Saturday, May 14, 2022

Idiot of the Week

Here's Graham Elwood and Lee Camp.



Now this is from Kit Klarenberg (MPN):


On April 4, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit brought against Facebook over its data-sharing practices following the eruption of the Cambridge Analytica scandal filed a fresh motion, charging that the social media giant deliberately obstructed discovery of information revealing the scale of its malfeasance.

It’s the latest development in a wide-ranging controversy that began in the first months of 2017 and shows little sign of abating. In brief, Cambridge Analytica exploited a Facebook loophole to harvest the personal data of up to 50 million Americans, in order to manipulate voters on behalf of a number of right-wing candidates — potentially including Donald Trump — and political campaigns in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Since then, the company and its parent, SCL Group, have folded, with official investigations into their activities conducted in several countries, while Facebook has been fined a record $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission for egregious breaches of user confidentiality. The entire dispute raised serious public concerns about online privacy and the malign influence of behavioral advertising and microtargeting, which endure to this day.

In September 2020, Cambridge Analytica’s former CEO, Alexander Nix, was disqualified from serving as a U.K. company director for seven years for offering unethical services, including “bribery or honey-trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns.”

By contrast, one senior SCL staffer seemingly pivotal to many of those unethical practices – although they deny it — has been unaffected by the scandal’s fallout. In fact, they have profited and prospered immensely in its wake.

One week prior to Cambridge Analytica’s closure on May 1, 2018, Gaby van den Berg – who, among other things, created SCL’s patented, DARPA-approved “Behavioral Dynamics Methodology,” which analyzes and profiles particular target audiences in order to identify optimal strategies for influencing their perceptions and actions — founded a new company in London, Emic Consulting. Ever since, she has taught Cambridge Analytica-style information warfare techniques to militaries the world over.


Okay, TV.  PIVOTING has been cancelled.  I feel a little bad but I could feel a lot of bad.  PIVOTING was a comedy on FOX.  Among the stars were Maggie Q of NIKITA fame.  I watched DESIGNATED SURVIVOR and a CBS show because of her.  I watched PIVOTING because of her.


I never wrote about it here so maybe I'm part of the reason it was cancelled?


I never wrote about it here so maybe I'm part of the reason all the episodes of season one aired?


Because it was awful.  Maggie was great but the scripts weren't funny and the show really needed a live audience.  It was so flat -- the way so many of these single-camera comedies are.  If I laughed once a half hour that would have been something.


The tone was off, the jokes weren't funny.  It wasn't a good show.  Not at all.  


I'll watch Maggie Q's next show.  I'm a big fan.  I loved the movie she did with Michael Keaton (THE PROTEGE), for example.  But PIVOTING was the wrong show at the wrong time.  At a time when so many are out of work, for example, don't have Maggie's trained doctor quit her job to work at a grocery store.  It wasn't whimsy, it wasn't irony and it wasn't funny.  Nor was the finale that found her sleeping with the husband of her now-dead best friend.


And now it's time to pick Idiot of the Week.


I'm going with .  . . Democrats in the US Senate.


They did no work at all.  They called a vote to posture and preen as supporters of Roe V Wade but they did nothing to work the vote.  It should have passed.  There are 48 Democrats in the Senate and there are 2 independents who vote with the Democrats.  There are 50 Republicans and that includes pro-choice Susan Collins.  they needed 51 votes to codify Roe (to make it the law).  They couldn't get 51 votes?  How pathetic.


More pathetic?  Some people believe that they tried.  


They didn't try.  And they're fooling some people but I think even the fools are going to catch on because they're foolish, not stupid.


So Dems in the Senate staged a fake vote to pretend to care and it will hopefully backfire on them because they are the Idiots of the Week. 

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


Friday, May 13, 2022.   The confused Joe Biden furthers the ball of confusion, workers aren't protected, he's attacking Medicare, doing nothing to protect ROE V WADE . . .



Back in 1963, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland wrote "Can I Get A Witness?"  These days, however, with  out of control inflation, endless wars and so much more, the trio would need to write something like "Can i Get A Leader."


Evan Blake (WSWS) observes:


On Thursday, US President Joe Biden finally acknowledged that over 1 million Americans have now died from COVID-19. He did so by issuing a perfunctory written statement and a pre-recorded video, both of which were characterized above all by their cynicism and indifference to the lives of those lost and their loved ones still mourning.

Various COVID-19 trackers rely on different data sets, and the Biden administration artificially delayed official recognition of this horrific milestone, choosing to use the Reuters tracker. The 1 million death milestone was first reached by Worldometer nearly two months ago on March 22, which only the World Socialist Web Site commented on at the time. This was followed by the NBC and News Nodes trackers last week, which led to a handful of additional comments in the corporate media but continued silence from the White House.

Estimates of excess deaths, rarely referred to by politicians and the media, found that by mid-December over 1 million Americans had died directly or indirectly due to the pandemic. Today, excess death estimates place the real US death toll at above 1.2 million, while over 20 million people have likely perished worldwide due to the pandemic.

