Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Shady Menendez

Yesterday we did a joint-post:

 

 

 

Otherwise, I would have been hear laughing loudly about Shady Menendez.  His defense offered a hysterical explanation for the gold bars on Monday:


His father hid money under the false bottom of their grandfather clock. His mother stashed cash in the closet. His aunt concealed money in the television console, while other relatives packed plastic bags with bills they stored in their basement — which then almost burned up when their house caught on fire.

After prosecutors rested their case Friday, Sen. Bob Menendez’s attorneys kicked off their defense Monday in his federal bribery trial in Manhattan, setting out to show jurors that mistrust of banks was a family tradition.

“Daddy always said: ‘Don’t trust the banks. If you trust the banks, you never know what can happen, so you must always have money at home.’ And this was something, so to speak, that they say to you and say it to you so many times that it’s — it sort of forms a law inside of you,’” the senator’s older sister Caridad Gonzalez testified.

 

Was it Daddy who also always said, "Get your bribes in solid gold?"  AP reminds, "Prosecutors say more than $486,000 in cash, over $100,000 in gold bars and a luxury car found at the Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, during the 2022 raid were bribe proceeds."

 

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Tuesday, July 2, 2024.  With nowhere to go, Gazans are again ordered by the Israeli government to evacuate, CNN 'sweetens' reality to ignore the use of dogs by the Israeli government on Palestinians locked behind bars, BREAKING POINTS chose to platform a transphobe in their one and only Pride segment for the month of June, and much more.


So much to cover today.  We'll do Gaza in depth -- and actually already have.  I started dictating the snapshot with Gaza to make sure it didn't get a quick pass because I was running out of time.  But we're not opening with Gaza specifically.  Generally?  Yes.

Because Gaza today, the slaughter in Gaza, takes place because of shoddy media.  And we're starting with the embarrassing media in the US.  A media that never gets better, please note.  Independent media pops up and becomes garbage.  Corporate media whores and then whores some more. 




Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar (or simply Breaking Points) is an American political news and opinion series created and hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. It was launched in June 2021 by Ball and Enjeti, both former hosts of The Hill's Rising web series. They publish an audio-only podcast and the video program is available on YouTube, Rumble, and Spotify. Its format includes one anchor representative of the political left (Ball) and one right-of-center anchor (Enjeti), who provide news and commentary with a populist view from divergent sides of the political spectrum.[4][5][better source needed][6]

Breaking Points features commentary and analysis of political news and current events, in-studio interviews with journalists, politicians, campaign staff and surrogates, political advisors and strategists, and members of the news media, and occasional live-analysis segments. Ball and Enjeti, the primary hosts, usually publish on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Journalist Ryan Grim and culture writer Emily Jashinsky co-host on a show on Wednesdays and Fridays called Counter Points with the Friday segment hosting political and cultural debates between guests.

Ball and Enjeti each produce, write, and deliver a monologue each episode highlighting an important topic in current events. The hosts analyze the topic, usually organized into three or four bullet-points. This is followed by an open discussion with the other host, available to premium subscribers. 

The majority of the show's revenue comes from premium subscribers, with some additional revenues from YouTube and podcast ads.[7] Their expenses are around one million dollars a year.[7]


Why?  Why should anyone give even a dime to this crap ass program?

You're wasting your money and you're harming democracy.  Stop kidding yourself.  

On Sunday, BREAKING POINTS decided to do a segment on Pride.  All of June was Pride Month yet they refused to do a single segment on Pride for the first 29 days.  They did do an LGBTQ+ related segment -- when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's ugly and overweight wife Martha got caught on tape trashing, among others, the LGBTQ+ community.  That was it -- and that wasn't a segment on Pride.  As Ava and I note in "Media: BREAKING POINTS promotes transphboia, CRAPAPEDIA can't handle the truth," the Robert Kennedy Jr supporting weasel James Li brought on a lying hag to trash transgendered people.  (James supports Junior -- we did eliminate that section and others to condense the piece or it would have been even longer.)  

