE and LEARNING TO CRAWL.  The last one is the classic everyone agrees on.  I love that album.  I think PACKED is hugely misunderstood and a great album.  As for GET CLOSE, it's messy and I like that about it.

I also love the live album THE ISLE OF THE VIEW.

Here's "Maybe Love Is In NYC."



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

 
Tuesday, July 21, 2020.  Iraq's about to be sold out to the IMF so why are others ignoring this news story?  Also the race for the US presidency continues.


In the US, people are gearing up for the November presidential election.



Howie Hawkins is the Green Party presidential candidate.  Angela Walker is his running mate.  Washington is only one state where the party is fighting for ballot access.  Ashley Crabtree is the assistant to VP candidate Walker and she went to Washington to help the effort to get the Greens on the state ballot.  

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, third party and independent candidates are being required to gather signatures to earn ballot access.  

Joseph Kishore is the SEP candidate for the US president and earlier this month, at WSWS, he noted of a court ruling in Michigan:

On Wednesday, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan denied the Socialist Equality Party’s challenge to the state’s 12,000 physical signature ballot access requirement during the coronavirus pandemic.
The judge, Sean F. Cox, a Republican, sided with the Democratic administration of Governor Gretchen Whitmer in ruling that the coronavirus pandemic did not seriously “burden” our constitutional rights or the rights of those Michiganders who want to vote for our campaign.
Cox issued his ruling as the deadly coronavirus pandemic is spiraling out of control. Yesterday, the official global death toll surpassed 550,000, and the number of infections increased to more than 12.3 million.
The United States is the epicenter of the virus, which is now spreading without restraint. Already, COVID-19 has claimed more than 135,000 lives in the United States. More than 61,000 people tested positive yesterday, a new record, and the daily death toll is approaching 1,000.
Hospitals in Texas, Florida and Arizona are overwhelmed, and nurses are again facing critical shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators. Cases are increasing in most states, including in Michigan, where they are at levels not seen since the end of May.
The surge in cases and deaths is the direct and predictable outcome of the criminal policies of Trump and the entire political establishment, including the Whitmer administration. Even as the pandemic exacts its horrific toll, the White House is demanding that schools reopen in the fall, threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of teachers and students, as part of the overall back-to-work campaign.
It is under these conditions that Judge Cox declared his full support for the argument of the state of Michigan that SEP should have been gathering signatures and that it still should be doing so.
Cox’s decision is not a serious legal ruling grounded in jurisprudence or reasoned analysis. It is a political decision aimed at barring socialists from the ballot, with the legal rationalization serving to justify a conclusion determined in advance.
Cox asserts that it is not the coronavirus pandemic or the governor’s stay-at-home orders that have prevented signature gathering, but the candidates’ own lack of “diligence.”
In fact, it is the “diligence” of the SEP that required that it not attempt to gather signatures. If we did make this attempt, we would have been violating our own political principles and our warnings of the dangerous consequences of the reckless policies of the ruling class—warnings that have now been completely confirmed.

Joseph spoke with Julianna Forlano last week about his presidential run.



Joseph is also fighting for ballot access in California. Alan Gilman (WSWS) reports:

On Wednesday. the Socialist Equality Party’s candidates for United States president and vice-president, Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz, filed a set of legal documents responding comprehensively to the arguments made by California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Alex Padilla.
The SEP’s lawsuit was filed on June 30 in federal court in California against Newsom and Padilla, challenging the state’s continued enforcement of a requirement that candidates gather 200,000 physical signatures between April and August in order to gain access to the November statewide ballot.
The lawsuit argues that this requirement is “effectively impossible” to meet “in light of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s countermeasures to it.”
The SEP candidates, who are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, argue that had their supporters attempted to publicly petition to obtain signatures for ballot access, they would have severely jeopardized not only their own health and lives, but those of the public as well.
The SEP candidates are arguing that since California refuses to provide any practical way for them to participate in the elections, in violation of their democratic and constitutional rights, the judge should order their names placed directly onto the November ballot.
On July 12, the California attorney general’s office, which represents Newsom and Padilla, filed its opposition to the SEP candidates’ request.
In their opposition papers Newsom and Padilla, who are the defendants in the lawsuit, acknowledged these signature requirements and declared their intention to enforce them. They further asserted that if the SEP candidates prevailed in their lawsuit, the result would be “an unmanageable and overcrowded ballot for the November presidential general election” and would cause “frustration of the democratic process,” “voter confusion” and “irreparable harm” to “the public interest.”
Newsom and Padilla argued that the SEP candidates “could have begun signature gathering no later than May 1, 2020;” that the SEP candidates had “14 weeks out of the 15-week period to collect signatures in person;” and that they could have deployed “66 signature gatherers, working five days a week for 15 weeks, to obtain the requisite number of signatures.”
In their July 15 reply brief, the SEP’s candidates refuted the arguments of the state officials point by point.
In response to the state’s argument that their request for ballot access would cause “frustration of the democratic process,” the SEP candidates pointed out that it was California state officials “who are frustrating the democratic process—by insisting on the enforcement of ballot access requirements that are effectively impossible for Plaintiffs to comply with without endangering the safety and lives of their supporters and the public at large.”
Replying to arguments that gathering the signatures is not “impossible,” the candidates explained that under California law, the circulators of the nomination papers are required to swear under oath that they personally physically witnessed the signature of each and every one of the registered voters required to sign the petition, who are called “nominators.”
“This necessarily means the circulators must be in close physical proximity to each and every one of the nominators in order to observe them signing and certify under oath that they have done so.”
“The cold fact,” the SEP candidates stated, is that “circulators would have to physically approach a multiple of 200,000 individuals to obtain the sufficient number of signatures. On top of that, there is a vastly reduced pool of potential signers under present conditions, given that large numbers of people rightly fear contracting COVID-19 from contact with others.”
These conditions do render it “effectively impossible” to comply with the state’s signature requirements, they argued.
“This state of affairs,” they continued, “cannot pass constitutional muster, especially given that a presidential election is at stake.” Citing legal precedents, the SEP candidates explained that federal district judge Dolly M. Gee would be well within her power to order the candidates directly onto the ballot, and that she must do so if “core democratic and constitutional rights are to be given any substantial effect.”
Other candidates include Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen and rapper, designer and influencer Kanye West who is making an independent run.  Marni Pyke (CHICAGO DAILY HERALD) reports on the race for the presidency and notes:

Third-party candidates filing for president Monday with the Illinois State Board of Elections included a Lake County native and a rap star.
Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, who grew up in Grayslake, is running for president along with vice presidential running mate Spike Cohen.
Also seeking election is rapper Kanye West, who has deep Chicago roots. West's staff filed at 4:56 p.m., just before the deadline, and offered 412 pages of petitions. He has no running mate.
"Government's too big, too noisy, too intrusive. It hurts those it tries to help," Jorgensen told the Daily Herald recently when describing why she wants to be president. She lives in South Carolina.

Rapper Kanye West was among those submitting petitions for the fall ballot Illinois on the final day for independent and third party candidates to file.   
West said he is running for president. But he has missed the deadline to file in several states. While he was on time in Illinois, filing does not guarantee a spot on the ballot.  Pettitions can be challenged for the number of signatures and their vailidity.  West did not have a vice presidential candidate file with him.  
Another well known name among those filing is imprisoned political activist Leonard Peltier.  He is a vice-presidential candidate on a third party ticket. Peltier is serving a life sentence for the killings of two FBI agents on an Indian reservation in 1975.
The Illinois Libertarian Party and other third parties are fielding more candidates in legislative races this year.
A judge eased signature requirements for third parties this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.   That made it much easier for the Libertarian candidates running for the legislature to get on the ballot. Steve Suess, the party's state chairman, said that should send a message to the two major parties.
“That given a level playing field with Democrats and Republicans, Libertarians will run for office," he said.
"And in November we’ll prove that Libertarians can be competitive in these state wide elections and can win if given those same opportunities that the two parties possess.”  

Leonard Peltier is Gloria La Riva's running mate.  They are running on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket.   Kyle Jaeger (MARIJUANA MOVEMENT) offers:

The presidential nominees for the Libertarian and Green Parties both support bolder drug policy proposals, including marijuana legalization, than presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden or President Trump.
Libertarian pick Jo Jorgensen and Green nominee Howie Hawkins recently discussed their views on the issue and backed legalizing cannabis for adult use and more broadly ending the criminalization of other currently illicit substances.
“The biggest problem we have right now is not the drugs, it’s the drug prohibition,” Jorgensen said during an interview with C-SPAN this month. “Now, do drugs and alcohol cause problems? Of course they do. However, they’d be much more manageable if it were legal.”

In the article, Howie is quoted stating:

We've got to treat drug abuse as a health problem. You should legalize marijuana and decriminalize the hard drugs like Portugal.  Instead of just throwing people in prison and building the biggest prison industrial system in the world -- which Joe Biden had a lot to do [with], he wrote the legislative architecture for that as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- we should be treating drug addiction as a health problem, not a criminal problem.

DISSIDENT VOICE has an article by Kevin Zeese and his wife Dr. Margaret Flowers that we're going to note but before we do -- when DISSIDENT VOICE or any other outlet runs an article by Kevin, they are required to note that Kevin is the press secretary for Howie's campaign.  I'm not finding that notification at the top of the article or tacked on at the end and, skimming, I don't see it anywhere in the body of text.  That doesn't need to be buried, it needs to be stated clearly.

There's nothing wrong with being the press secretary.  When Bernie was a candidate, for example, we noted David Sirota frequently and the articles we linked to noted he was a speechwriter for Bernie.  It's a disclosure that has to be made.  Norman Solomon remains a joke.  In 2008, he would go on any radio outlet that would have him and pretend he was just a left observer and, as a non-vested party in the process, he was pretty impressed with this guy Barack Obama.  Lie.  Norman knew he was lying.  At the same time, in his syndicated column, he noted he was a pledged delegate for Barack.  He didn't want to lose the money from his syndicated column.  He didn't think anyone would call him on his radio appearances -- and certainly KPFA let him slide -- Aimee Allison, I'm looking at you and that's one of the reasons we were thrilled when you were pushed out at KFPA, we the listeners.