Biden’s written statement comes out to just 213 words and has the character of being drafted by a low-level staffer. After repeating the hackneyed military phrase from his State of the Union speech, “One million empty chairs around the dinner table,” it states, “I also know the ones you love are never truly gone. They will always be with you.”

No, in fact, all of those killed by COVID-19 are gone forever. Their lives were needlessly cut short due to the policies implemented by the entire American political establishment. The majority of the 1 million deaths in the US have taken place under the Biden administration which has pursued a vaccine-only approach and adamantly refused to close schools and nonessential workplaces as part of a broader strategy to eliminate the virus.

The most absurd portion of Biden’s statement reads, “As a nation, we must not grow numb to such sorrow. To heal, we must remember. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible, as we have with more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before. It’s critical that Congress sustain these resources in the coming months.”

What incredible hypocrisy!

As soon as the Omicron BA.1 subvariant began ripping through the US last December, the Biden administration spearheaded a bipartisan, media-backed campaign to “numb” the population to mass infections and deaths, lift all mitigation measures, and do everything possible to falsely portray the pandemic as over.

This reached a crescendo at the April 30 White House Correspondents’ Association propaganda dinner, at which Biden declared, “We’re here to show the country that we’re getting through this pandemic.” Over the past two weeks, the politicians and reporters present at the dinner have deliberately concealed dozens and possibly hundreds of infections that took place at the super-spreader event.

Biden’s claim that the US has “more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before” is a bald-faced lie. Federal pandemic funding dried up in March, and over 30 million uninsured Americans can no longer access free testing or treatment.


But he's sending more money to Ukraine.  In fact, he's sending $40 billion more.  Americans are suffering but Joe has decided it's the best thing to instead support a reacist regime in Ukraine, one in place only due to Joe and Barack Obama's efforts in 2014 when they overturned an election there.


When the country needs a leader who works for the people, Joe biden decides to work for Ukraine.  As a character in Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Overheard Conversation" asked, "Does he think its a U.S. state?"






Despite the hogwash from aging pigs like Bette Mdiler, no the American people are not saying, "Let's sacrifice our own future so that some rcists in Ukraine can have the lives we con't."  Patrick Martin (WSWS) points out:


No less historically important are the domestic implications of the Ukraine war for the working class in the United States. It is working people who will pay for this war, as they have paid for all the overseas acts of aggression by US imperialism. 

The $40 billion bill approved by the House of Representatives, and expected to pass the Senate within days, brings the total allocated to the war in Ukraine in less than three months to a staggering $53 billion. This new spending is larger than the total budget for the US Marine Corps. It is greater than the entire budgets of five federal departments, or of all independent federal agencies combined. It is more than total federal spending on housing and homelessness, more than total state and federal spending on public health.

What would $53 billion buy, if this sum was devoted to the needs of working people? It could hire 500,000 teachers at $106,000 a year in salary and benefits, or a similar number of nurses. It could provide a $6,000 raise to every nurse, teacher and nursing home worker in America (9.25 million workers). It could provide a $1,000 raise to every worker in America making less than $15 an hour (52 million workers).

None of these things, of course, will happen because the American government operates not in the interests of working people but of the financial aristocracy.



We'll note THE KATIE HALPER SHOW on this topic.




Joe likes to pretend he's pro-worker.  He likes to pretend that.  And the media helps him out having never once seriously questioned how a US senator could amass the weatlh Joe did.  Excuse me, how a sitting US senator could legally amass the wealth Joe did.  The greed is an addiciton and Joe got sloppy with the family grift which is why Hunter's in trouble today.


But look at Joe's salary from the Senate and then as Vice President and note that there's no way he ended up legally with the pot of gold he has.  


None.


Joe's not  a friend of the worker.  And he focuses on things like destroying Medicare. Branko Marcetic (JACOBIN) reports:

               

There’s good news and bad news about the Joe Biden administration’s ongoing pursuit of the Direct Contracting Entity (DCE) program, also known as ACO REACH. The bad news is that the idea remains a threat to the health of seniors, and an alarming Trojan horse that could lead to the privatization of Medicare. The good news is that resistance to it is beginning to gain some traction.

Late last month, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution “to stop privatizing the United States Medicare system.” The resolution, which warns that the introduction of the DCE pilot program “opened the door to the complete privatization of Medicare” and urges equity issues be resolved “within the traditional Medicare system,” was introduced by councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who is far from being a radical. (While a progressive, Mosqueda has repeatedly butted heads with socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant, watering down the latter’s proposed “Amazon tax” — a sign of how potently unpopular the Medicare contracting program is.)

Three days earlier, the Arizona Medical Association (ArMA), the state’s four-thousand-member-strong American Medical Association (AMA) chapter, passed a similar resolution in its House of Delegates, calling for the program to be “terminated” and warning that seniors could find themselves thrown into a moneymaking system that “limits care to provide maximum profit.” The ArMA, which has previously voted down a resolution backing a single-payer health care system, also based its opposition on concern for doctors, pointing out they could end up enrolled in the program without choosing to be.