We rightly, on the left, call out THE NEW YORK TIMES for its transphobia and for its refusal to go to trans people and get their stories.  

BREAKING POINTS did the same thing.  

It chose to bring on a known transphobe and a know liar.

Let's be really clear here that this ugly bitch was brought on with her two year record of transphobia.  It's how she got FOX "NEWS" to note her and how she got THE NEW YORK POST to note her.  It's her grift now.

In 2020, the disgusting Andrew Yang ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination -- he did not run for president.

Let's get that clear because it bothers the hell out of me as a poli sci major.  In our time online (and on campuses), we've been part of a group that's managed to destroy the nonsense of calling swing voters "independent voters."  Maybe we can all get behind the reality that if you run for president, you're running for president.  You're not running in a primary.  When you run in a primary, you are a candidate for the party's nomination.  If you don't get the nomination, you're not a presidential candidate -- Marianne Williamson being one example.  That's not a slam on her.  But she did not run for president.  I loathe Junior but he is running for president and he's a presidential candidate.

Yang brought a lot of stupidity into the 2020 primary and a lot of lies and if he hadn't been on that stage wasting everyone's time in the primaries who knows who might have ended up the nominee.  

So a Yang Ganger -- who we'll just call Closety (she's named in Ava and my piece) presents herself as someone who ran for Congress.  No, Closety, you didn't.  

You ran in a primary and you lost.  You didn't even get 10,000 votes.  The winner got nearly 100,000 votes. 

You were a primary candidate.  You never ran for Congress, Closety, stop lying.

But if she stopped lying, what would she do?  Apparently lying is how you get on BREAKING POINTS.

She's good at lying.  When she was in the 2020 primary, for example, she gave countless interviews, took a few surveys.  

James Li presented Closety as a "lesbian activist."

No, she was just a closeted whore.

I don't tolerate this garbage.

Closety was married in 2020.  To a woman.

But she wasn't out.  Not even with the non-judgmental League of Women Voters could she say she was a lesbian.

In a 90 minutes interview with a man who brought up that she was part of the lesbian Yang Gang,  she did, it did slip out but that was an interview viewed 84 times in real time and it was less than 30 seconds.  And the interviewer raised it -- note how uncomfortable she got when the topic was raised.


Let's be really clear on how disgusting this bitch is.


Sarah Gilbert is someone Ava and I have repeatedly called out.  Reality, you want to hide in your closet?  You're pathetic but go for it.  But what did Sarah do.  She hid in a closet, yes.  While having a relationship with Ali Adler.  Fine, they can both hide in the closet.  But that changes when they have two children.  When you have two children, you can't hide in the closet.  As Judy Gold rightly notes in NETFLIX's OUTSTANDING: A COMEDY REVOLUTION, you can't do that.  Having kids meant coming out for Judy because the alternative is you are sending a very dangerous message to your kids and you're also limiting what they can talk about with their friends.  Did Sarah expect her kids to stay silent about having two Mommys?  What message was Sarah Gilbert sending to her children by pretending in public that she was straight?  Her oldest was six years old when she finally came out.

That's disgusting.

And Closety?  

She wasn't just disgusting, she was misleading the public.  While asking for their vote.  Grasp that she wasn't just hiding that she was a lesbian, she was hiding that she was married.

If a straight politician hid that he or she was married, it would be a scandal.  It was a mini-scandal for some when it turned out Gregory Harrison had been married for four years (to a woman -- Randi Oakes) and not just hiding it but denying it.  (The two are still married to this day.)  His fans were disappointed.  But he was an actor.  He wasn't running for public office and saying "trust me with your vote."


If you're running for office, the voters have a right to know you.  Especially when you have no accomplishments in your entire life -- being a legislative intern briefly might seem like  a credit; however, when people find out that the politician you interned for was your aunt, I think most voters  realize that's no more a reason to vote for you than you're other embarrassing jobs.


