Wednesday, April 05, 2023

Graham Elwood, Fetterman, Chris Hedges

Starting with Graham Elwood.






Sen. John Fetterman, who was recently released from the hospital after treatment for clinical depression, will return to Congress later this month with improved mental health – and better hearing. 

While at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, Fetterman was fitted for hearing aids to address mild-to-moderate hearing loss that was discovered. 

The 53-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat has struggled with speech and language issues since he had a stroke shortly before the May primary. He used closed captioning for support during the remainder of his Senate campaign and since being sworn into office.




Before I read the article, my view was that the people of Pennsylvania made a mistake by not recalling him but time to move on.  But that's when I thought he was returning.

"Later this month"?  It's only April 4th.  "Later this month" could be next week, could be the end of the month.  That's not good enough.  You'd think he'd want to prove he was up for the job but I guess when the press covered for you, liked for you and attacked other members of the press if they dared to tell the truth -- I guess when that happens, you don't feel you need to prove anything.


Now this is from Chris Hedges:

Donald Trump — facing four government-run investigations, three criminal and one civil, targeting himself and his business — is not being targeted because of his crimes. Nearly every serious crime he is accused of carrying out has been committed by his political rivals. He is being targeted because he is deemed dangerous for his willingness, at least rhetorically, to reject the Washington Consensus regarding neoliberal free-market and free-trade policies, as well as the idea that the U.S. should oversee a global empire. He has not only belittled the ruling ideology, but urged his supporters to attack the apparatus that maintains the duopoly by declaring the 2020 election illegitimate.

The Donald Trump problem is the same as the Richard Nixon problem. When Nixon was forced to resign under the threat of impeachment, it wasn’t for his involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, nor was it for his illegal use of the CIA and other federal agencies to spy upon, intimidate, harass and destroy radicals, dissidents and activists. Nixon was brought down because he targeted other members of the ruling political and economic establishment. Once Nixon, like Trump, attacked the centers of power, the media was unleashed to expose abuses and illegalities it had previously minimized or ignored.

Members of Nixon’s re-election campaign illegally bugged the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office building. They were caught after they broke back into the offices to fix the listening devices. Nixon was implicated in both the pre-election illegality, including spying on political opponents, as well as attempting to use federal agencies to cover up the crime. His administration maintained an “enemies list” that included well known academics, actors, union leaders, journalists, businessmen and politicians.

One 1971 internal White House memo entitled, “Dealing with our Political Enemies” — drafted by White House Counsel John Dean, whose job it was to advise the president on the law — described a project designed to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Nixon’s conduct, and that of his closest aides, was clearly illegal and deserving of prosecution. There were 36 guilty verdicts or guilty pleas associated with the Watergate scandal two years after the break-in. But it was not the crimes Nixon committed abroad or against dissidents that secured his political execution but the crimes he carried out against the Democratic Party and its allies, including in the establishment press.

“The political center was subjected to an attack with techniques that are usually reserved for those who depart from the norms of acceptable political belief,” Noam Chomsky wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1973, a year before Nixon’s resignation.


Food for thought.

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


Tuesday, April 4, 2023.  PBS keeps trying to resell the Iraq War. 


The lying and whoring never ends with THE NEWSHOUR these days.  Ava and I noted last night in "TV: How they lied about Iraq and how they still lie about it" how PBS, last week, rigged the conversation about Iraq by (a) bringing on three War Hawks and (b) not challenging even the most basic lies and (c) letting them reset the goal posts yet again.  They are lying and doing it on purpose.  Their goal is to rehab the illegal war.  And they did it again last night 

Last night, they again pretended that they just wanted to talk the Iraq War and do so fairly.  Again, they pretended they wanted to know if it was worth it.  And the eight or so million Americans who watch the program in a week, if they caught the segment, might not have realized that they rigged it before they started the interview.  They rigged the outcome by the person they selected.

Was the Iraq War worth it?  Oh, let's ask Barham Salih!

Why?

And that's what PBS viewers should have been told but they weren't.

He's a Kurd.  The Kurds wanted the US to invade.  They became semi-autonomous due to the 90s Gulf War.  They wanted the US to invade.  They also make up less than 20% of Iraq's population.

They finally find an Iraqi they want to discuss the illegal war with and, low and behold, it's a Kurd.  

That's not by accident.  PBS is back to selling the Iraq War.  

They're abusing public funds in an attempt to deceive the American people and rewrite history.

Their appalling coverage is not by accident.  It is the result of their rigging the outcomes before the camera ever starts rolling.  

Here are some Tweets about PBS' abomination last week.





PBS can't stop lying about Iraq.  Even in the most nonsense garbage they're offering in the last weeks, they can't stop lying:


After the U.S. invaded Iraq 20 years ago, Iraqi American playwright and actor Heather Raffo created and starred in an acclaimed play “Nine Parts of Desire” about the lives of Iraqi women. She’s returned to the subject on film and through a distinctly American lens, setting a new version in Michigan. Jeffrey Brown went there to see the work for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.



No, she did not 'create' it after the invasion.  She wrote it before the invasion.  It has nothing to do with the 2003 invasion but she used it -- like a whore -- to sell her play.  People were kind because they were taken in.  But the reality is, the story of Iraq's never going to be told in a (bad) one-woman play.