It’s a good sign for DCE’s opponents, for whom half the battle has involved simply alerting people to its existence. Though the controversial program began under Donald Trump, the Biden administration has quietly continued it, with a late groundswell of opposition earlier this year forcing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to rebrand it as “ACO REACH” — but fundamentally changing nothing about the actual program or what led to such an outcry in the first place. All the while, seniors continue to get mail informing them their doctor is now part of the pilot program, but not to worry, because their Medicare benefits haven’t changed. 


Danny Haiphong (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) explains:


Amazon Labor Union (ALU) organizer and former Amazon worker Chris Smalls testified in a Senate Banking Committee hearing called by Bernie Sanders on May 5th to investigate whether Amazon and other monopoly corporations that violate labor law should receive federal contracts. That Amazon would receive federal assistance despite accumulating record profits amid a global pandemic is bad enough. Worse yet is that it took months before so-called progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged the efforts of workers organizing a union within the corporate behemoth.

The hearing proceedings went viral after Smalls replied to Republican Senator Lindsay Graham’s screed against the “demonization of companies”  by reminding him that “the people are the ones who make these companies operate, and when we're not protected, the process for when we hold these companies accountable is not working for us, then that's the reason why we're here today.” Smalls continued: “It's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's a workers' issue, and we're the ones that are suffering.”

Smalls affirmed a fundamental truth of Marxism on Karl Marx’s birthday. Marx argued that the development of capitalism is characterized by the socialization of labor and the concentration of the means of production in private hands. The workers drive all production but it is the capitalist class which appropriates the surplus. Surplus under capitalism is derived from the unpaid labor of the worker; the basis of exploitation and profit.

Amazon is the quintessential example of Marx’s thesis. The mega-monopoly is the second largest employer  in the U.S. and has posted record profit margins during the COVID-19 pandemic . Amazon’s profits are derived from the super exploitation of the working class. Low wages, long hours, and disastrous working conditions subsidize Amazon’s growth.  It also helps that the corporation pays zero in federal taxes. Smalls thus made a positive contribution to the spread of class consciousness at the Senate hearing by pointing out the centrality of the working class in the production process.

However, not everything about the ALU’s visit to the halls of Washington was positive. In typical Democratic Party fashion, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris exploited the moment to score a photo opportunity with the ALU. Bernie Sanders congratulated Biden for “standing” with union organizers and the trade union movement.

In many ways, this obvious example of electoral posturing makes sense. Joe Biden’s public favorability rating has declined significantly  in recent months amid the persistence of COVID-19, rising inflation, and the U.S.’s role in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The problem is that Joe Biden has demonstrated that his administration has nothing to offer the trade union movement, particularly the ALU. Amazon scored a Biden-approved contract from the National Security Agency (NSA) worth $10 billion in late April . The contract runs in complete contradiction to Biden’s campaign promise to end federal contracts to union-busting corporations such as Amazon. Furthermore, Biden has dragged his feet in convincing so-called “moderate” Democrats to support the PRO Act. The PRO Act would remove barriers to unionization  by placing heavy restrictions on employers that illegally interfere in the organizing process.

Joe Biden shook hands with Chris Smalls but has shown little indication that he will move an inch in favor of working people. This is the same Joe Biden that voted for the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement  (NAFTA) and the elimination of welfare  during the Clinton administration. It’s also the same Joe Biden who stayed silent during the unionization campaign at the Bessemer Amazon facility last year while nominating union-busting former president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden , to head his Office of Management and Budget. And we shouldn’t forget that Biden served as Barack Obama’s Vice President when the Democratic Party held a majority in Congress yet failed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA ), a less comprehensive version of the current PRO Act.


And Kim Kelly (IN THESE TIMES) makes clear that abortion rights are workers' rights:


Anything less than a full-throated defense of workers’ rights — including their right to to make their own decisions about their health, body and sexual life — is unacceptable. 

There is no time to mince words: Abortion rights are a labor issue, and this is a moment in which the labor movement needs to make clear that bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are core issues that unions will fight tooth and nail to preserve. The right to control our bodies is part and parcel of our centuries-old battle to control our labor, and they cannot be separated from one another. It matters that so many workers are not only at risk of unwanted pregnancy themselves, but are also expected to engage in reproductive labor—the so-called women’s work” that is so often undervalued and underpaid (or wholly unpaid). It matters that pregnant workers face discrimination as well as physical and medical hazards on the job, and that far too many don’t have access to quality healthcare or paid parental leave. It matters that workers who do not want to have a baby or cannot do so safely are about to have that choice stolen from them, and that forced birth is the only option on offer from the most powerful court in the land (as illegitimate as it is and always has been). 