She wanted voters in Oregon's first Congressional district to vote for her and she had nothing to offer.  Possibly, had she revealed her personal life, she would have gotten more support?  But the voters had a right to know.  She's running for public office and she won't tell voters that she has a wife?

What a closet case.

Also during that campaign, she refused to address LGBTQ+ issues.  She refused to even note the LGBTQ+ community.  It is a progressive district and Oregon is a progressive state.  

But she hid in her closet.

Yet James Li brings her onto BREAKING POINTS and calls her a "lesbian activist"?

Oh, hell no.

She's a closet case who was in the closet in the 90s -- we did the research and talked to the people who knew her -- not very easy when she refuses to list her community college on her official resume.  She hid in her closet in the '00s.  In the '10s, desperate for sex, she started using a gay dating app.  

She's a closet case who is unemployable so she hit the grift.  

Grasp that.  She had no job to brag on.  She had no accomplishments.  She leaves out the book she wrote -- that no one bought and that didn't even get one review on AMAZON.  Grasp that.  Not one review.

She's garbage and the only way she could make money was by attacking transgender people.  So that's how she's made a name for herself.

And that's who BREAKING POINTS brought on to discuss Pride.  

She didn't discuss PRIDE, she attacked trans people.  And that's why she was brought on.  James Li knew what she was and he invited her on to be who she was.

BREAKING POINTS is utter garbage at this point.  If they truly consider themselves media, they will: Apologize for bringing up a transphobe for Pride month, apologize for trying to dress her up as a lesbian activist (of many years, no less), apologize for refusing to note Pride all month, and apologize for being part of a media that wants to 'talk about trans people' -- actually, I asked for quotes around 'talk about trans people' but those should probably be removed.  They do want to talk about trans people, they just don't want to talk to trans people. 

How is that media?  

It's not.  Krystal Ball, you claim to be a journalist and you put your name to BREAKING POINTS. 

So let's see what you really are?  Are you going to apologize for the non-journalistic segment?  And are you going to make amends by bringing on actual trans people to discuss trans issues? 

Or are you just going to look the other way?

No one should be donating to BREAKING POINTS at this point.  

It's not media.  

Like FOX "NEWS," BREAKING POINTS is not there to illuminate, it's there to spread hate.

And grasp that the sort of othering that BREAKING POINTS did on Sunday is the sort of othering that Palestinians have had to endure for decades -- where American media talked about them but didn't talk to them.  


I'm glad we did Gaza already because I'm running out of time.



  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines on Monday that former President Donald Trump is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he was in office, a decision that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned makes any occupant of the Oval Office "a king above the law."

Writing for the majority in the 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that Trump "may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."

But Sotomayor countered in her dissent that the majority distorted the concept of core constitutional powers "beyond any recognizable bounds," effectively granting Trump the sweeping immunity he demanded as he faces charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election in a failed last-ditch bid to remain in power.

"When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution," Sotomayor wrote. "Orders the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."

"In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law," the justice added. "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."

The New York Timesnoted that the high court "has remanded the case to the federal district court judge overseeing the matter, Tanya Chutkan, to determine the nature of the acts for which former President Trump has been charged—which are unofficial ones he undertook in his personal capacity and which are official ones he undertook as president."

The high court's ruling, which came after months of delays, all but forecloses the possibility of Trump facing trial for election subversion charges before the November presidential contest. The progressive advocacy group MoveOn said the conservative supermajority's decision to punt the case back to the lower court makes the justices "complicit in Trump's plan to delay any legal accountability until after the election."

Two of the court's right-wing justices—Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—faced calls to recuse from the case but rejected them.

"Donald Trump incited the deadly January 6 insurrection and the MAGA Supreme Court continues to do everything in their power to stop him from facing accountability for attempting to overthrow our government," said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action. "Nobody is above the law, especially not Trump. MAGA extremists in Congress and the courts have made it clear there will be no checks or balances on Trump and the only hope for American democracy is the people coming together to defeat him in November."

Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president at Public Citizen, added in a statement that "Trump versus the United States is a fitting name for this case."

"There is no better way to characterize Trump's attempt to upend the Constitution and rule of law as we know it," Gilbert said. "Today's ruling is a blow to U.S. democracy. But it's not a final blow by any means. Trump can and should still be held accountable for his role in the violence on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election and stop a peaceful transfer of power." 

 
One of the many reasons democracy is dying is because of a shoddy media system and giving money to people at BREAKING POINTS who have no qualms about presenting a known liar, a known transphobe, a closet case and letting her trash a minority population is 100% a media crime.  

Krystal Ball can make it right.  I doubt she will.

Gaza?

This morning, REUTERS reports, " Eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when Israeli forces bombarded several areas of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, health officials said on Tuesday, as thousands of people fled their homes under fire."  The Israeli government continues its slaughter of Gaza and has yet again ordered Palestinians to 'evacuate' and the reality is there's really nowhere to go.  AP notes, "Sam Rose, the director of planning at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said Tuesday that the agency believes some 250,000 people are in the evacuation zone — over 10% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million — including many who have fled earlier fighting. He says another 50,000 people living just outside the zone may also choose to leave because of their proximity to the fighting. Evacuees have been told to seek refuge in a sprawling tent camp along the coast that is already overcrowded and has few basic services."  Sebastian Usher (BBC NEWS) adds, "Louise Wateridge, an official with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in Gaza, asked where people could go as they were forced to leave their homes once again."  ALJAZEERA reports:

Israel’s evacuation order from the east of Khan Younis shows its inability to achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas and its intent to exhaust the population, says Luciano Zaccara, a professor of Gulf politics at Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center.

“This demonstrates that they cannot win the war because they wanted to eliminate Hamas physically and politically but so far the group is still there, this is why they need to move people, in order to chase them,” Zaccara told Al Jazeera.

“It also proves that Israel wants to win this war by exhausting the people,” he said, referring to several previous evacuation orders from different locations in the past nine months of war.

“In this way, it creates much more trouble and harm for Palestinians who cannot stay for more than one month or 15 days in one place,” he added.

The idea that there are safe places to move people to, Zaccara said, “is not true because every time there has been a displacement there were also attacks”



Yesterday, THE IRISH TIMES noted, "Israel released 55 Palestinians whom it had detained from Gaza, including the director of the territory’s main hospital, Mohammed Abu Selmia, who was freed without charge or trial after being detained in November when Israeli forces raided Shifa Hospital."  They're referring to Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya who was kidnapped by Israeli forces on November 23rd and then held hostage for months.  Helen Regan, Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder and Eugenia Yosef (CNN) note:

             The head of Gaza’s largest hospital has claimed he was repeatedly tortured during his seven months in Israeli detention, following his sudden release Monday, in a move that highlighted growing rifts in the Israeli establishment.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of the Al-Shifa medical complex, who was arrested in late November during the first of two Israeli raids on the facility in Gaza City, was released along with 50 other Palestinian detainees.     


Let's stop there.  If you are arrested, you get a trial.  You also get charged and if you aren't charged you are released.  The doctor was not arrested because he was held for over seven months without a trial.  That's not "arrested." That's kidnapped and held hostage.  CNN needs to stop 'sweetening' the truth. 


Israeli forces seized Abu Salmiya from a United Nations convoy on November 22. They took him to court three times while in detainment but brought no charges and allowed him no lawyer, Abu Salmiya said.

His detention in November followed an Israeli siege of Al-Shifa hospital, which Israeli officials said had become a Hamas control center. Though weapons were found at the hospital, an investigation by The Washington Post in December showed that the evidence fell short of revealing a command center, and that key claims the Israelis had made to justify the siege turned out to be incorrect.