She's a bad paste and cutter (don't call her a playwright) and she's a bad actress.  And she does her cookie-cutter pretense on this injustice or that and they never amount to a damn thing because she tries to tug at your heart while ignoring the realities of what leads to the conflicts.

But, again, she wrote it before the 2003 invasion.  Even that basic fact, PBS couldn't get right last week.

Here's Mona Chalabi, at THE GUARDIAN yesterday, providing some of the reality that PBS refuses to address in their coverage:


The US assault on Iraq that began 20 years ago has left a toxic legacy worse than that of the Hiroshima bombing, according to a study that looked at cancer rates and infant mortality.

After the bombing in Japan, the rates of leukemia among those living closest to the detonation increased by a devastating 660%, about 12 to 13 years after the bomb (which is when radiation levels peaked). In Falluja, leukemia rates increased by 2,200% in a much shorter space of time, averaged just five to 10 years after the bombings. Anecdotally, doctors in Iraq began reporting a big increase in cancer rates as well as congenital anomalies (commonly referred to as “birth defects”) after the US began bombing the country. The research, led by Dr Christopher Busby while he was at the University of Ulster, showed that the doctors’ observations were backed up by data.

In addition to the huge increase in leukemia, Busby and his colleagues found a 1,260% increase in rates of childhood cancer in Falluja after the US bombing as well as a 740% increase in brain tumors. They also found evidence that Iraqis had been exposed to radiation, as infant mortality rates were 820% higher than in neighboring Kuwait.




 What the Tatars did to Iraq in 1258, the Americans did again when they destroyed a sovereign country. Not even Iraqi artefacts were spared; they were stolen along with the country's wealth.

The US occupation fuelled hateful sectarianism which ignited sedition, making sectarianism the most prominent political headline for the regime that Paul Bremer, the US appointee and de facto head of Iraq after its occupation, put in place. He said explicitly in a TV interview that although the Shia in Iraq represent about 70 per cent of the population, Iraq was being governed by its Sunni minority and that it was time to fix this mistake and restore balance to the country.

This malicious man turned Iraq into an arena for terrorism and internal strife. He destroyed the state institutions, dismantled the army and security forces, dismissing officers and soldiers to be replaced by Shia militias that are loyal to Iran. They killed according to religious identity in a country that was a national model of one homeland and one people.

Bremer added Iraqi state officials to the terrorist lists, including ministers, senior army officers and scholars in order to liquidate them. It is painful to see Iraqi scholars being targeted for kidnapping and killing; many have had to migrate to save their lives. Despite this, some were not spared liquidation, even outside of Iraq.


By the way, that was one of the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry in the United Kingdom  (Bremer's disbanding the Iraqi army destroyed Iraq)  -- a fact PBS pretends to be blissfully unaware of as they allowed Paul Wolfowitz to lie on air last week -- allowed and encouraged.

Meanwhile, let's turn to noted homophobe and transphobe Jonathan Turley.  Shutting down productions, implementing laws where you can't say "gay" in Florida, all of these and more should concern someone who purports to be a free speech advocate.  

Yet silly Jonathan, 61-years-old (remember that), hasn't said a peep.

Why?

Because he works for FOX "NEWS."  They pay the bills and Jonathan doesn't bite the hand that feeds him.  So while they've launched an attack on LGBTQ+ persons that has lasted over a year -- an attack so bad that they are seeing people cancelling subscriptions to FOX NATION over it -- an attack so bad that they've had to come up with an offer to try to get those people back ($1.99 a month if you will just return -- but they aren't returning) -- he's not said a word.

And he just gets more and more ridiculous. 

As the volume of people calling him out online increases (and includes in the comments of his transphobe threads at his website), Jonathan finally decided to wade in last Saturday.  It was laughable:


A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Tennessee law limiting drag shows on constitutional grounds. Like many, I have been appalled by some images of very young children watching highly sexualized routines in schools or businesses. However, many of these events are held off school grounds and with the support of their parents. As a parent of four, I cannot imagine taking my kids to some of these shows, but we all raise our kids according to our own values. 


What images, you stupid ass.  There's no link there.  He's a Libs of Tick Tock lover so he's probably talking about some of the stuff in Canada but who knows.  He has to hold his little nose before he can speak up.  Hold his little nose and clutch his pearls -- with his sphincter? 

I used to call Cokie Roberts out for her b.s. about "as a mother."  Now we're getting Jonathan -- 61-years-old -- writing "As a parent of four . . ."  He's ridiculous.  

And one column -- one really bad column -- doesn't wipe away your bigotry.  That's all you are, Jonathan, a bigot.  Well you're a paid bigot.  There's that too.  FOX "NEWS" wouldn't keep you around if you were calling out their bigotry, would they?  

Your paid to look the other way and that's why when you're finally forced -- due to complaints online and, yes, on campus (yes, Jonathan, I know all about it) -- to talk about you frame it in such delicate and petite language.

As a parent . . . 

Just stop pretending.  We know you're a paid whore.  FOX "NEWS" owns you.  It's destroyed your reputation and it's destroying your academic career.  When you're standing looking around at the ruins of your life, hope you still think it was worth it because this isn't over, Jonathan.  It's just beginning.




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