For those who can’t afford to travel to other states or overseas to get the care they need — the poor and the working class, the very people who the labor movement has pledged to liberate and uplift — this assault on abortion rights is a disaster, one that can lead only to desperation and death. Many have already been living through it, and now that the net has widened, abortions will still not stop — they will just get more dangerous and less accessible, and more lives will be destroyed as a result. Low-income women workers of color will be hit the hardest. Our patients of color already face deep systemic barriers to accessing health care, and now would bear the most harmful impacts of this ban, including potential deadly consequences of forced birth,” Ross noted in her statement.

nd of course, Joe Biden's doing nothing to protect ROE V WADE.  He offers mealy mouthed statements.  He lived in the Senate.  Grasp that.  H e knows better than anyone how to get Congress on board with something.  He's the one who told most of us about Barack's plane ride with Dennis Kucinich.  Remember that?  ObmaCare was a faud and Dennis said so.  Dennis made clear he would not vote for it.  Ever.  Then Barack took a plane ride with Dennis and explained how he would pour his weight behind a Democratic challenger and Dennis would be out of Congress.  Dennis caved and announced, when he got off the plane, that he was going to vote for ObamaCare.


Joe's told that story for years -- including to me.  so he knows how to strong arm when carrots don't work.  But he does nothing of value.  Olivia Alperstein (THE BLACK COMMENTSTOR) observes:


Forget A Handmaid’s Tale — we’re at risk of going full Crucible: “I saw Goody Proctor at the clinic. Burn the witch!”

But Roe doesn’t just protect people seeking abortions. The rationale underpinning that ruling protects all of us from government interference in the most intimate areas of our lives: who we love, who we marry, and how and whether we choose to raise a family.

If Roe falls, the right to take birth control — something relied on by millions of people of child bearing age, including me — could also become a thing of the past. So could the right to love or marry someone of the same gender, or a different race. All of these deeply personal decisions could end up falling under the purview of politicians.

Joe does nothing.  He leads no serious effort.  He uses no knowledge he has from living four decades in the Senate.  He's not helping anyone.


Nor is NOW or any other organization providing cover for the Democrats and telling you that the answer is oting for them this November.  No, that's not an answer.  The answer is demanding that the party act now and mking it clear that we won't be held hostage.


It's a "Ball of Confusion" as Tina Turner sings.



One, two, one, two, three, four, ow
People moving out, people moving in
Why, because of the color of their skin
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Vote for me and I'll set you free
Rap on, brother, rap on
Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the preacher
And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the teacher
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration
Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation
Ball of confusion
Oh yeah, that's what the world is today
Woo, hey, hey
The sale of pills are at an all time high
Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky
The cities ablaze in the summer time
And oh, the beat goes on
Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything
And the band played on

-- "Ball of Confusion," written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, first recorded by the Temptations for their GREATEST HITS II album..


In Iraq, the most under-reported story of the week -- in the US press -- is that the US military shot up eleven houses in Iraq in what the US government is terming a "mistake."  That's not resulted in any real coverage or even questions at press briefings by the government.


Meanwhile, the political stalemate continues.  Suadad al-Salhy (MIDDLE EAST EYE) reports:


Fresh from offering Iraq’s independent MPs the chance to nominate a prime minister, Muqtada al-Sadr is already looking at the next option to break the country’s political stalemate: keep Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

It’s seven months now since Iraqis went to the polls in October’s parliamentary elections, and fierce rivalry between two camps - one led by influential Shia cleric Sadr, the other backed by Iran - has stopped anyone from forming a government.

A week ago, Sadr called on the 40 or so independents elected to parliament to form their own bloc and nominate a prime minister that his alliance - made up of Sadr’s MPs, Sunni parties and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) - would support.


There are three leadership positions in the Iraqi government: Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament and President.  There was no change in the Speaker.  Now Moqtada's leaning towards keeping the same prime minister.  Why did people even bother to vote>


The following sites updated:


Thursday, May 12, 2022

THE GOLDBERGS

First up, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Overheard Conversation."


overheard conversation

There was no SUPERMAN AND LOIS this week. Sorry. I didn't even bother to try to watch with my daughter Tuesday night. I asked her and she was fine with waiting until Wednesday. Which we did and then saw there was no new episode on Tuesday. They really are destroying the audience for the show with their inability to air weekly episodes. Season two did not even start until January. There is no excuse for all the starts and stops. Maybe they should consider increasing their episode order?

It makes no sense.

We did get a new episode of THE GOLDBERGS this week. Adam was irritating for a bit but then seemed a little more mature. I really hope next season makes him a supporting character. Barry gave Adam advice for dealing with his girlfriend's sister. He took it but didn't need it -- or at least he thought he didn't need it. He was wrong because he and Bria's sister had nothing but problems. She always disappoints Bri and this time, to make it up, she said she'd get them all Madonna tickets. Then she corners Adam and tells him that she can't afford them. Then he buys them and they pretend the sister did and it just spirals out of control.

The other story was Geoff and Erica. Their apartment had black mold -- Geoff said because Erica kept leaving wet towels laying all over the bathroom. They go to her mom's while the place is being worked on. She immediately tosses a wet towel on his side of the bed. Bev and Tim Meadows are listening through the vent to figure out what's really going on. Erica says the towel is fine where it is and that Bev will pick it up later. Bev agrees to Tim Meadows that she will.

The efforts by Tim and Bev to help backfire but it all works out in the end and, back at their apartment, Erica surprises Goeff by hanging a ton of extra hooks in the bathroom for the towels to hang on.