Israeli forces attacked the hospital again in late March, killing hundreds and leaving the facility mostly destroyed. Several mass graves were discovered near the hospital site in the weeks that followed. 




 Back to CNN:

             At a news conference Monday, Abu Salmiya alleged Palestinian detainees suffered “severe torture” and had medical treatment denied.

“My little finger was broken. I was repeatedly subjected to hitting on the head, causing bleeding multiple times. There was almost daily torture in the Israeli prisons,” he told reporters.

“The doctor there beats the detainees, and the nurse beats the detainees. This is in violation of all international laws.”     


Again with the 'sweetening' of the truth?  Jason Burke (GUARDAIN) notes, "Mistreatment included assaults with batons and dogs, deprivation of food and medicine, as well as physical and psychological humiliation, Abu Salmiya said."  When news that Americans had used dogs on Iraqis at Abu Ghraib became public, the world was rightly horrified.  In fact, Google "CNN Abu Ghraib dogs" and look at all the results you find.  CNN was concerned them but right now can't be bothered with mentioning dogs.


A soldier found guilty of using a military dog to terrorize inmates at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison was sentenced Wednesday to 179 days confinement and will be discharged for bad conduct.

Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith also will be demoted to private, and his monthly pay will be reduced by $750 for three months, making his paycheck about $1,523 a month.

Smith, 25, was convicted Tuesday of five counts in what began as a 13-count court-martial. He was charged with using his canine, Marco, to terrify prisoners -- allegedly for amusement and in competition with other soldiers.

He also was convicted of allowing the dog to participate in the lewd acts of licking peanut butter off of a woman's chest and a man's genitalia.

After deliberating six hours Wednesday, the jury consisting of four officers and three enlisted soldiers returned with the verdict. Smith faced a maximum penalty of more than 8 years in prison.


Back to Burke's GUARDIAN article:

 

In May the Guardian reported allegations of widespread abuse at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert in Israel’s south, based on whistleblowers’ accounts.

Other media have also documented multiple descriptions of abuse at the camp, where thousands of detainees from Gaza have been held since the beginning of the war.



“Our detainees have been subjected to all kinds of torture behind bars,” he said. “There was almost daily torture. Cells are broken into and prisoners are beaten.” He said guards broke his finger and caused his head to bleed during beatings, in which they used batons and dogs.

He said the medical staff at different facilities where he was held had also taken part in the abuse “in violation of all laws.” He said some detainees had limbs amputated because of poor medical care.




All victims of gross human rights violations in Palestine and Israel are owed reparation, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch on June 26 submitted recommendations to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, had invited input to inform her October 2024 report to the United Nations General Assembly on the ongoing hostilities.

Under international law, governments responsible for abuses are obliged to provide effective remedies for human rights violations, including through truth, justice, compensation, memorialization, and guarantees of non-recurrence. Non-state armed groups also have responsibilities to provide reparation. Reparation processes should center on the rights of victims and be carried out after meaningful and effective consultations with them. Other countries that have, or whose businesses have, supported one side or the other should contribute to reparations and all other countries should press the parties to the conflict to commit to provide reparations.

“The parties to the conflict need to repair the harm they have caused to victims in the ongoing hostilities,” said Clive Baldwin, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “Governments supporting Israel and Palestinian armed groups should not only use their leverage to stop further abuses, but also to ensure that victims and survivors receive meaningful reparations.”





Gaza remains under assault. Day 270 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 37,925 people have been killed and 87,141 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave has said.  At least 25 were killed and 81 wounded in the 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."

This morning, THE NATIONAL notes:

At least 8,572 Palestinian pupils have been killed in Gaza and 100 in the occupied West Bank since Israel began its war on Gaza, the Wafa news agency reported citing the Palestinian Education Ministry.

The ministry added that at least 497 teachers and administrators were killed and 3,402 wounded in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Read our long read feature on how Israel’s destruction of schools and universities will set Gaza back decades.




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