Kevin doesn't need to turn into another Norman Solomon.  He needs to be sure that any outlet publishing his articles discloses that he's the press secretary for Howie.  And he can't talk about transparency if he's not offering that disclosure upfront.  DISSIDENT VOICE does offer the disclosure -- at the end of the piece -- that Margaret is co-chair of the US Green Party.  From the article:

While the climate justice movement has been winning important victories, stopping and slowing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, and putting the future of fossil fuels in doubt, the political system, long connected to the fossil fuel industry, is still fighting the urgently needed transition to clean sustainable energy. Both President Trump and former Vice President Biden put forward energy plans that do not challenge fossil fuels.  The only candidate with a serious climate plan is Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins.
The movement needs to build momentum from these successes for more actions to stop fossil fuel infrastructure. As the reality of the climate crisis hits more people, fossil fuels will become high-risk investments while the cost of solar, wind, thermal, and ocean energy is declining.
The fossil fuel industry is being propped up by massive subsidies without which its extinction would be faster. A 2019 IMF report found that $5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017, the equivalent of over 6.5% of global GDP. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found “the $649 billion the US spent on these subsidies in 2015 is more than the country’s defense budget and 10 times the federal spending for education.”
In the era of the climate crisis, COVID-19, and recession, these subsidies are not justifiable. Christine Lagarde of the IMF has called for removing fossil fuel subsidies, noting the investments made into fossil fuels could be better spent elsewhere. She notes: “There would be more public spending available to build hospitals, to build roads, to build schools and to support education and health for the people.”
The era of fossil fuel domination is coming to an end. It is up to people to organize to hasten the transition to a clean, sustainable energy economy. The deeply embedded fossil fuel industry can be defeated. The people have shown they can make it impossible to build fossil fuel infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Jef Rouner wants you to know that "voting third party doesn't help anyone."  Hmm.  Independent runs don't matter?  Then maybe independent papers don't matter either, eh, Jef?  In which case, we shouldn't read you because you're column is published by the HOUSTON PRESS.  You're published by a paper . . . that's no longer in print.  By a free weekly that ceased print publication three years ago.  It's just a website now.  And you want to argue that third party -- independent -- runs don't matter?  Seems to me that your own logic would then dictate that the independent press doesn't matter either so why don't you ponder that -- and try to figure out who stole the second "F" of your first name?

I took Patti Smith to task.  Not for voting for Ralph Nader in 2004.  That was a brave thing to do.  But when she gave an interview dismissing independent candidates.  As I said then, if we dismiss independents, then we dismiss Patti because one song written with Bruce Springsteen does not a legend make.  Patti was a queen of the independent music scene and that's the only reason she's known today.  Music, politics, film, the independent scene drives where the mainstream eventually goes.  


In an attempt to remove Iraq from the conflict between Iran and its regional and international rivals, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has planned and is taking his first trip as a package to three countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States. This way, he wants to send a message to all rival powers that Iraq's sovereignty should be respected and regional and international powers should not bring their conflicts into Iraq.
Iraq has been a center field for conflict since 2003 between different regional and international powers, and it has turned into a direct battleground between the United States and Iran after the assassination of Iran's top Quds Force commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, earlier this year, followed by Iran's bombing of US forces at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq's Anbar province.
The selection of Kadhimi was actually a settlement choice between Iraqi political parties to reduce the tension and find a solution to the regional and international conflicts on Iraq's territory.
Kadhimi has already initiated a strategic dialogue with the United States. The first session took place in June, and the second session will be held in Washington during Kadhimi's visit there. He is also planning to settle on arrangements with Iran and Saudi Arabia to end the use of any Iraqi space for conflict; instead, he'll seek to change the role of Iraq from battleground to a place of investment and a bridge to peace and cooperation.
The first station on Kadhimi's series of trips began in Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi ministerial delegation arrived in Riyadh July 19, headed by Finance Minister Ali Allawi.

Minister of Finance?  Is that what Ali Allawi is?  What he is -- that's human filth.  Ahmed Chalbi's nephew is a piece of trash and shame on AL-MONITOR for not noting Ali is running to the financial press to talk about imposing austerity measures on Iraq -- in the midst of pandemic no less.  See THIRD's "Editorial: The Iraqi people are about to get screwed over yet again" that we posted early this morning.  He's also the Minister of Oil and the Deputy Prime Minister.  

It's a shame AL-MONITOR isn't interested in informing Iraqis that Ali is running to THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON to brag about how he's going to impose austerity measures on Iraq. 


We'll wind down with this video about Iraq's water crisis.













New content at THIRD:



Kat's "Kat's Korner: Ellie Goulding and Lady Gaga -- one ..." went up Sunday.  The following sites updated:







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