Does that happen, by the way? Homes getting black mold as a result of wet towels?

I've Googled but with no real success. I find stuff about mold caused by wet towels. But on black mold itself, I don't find anything regarding towels.





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

Thursday, May 12, 2022.  Today, we look at the fake assery.


The lies and the fake assery never stop and that includes from the media.  Deepa Shivaramn (NPR) types up the following:


The Women's Health Protection Act, a Democrat-led bill that would effectively codify a right to an abortion, failed to pass, as expected, after it did not reach the Senate's 60-vote threshold. All Democrats voted for the legislation except Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and all Republicans opposed the bill.

In a rare occurrence, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the vote, which was 49-51.


[. . .]


Because it was never likely to pass, the vote was effectively symbolic. "I think it's really important to have this vote to show where everyone stands," Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told NPR on Tuesday.


I'm sick of the damn lairs in congress and I'm sick of them in the press.


The bill needed 51 votes.  The 49 were expected.  Yes, even Bob Casey Jr. because he knows how unpopular outlawing Roe is in Philadelphia.  Joe Manchin should have been held in line with carrots or sticks.  The stick should have included, we will priamry you.  And they should primary him.  He never votes with the party when they need him.  He gives cover to Republicans who would otherwise look extreme "Even Democrat Joe Manchin . . . "  

It should have been explained to him wha tthe consequences were.  Barac k Obama explained to Dennis Kucinich that if he didn't vote for ObamaCare that he would not be in the US Congress.  (Dennis caved and,  ha ha, lost re-election anyway.)


That would have brought you fifty.  You needed one more with Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski the two you nudge.  It shouldn't take much and that's where you use the carrots.  


But let's say you couldn't get either of them to budge -- hugely doubtful --but let's say it.


It would have been a fifty to fifty bote.  What happens then?


The tie breaking vote comes from the sitting vice president Kamala Harris.  All that needed to be explained to Joe was how hard the party would come down against him and that they would primary him.  


they didn't fight for it, they didn't do a damn thing except pose and preen.


And that shouldn't cut it.


Nor should we buyi into the lie that if we turn out in November, then our Dems in Congress will pass the law making Roe legal.


It's not going to happen.  ANd you're trash if youre presenting that lie as truth.


Forget everything that is going on right now.  Th ehistorical pattern is that the party in power (Democrats) will lose at least one house this fall in the mid-terms.


So that's two years of nothing.


Now Nancy Pelosi told us ahead of the 2006 mid-terms that to get US forces out of Iraq, we had to deliver one of the two houses of Congress to the Democratic Party.  We delivered both houses to the party.  


Earlier this week, in what the US government is calling a "mistake," US forces shot up homes in Iraq.


US forces didn't leave Iraq.  


They used people, they lied to them and since theyd done so well lying about ending the war in 2006, they used it to grab the White House in 2008.


Barack never pulled all US troops from Iraq -- it was a drawdown, not a withdrawal.  In addition, in the fall of 2012 he began sending US troops back into Iraq -- a detail that the presidential debates chose to ignore that year despite THE NEW YORK TIMES reporting on it and having a general on record explaining it.  Then in 2014 even more were sent in.


What does the US Congress do?


If they can't protect a woman's right to choose right now, when are they going to?


Never.


And I don't need to hear their lies about 'when they grow up.'


Nancy Pelosi is is 82 years old, Chuck Schumer is 71.


they've been in Congress for years, they've been in leadership for years.


They aren't cute little six-year-olds telling us that some day, when they're big, they're going to be ballerinas and cowboys.  


This is the job they wanted and they need to do their job.


The press needs to stop lying for them.  


zAll they needed was to get Joe to vote yes and it would have gone to tie-breaker Kamala even if Lisa and Suan had refused to come on board.


And that would have given Kamala something historical to run on.  


People say I'm not hard enough on her.  They give her nothing.  Can you imagine Joe Biden putting up with the scraps the administration tosses to Kamala?


The Democrats need to ge ttheir act together or the people need to face the fact that the party never will.


Now they are going to suffer a loss in the mid-terms this fall.  That's  a given before you add in the realities.  There is the very unpopular Ukraine issue.


A lot of people are finally noting that Barack Obama refused to support the fighters with money the way Joe is doing.  Barack wa shappy to overturn an election there in 2014 and install Nazi linked people.


He just wasn't so stupid that he was going to send large amounts of US monies to racists.  That's what Ukraine is.


And that's what the media loves, right? 


They look like them -- I'm sure they do, in their heart of hearts, they look just like the US corporate media -- racist.


That's why they don't care about the wars in AFrica.


But they'll show up to stand with their racist brothers and sisters.


And Barack realized that his bi-racial card -- he claimed bi-racial until he lost to Bobby Rush -- would get pulled historically if 'the first Black man to be US president' also gave billions to a racist regime that used the N-word for Black people and that the Peace Corps had to provide an advisory warning on.  


Joe Biden doesn't care.  He thinks he can bamboozle again -- maybe come up with a story about someone named June Bug?  


But there were serious racial issues at play and Joe ignored them and shoved this down the throats of the American people.  


It's unpopular and it's only going to get more unpopular.


Some people are angry that Us (Bono and The Edge) went to Ukraine.  I'm not.  That photo of them on stage with the Ukraine musician as that musician flashed White power signs?  People are seeing it and they are reacting.  And they should be.  


Then you've got all the pro-Nazi Tweets that the 'leader' keeps Tweeting out.


The world is watching this and there will be accountability for those who have argued that the American people should live in poverty and face 40 year high inflation rates while Joe Biden and our Congress supported racists in another country.


There will be hell to pay.  


And I'm talking historically.  Jen, you didn't get out soon enough to save your lily white ass.


Now in the immediate future?


Abortion is not going to rally people to the polls for Democrats.  It never has.  It has let them peel off a group of voters in tight elections.


People will be focused on the economy in the mid-terms -- and in the next presidential election.  In the mid-terms people will be coping with the way Joe Biden has ruined their lives.


A woman e-mailed, I've mentioned her before.  She's a single mother in college.  Her classes start early in the morning and there's no way she can get there in time by public bus.  She takes it back home but she would miss class if she tried to take it in the morning.  So she has to pay for a cab.  And, in 2020, that cab ride cost her $7.13 before the tip.  Today>  Well, yesterday, she wrote that the prices had again gone up and the same trip was now #12.13 cents.


That's without any tip.


People can't afford that.


He has screwed up the country and he and Congress are out of touch.  


How many seats they lose in the mid-terms will depend upon whether or not they codify Roe.  And, if theyre not doing right now, they're not going to do it.   They'll always have an excuse and they'll always use it -- as they have in the past -- to turn out votes in close elections.








From the US House website -- a page maintained by the House of Representatives:


Laws begin as ideas. First, a representative sponsors a bill. The bill is then assigned to a committee for study. If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated or amended. If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate. In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on. Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill. Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval. The Government Printing Office prints the revised bill in a process called enrolling. The President has 10 days to sign or veto the enrolled bill.


They fight for trouble, where ever there's freedom, NATO troops are there.  NATO issued the following:


 On 10 May 2022, Major General Giovanni Iannucci from Italy assumed command of NATO Mission Iraq, following a change of command ceremony held in Baghdad. He succeeds Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard from Denmark, who had assumed his command on 6 May 2021.

On the occasion of the change of command, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg offered the following recognition: ''I commend Lieutenant General Lollesgaard for his outstanding services and exemplary leadership, and for the daily efforts that he and his personnel undertook to ensure the progress of our mission, in close coordination and cooperation with the Iraqi authorities. And I welcome the arrival of Major General Iannucci to head up our mission. I look forward to working closely with him as he leads our capacity-building activities in support of the Iraqi security institutions and armed forces, as requested by the Iraqi government.''

NATO Mission Iraq was launched at the NATO Summit in Brussels in July 2018, following a request from the Iraqi government. Established in Baghdad in October 2018, it is an advisory and capacity-building non-combat mission that assists Iraq in building more sustainable, transparent, inclusive and effective security institutions and armed forces, so that they themselves are able to stabilize their country, fight terrorism, and prevent the return of [ISIS].

All efforts of NATO Mission Iraq are carried out with the consent of the Iraqi government and conducted in full respect of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

NATO Mission Iraq is another concrete demonstration of NATO’s readiness to address all challenges to the Euro-Atlantic region, from any direction, through a 360 degree approach to security.




Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "No Soul To Save" from earlier tonight.  The following sites updated:





Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Isaiah, THE HILL, Chris Hedges

Last week and this week?  A lot of comics at THE COMMON ILLS.  Here's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "No Soul To Save" from tonight:


no soul to search


That's the fifth one in the last two weeks.  And there's another one tomorrow night.


Now here's a HILL video about Hunter Biden and his corruption.


This is from Chris Hedges:


 The Democratic Party – which had 50 years to write Roe v Wade into law with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama in full control of the White House and Congress at the inception of their presidencies – is banking its electoral strategy around the expected Supreme Court decision to lift the judicial prohibition on the ability of states to enact laws restricting or banning abortions.

I doubt it will work.

The Democratic Party’s hypocrisy and duplicity is the fertilizer for Christian fascism. Its exclusive focus on the culture wars and identity politics at the expense of economic, political, and social justice fueled a right-wing backlash and stoked the bigotry, racism, and sexism it sought to curtail. Its opting for image over substance, including its repeated failure to secure the right to abortion, left the Democrats distrusted and reviled.

The Biden administration invited Amazon Labor Union president Christian Smalls and union workers from Starbucks and other organizations to the White House at the same time it re-awarded a $10 billion contract to the union-busting Amazon and the National Security Agency (NSA) for cloud computing. The NSA contract is one of 26 federal cloud computing contracts Amazon has with the U.S. Army and Air Force, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, and the Census Bureau. Withholding the federal contracts until Amazon permitted free and open union organizing would be a powerful stand on behalf of workers, still waiting for the $15 minimum wage Joe Biden promised as a candidate. But behind the walls of the Democratic Party’s Potemkin village stands the billionaire class. Democrats have failed to address the structural injustices that turned America into an oligarchic state, where the obscenely rich squabble like children in a sandbox over multibillion-dollar toys. The longer this game of political theater continues, the worse things will get.


It's all a game to them.  We don't matter at all.


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


Wednesday, May 11, 2022.  US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for the 'crime' of journalism, elements in Ukraine get more public about   support for Nazis, Iraq is being destroyed by the early stages of climate change, and much more.


As US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, Duncan Campbell (GUARDIAN) writes:


Priti Patel now has to make one of the most important decisions of her career: will she bow to heavy pressure from the United States and send a vulnerable man who has been convicted of no crime to face an indeterminate number of years in an American jail where he may experience intimidation and isolation? Her decision is imminent and all other legal avenues have been explored.

This was the scenario 10 years ago in the case of Gary McKinnon, the computer hacker who, working out of his north London bedroom, trawled through the computer systems of Nasa and the US defence department in search of information about UFOs and left behind some mildly rude messages about the systems’ sloppy security. The home secretary was Theresa May, who halted extradition proceedings at the last minute. 

Now Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and also a vulnerable man – who has been in Belmarsh high-security prison for three years without being convicted of any crime – is facing extradition, with the issue due to be decided this month. Once again, the home secretary has an opportunity to demonstrate, as May did, that respect for justice and humanity are much finer and more enduring qualities than appeasement.

It is worth recalling the words of party leaders in support of McKinnon after Labour home secretaries – to their great shame – declined to intervene in the years after his initial arrest in 2002. Nick Clegg, then leading the Liberal Democrats in opposition, said that McKinnon “has been hung out to dry by a British government desperate to appease its American counterparts”. David Cameron, before he became prime minister, had said: “McKinnon is a vulnerable young man and I see no compassion in sending him thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones to face trial.”

The current case is different in that, while McKinnon remained at liberty, Assange has been held in custody alongside murderers and terrorists after the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, seeking political asylum. He should have been given bail long ago to be with his wife, Stella Moris, whom he married in prison in March, and their two young children; he could simply be electronically tagged and monitored. It is also different in that he faces charges under the Espionage Act which carries a potential sentence of 175 years. And yes, the US criminal justice system does actually impose such medieval sentences.

Last year, at the Summit for Democracy, Joe Biden pledged to support a free press: “It’s the bedrock of democracy. It’s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. Around the world, press freedom is under threat.” As it happens, it is 50 years since Daniel Ellsberg was being prosecuted under a similar law to the ones Assange faces for releasing the Pentagon Papers which exposed the lies and hypocrisies of the Vietnam war. He is one of Assange’s staunchest supporters. This week he told me that “this extradition would mean that journalists, anywhere in the world, could be extradited to the US for exposing information classified in the US”. He argues that it would also set a precedent that any reporter could be extradited to other countries for exposing information classified in those countries. 

Assange also has the backing of all organisations that battle on behalf of freedom of expression, from Amnesty International to Reporters Without Borders. As Julia Hall of Amnesty International puts it: “Demanding that states like the UK extradite people for publishing classified information that is in the public interest sets a dangerous precedent and must be rejected.” 


Johnny Harris provides this overview of Julian's case.





Joe Biden could stop the persecution and the war on The /first Amendment at any time.   He chooses not to stop it.  There is no functioning adult in the world.



We'll note this Tweet:


Addressed to the Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives: Bring Julian Assange hom... chng.it/TXCJX4nX via



The world is watching and cannot stop laughing at the hypocrisy that is Joe Biden.


Joe is the hypocrite that's backing Nazis in Ukraine.  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "UTool Of Empire" detailed how U2 couldn't visit war zones when the people weren't European (racism) and how they took the stage with a Ukrainian performer who was flashing White Power signs while photographers were taking pictures.


Let's note these related Tweets:


Zelensky's official TG channel commemorated the Victory over Nazism Day publishing .... a photo of Ukrainian military with the WWII SS Nazi Totenkopf division symbol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_SS_Pa
Ukrainian media retranslated the photo. The photo was later deleted
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And these from Margaret Kimberley:


This is a bit awkward. Happy Victory Day!
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Well this is awkward. Zelensky posted a photo to celebrate the defeat of Nazism but posted a photo of a soldier wearing symbols of you guessed it, the Nazis. Remember this when someone tries to tell you that Nazi influence in Ukraine is just Putin's propaganda. #VictoryDay
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UkraineMaps
@MapsUkraine
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Internet never forgets, Zelensky the clown posted a picture of a Ukrainian soldier with an SS nazi tottenkopf patch to congratulate people on the defeat of 'nazism'.
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A Ukrainian group paid for this ad which I'm told appears in Times Square. The USSR was America's ally in WWII. Is Times Square pro-Nazi? Why allow an ad disparaging Hitler's defeat? They owe the people of New York an explanation.
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Turning to Iraq . . .


In the last six weeks, Iraq has been hit repeatedly with heavy dust storms leaving thousands hospitalized. Alisa Chang (NPR) explains, "Over 5,000 Iraqis needed medical care after the country was hit by a severe sandstorm last week. At least one person was killed. This was the seventh major sandstorm to hit the country in the span of one month. And while sandstorms are not uncommon in this part of the world, their increasing frequency and severity has caused concern among climate experts."  AP notes, "Nine African heads of states attended Monday's opening session of the UN's COP15 talks to fight desertification and land degradation that have devastated large swathes of the continent amid climate change. Iraq is one of the most vulnerable country to climate change where dust storms are recurrent, having consequences on people's health."  FRANCE 24 points out, " Dams built upstream in Turkey and Iran are also choking the country’s rivers, and farmers can no longer access the water needed to grow their crops."  Dylan O’Driscoll & Shivan Fazil of The Wilson Center write:

The UN Environment Programme has ranked Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change. In recent years, it has increasingly witnessed extreme heatwaves with temperatures reaching above 50°C. Iraq’s mean annual temperature also is predicted to increase by two degrees Celsius by 2050

The effects of these trends are clear. Drought and associated environmental degradation have eroded rural livelihoods in Iraq by heightening resource competition and posing severe implications for social cohesion. The impacts of climate change also interact with the shortfalls in basic services and lack of economic opportunities, exacerbating several key drivers of insecurity in an already fragile country.

This past year has been particularly dry and dusty. Annual rainfall has decreased amidst prolonged periods of drought, diminishing water supplies and taking a toll on agriculture production. Water flows from the Tigris and Euphrates have diminished due to upriver damming in Turkey and Iran. Rising temperatures and declining rainfall affect soil moisture and make dust storms more frequent. Over the past month, Iraq has been hit by dust storm after dust storm, which has brought life to a grinding halt and sent hundreds of people to the hospital with respiratory illnesses.

This water scarcity aggravates existing tensions, and makes the downstream riparian communities in the historically poorer south more vulnerable. These communities are also a hotspot for anti-government protests. Ironically, the climate is also making this year’s flash floods deadlier. These deluges have devastated homes—and killed at least a dozen in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Extreme weather events are only one aspect of how climate change is making a perilous situation in Iraq worse, compounding existing vulnerabilities. Iraq has already witnessed a breakdown of the social contract with mass protests across the country over inadequate public services, unemployment, corruption, and poor governance. Climate change will further exacerbate these issues, and in turn feed grievances and drive instability. It is imperative that climate adaptation play a part in the Iraqi government’s response to addressing the many grievances of those who live there.


We'll wind down with this from Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):


On May 2, 2022, a memo written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico.com . Alito made clear that the court with a 6 to 3 conservative majority intends to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States.

Reaction to the news was swift and predictable. Liberals expressed outrage and marched on federal courthouses and even to the homes of Supreme Court justices. Barack Obama released a long winded 700 word statement declaring himself, and his wife, strongly opposed to the court’s imminent decision. The statement is amusing because it gives the impression that Obama had nothing to do with the current state of affairs.

As a presidential candidate in 2008 Obama promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act , which would have codified abortion rights into federal law. But once in office he never pushed congress to pass it. In typical Obamaesque fashion he would claim to believe that women had the right to choose abortion, but that he didn’t want to demonize the opposition, and he wanted to find consensus on the issue. After his usual routine “on the one hand this, but on the other hand that” on April 29, 2009 he finally said out loud what was clear. “The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority.” It wasn’t even his lowest legislative priority. Obama never lifted a finger to get it passed, even in his two years in office when he had majorities in the House and the Senate.

Knowing full well that Roe v. Wade hinged on having a supportive Supreme Court in place, he dithered on doing what he had the power to do. In 2013 he knew that the democrats might lose control of the senate in the 2014 election. He asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, already 80-years old and a cancer patient, to step down. She declined and he didn’t press the issue. In 2016 conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died and senate republicans refused to even hold hearings to confirm Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland. Obama had the option of making a  recess appointment that would have put Garland on the court but he didn’t do that either. Such a move would have been controversial, and perhaps Garland’s presence would have been short, but it would have made clear that democrats were as committed as they claimed to be on the issue of abortion rights.

Instead they play games with democratic voters. Any unhappiness with the democrats is met with the plea to protect the federal judiciary from conservatives. This ploy is nothing but a cynical effort to keep left leaning democrats in the fold and to discredit anyone who questions the party’s continued failures to do what the people want them to do.

Now the liars and hypocrites like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who once claimed abortion was a “fading” issue are sending fundraising appeals to brain washed liberals who will again write checks and declare their devotion like Stockholm Syndrome hostages. Hillary Clinton’s foolish appeals to conservatives included choosing anti-choice senator Tim Kaine as a running mate and at times saying she was “ambivalent ” about abortion are now forgotten as the supposed left of the party remain lost.

They are lost because they don’t know the most basic rules of political mobilizations. Instead of harassing SCOTUS justices at home, they should be harassing their democratic representatives.

 




The following sites updated: