Ann's Mega Dub: 12/22/24

Friday, December 27, 2024

Miss Vivek wants your ear

What makes someone trash? Maybe insulting their own country. Take this:

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a close Donald Trump ally tasked with helping to dismantle the federal government, is facing scorn from both sides of the aisle for saying America has a culture problem — it focuses on prom queens and sports over math and science — and that's why tech companies hire more people from India and China.

Don't remember hearing that kind of talk from him when he was trying to get the Republican Party's presidential nomination. He lost. Now he's going to let the country know what he really thinks of it.

He's upset, it turns out, because in the 90s America watched Saved By The Bell. Huh?

No, it doesn't make sense but what also doesn't make sense is that I never watched Saved By The Bell and I'm not the only one who didn't watch. It was probably a popular show but it did not grip me.

He's angry because -- look at him -- he can't do a single push up but America, he insists, glorifies cheerleaders and football players.

Poor little nerd. Someone gave him an atomic wedgie and it traumatized him for life.

Either that or it's the case that he chose, as a first generation immigrant, to live as an outsider and confused what he saw on television with reality.

Back to the article:

Ramaswamy's old-school pop-culture references were met with ridicule online over his shady business practices in the past.

MDBG Capital, an investment group, commented on the notion, pointing out that Ramaswamy is the "former CEO of a failed/sketchy biotech company that caused loss $ for many while he and his mother pocketed millions. This is who is preaching to American Citizens about accountability and efficiency? Are you dumb? Wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Denigrating mediocre white men who peaked in high school shows the kind of dead-on political instincts that have made Vivek Ramaswamy so beloved in MAGA circles," editor and songwriter Jack Feerick posted on Bluesky.

The Blaze's host and columnist Auron MacIntyre wrote on X: "Turns out the 'waste' that DOGE [the Department of Government Effeciency] wanted to cut from America was Americans."

What a moron Vivica is. Miss Vivica.

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

Friday, December 26, 2024. The Water Cooler Set declares the death of non-FOX "NEWS" cable channels while not understanding the changing media landscape, lived reality is about to hit MAGA hard, and much more.

Let's kick things off with Amanda Marcotte (SALON):

In the face of Vice President Kamala Harris losing the presidential election to Donald Trump, the punditry's focus has been almost exclusively on asking how the Democrats couldn't beat a relentless liar with 34 felony convictions and a previous attempted coup under his belt. Everyone has a different theory about Harris' "messaging," with every critic inevitably arguing that if she had just talked more about their pet issue, she would have won.

Another option, however, is to listen to what swing voters who backed Trump said about their decision. That would seem the wisest choice, but to be fair to people who don't want to go there, hearing these people out is a truly miserable experience. What quickly becomes evident about the median voters in an American focus group is how profoundly opposed they are to even the most basic factual information. On the contrary, it's a community with a pathological aversion to reality, where people compulsively react to anything truth-shaped with hostility, running as hard as they can toward disinformation. They are addicted to BS. Of course they voted for Trump, the country's most reliable dealer of their favorite drug.

This may sound ungenerous to these voters, but only if you've been sparing yourself the torture of engaging their actual opinions. If you hold your nose and dive in, it's startling how much the typical swing voter is allergic to facts. It's not just ignorance, but overt hostility to anything that smacks of veracity. Such as the Trump voter who insisted to the New York Times that Democrats are "lying about pregnancies," by conveying factual information about abortion bans. Or the one who falsely believed "so many people just walk right across the border and get free housing, free food." Or the one who was excited that "Trump brings a Robert Kennedy Jr. or a Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk." Or the one who said the "Democratic Party [is] going after average people who disagreed on Covid, who disagreed on school boards, who disagreed on boys playing in women’s sports," which is just a way to complain about liberals who criticize him on social media for saying things that aren't true.

Sarah Longwell's "Focus Group" podcast ended the year by interviewing Joe Rogan fans who voted for Trump for the first time this election. It was a smart choice, and not just because Rogan's endorsement likely pushed Trump over the top in a shockingly close election. Rogan's audience perfectly illustrates the way the firehose of disinformation online — his conspiracy theory-hyping podcast has over 16 million followers — has pickled the brains of so many otherwise normal people. Most of the people Longwell interviewed couldn't go two minutes without coughing up a conspiracy theory. Everything is a shadowy plot, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the guy who shot Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The straightforward details of the shooting of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson came out after the arrest of Luigi Mangione, and yet these voters refused to believe the banal facts. Some are wallowing in theories that Mangione is a patsy, or that the shooting is a psyop. The truer any information was, the more they rejected it.

MAGA is stupid. There's no reason to pretend otherwise. When we'd get a MAGA uber drive in whatever state we were campaigning in last fall, their ignorance regarding how a tariff works wasn't the only thing that came up. There was so much more stupidity.

We noted on recently and a lot of people e-mailed asking what was I talking about. Roseanne Barr gave a big speech that people on the YOUTUBE left and 'left' mocked -- it did deserve that -- but didn't really seem to understand.

Roseanne, in her speech, was talking about Donald Chump as a savior to children -- I'm blocking the speech -- in my mind -- because it's so painful to watch someone who should know better fall into lies.

And I know Roseanne so I know how she fell in. Things didn't make sense to her, she smokes way too much pot, her sleep is always erratic meaning she's often up all night reading conspiracies on the internet and taking them as truth and praising God that he's seen fit to enlighten her and now it's her job to enlighten others.

While he was in office from 2017 through 2021, she honest believes -- because of lies on the internet -- that governments -- including the US -- are part of some world sex slavery system for children and that Chump fought that. He was the savior of children.

These people have been taken out of the real world and plopped into crazy land.

And if you speak to them -- and we spoke to several nut jobs especially when we were campaigning in South Carolina -- you'll find that they base this on internet liars and on the corporate media system.

Internet liars should be obvious, they're spreading it.

Why did the nut jobs also point to the corporate media.

In their minds, the corporate media proved that this lie was true. How so? We would be told that back in 2016 when Hillary Clinton and others were accused of running a children's slave trade out a pizza place in DC, the media was all over that and calling it a lie and blah blah blah.

But, we would be told, notice how they don't say a word about the slave trade Trump is fighting!!!!!

That's proof that it's real!!!!

The media doesn't have the time to respond to every nut job on RUMBLE. But they need to start responding.

It's no fun. I get that. In the last four years, I think we've noted four liars on RUMBLE. They're disgusting people and life is frankly too short for me. But the media needs to be covering it regularly. When they do not call it out, it leads already deluded people to become even more irrational and more delusional.

I spoke about this in a post-election analysis and one person noted that if outlets have time to assign journalists to the Taylor Swift beat and the Beyonce beat, they certainly have time -- and money -- to cover the underbelly of the internet that spreads one lie after another and never gets challenged.

I'm not in the mood to sugar coat. MAGA lives pathetic lives. There's the economy, yes. But it's so much more than that. They are pathetic. And they need to whine and scapegoat. So they target women and people of color who are not their enemies but whom they see as getting ahead while they're sinking. And the resentment builds and they need some unifying theory to explain why this is going on. So they latch on to conspiracy theories while looking for a con artist to rescue them.

"He's a convicted felon!" doesn't matter to them when they're embracing the lie that governments -- including our own -- are participants in global sex trafficking of children and only Donald Chump can save us!!!

They delude themselves and if the lies aren't being addressed by the corporate media, they read that as an admission that the lies are true.

We're probably all doomed, to be honest. Even MSNBC is bringing on crack pots to normalize Chump. We almost posted an MSNBC segment -- I don't know who the host was, some woman -- due to the title but I paused and thought, stream it first. I did. I then deleted it -- I do the evening and overnight posts here at least four hours in advance. I studied poli sci -- undergraduate and graduate. I am well aware of the hypothesis that a madman can bring security to a multi-polar system in some ways. Their Republican guest was trying to make that argument but didn't know that argument.

Chump's lunatic statements about grabbing this country or that? That's now how even a madman brings security. Those statements only inflame international relations. And lead to no options are off the table assertions from other crazy leaders of other countries.

But that's what we got on MSNBC.

Instead of doing what they should be doing -- exposing lies and taking on crackpot notions -- they are bending to him.

And it's stupid for democracy but it's also stupid for business.

The ratings are in free fall!

This is what those pushing changes at CNN and MNSBC insist.

Historically, this is the month when ratings go into free fall. Why? Few care about politics in the holiday season. Interest tapers off following a general election.

There is a lesson to learn and that was provided by MORNING JOE which, post-election, began fawning over Chump and saw their ratings drop significantly. The smartest thing MSNBC could do would be ditch that program. The fawning broke the trust the viewers had for the hosts and then the hosts screaming and yelling at viewers about how people are too stupid to understand what they -- Joe and Mika -- were doing and all that other garbage. It's really the most harmful program the network has.

Ratings keep being mentioned. Ratings aren't everything or the only thing. MORNING JOE is also down on streaming -- which, let's remember, is where everything's headed. Like it or not, that's where it's headed and it's how news and public affairs programs are increasingly consumed.

Take out THE FIVE and FOX "NEWS" is not doing well in streaming. MSNBC is doing much better and has many segments that go over 70,000 views -- some well over that. Take out THE FIVE and you're not seeing a lot of hit clips on YOUTUBE for FOX when it comes to streaming in the last 24 hours. You're dealing with a lot of 14 thousand and 40 thousands. Their biggest streamer in the last 24 hours is 135K for the story about how Russia might have shot down a plane. MSNBC has three videos on that topic and the one with the largest streams is at 221K. CNN covered that as well and their YOUTUBE clip is at 459K.

FOX "NEWS" will from this day forward most likely always have higher viewers because their viewers are older and are youngsters who hit old age early (there's a reason it's called conservativism). But, so sorry all you idiots who keep insisting that these are the worst times for cable 'news' that's not FOX, that is not accurate.

The landscape changed some time ago -- long enough for MODERN FAMILY to have done a joke about it and have Hayley explain that her generation gets their news watching a video at the gas pump -- and all the media observers this month and last acting as though FOX "NEWS" is the big success and the business model of the future? That's just not true.

That should have been in Ava and my piece. In "Raison d'être (Ava and C.I.)," we noted the liars. We didn't note the lazy. Lazy people do no research and run with conventional wisdom and that harms us all.

And while this nonsense has gone on, no one's really challenged it. The Water Cooler Set is what Ava and I have long called these lazy idiots. Many have print experience. You're seeing the impact the internet is having on broadcast and cable and not one of these conventional wisdom idiots can think back to how the internet changed the figures for newspapers? How the audience shifted to outlets websites and not printed page. The consumers want to consume when they want to. They don't want to be dictated to or tied to a schedule they didn't make.

But instead of talking about how consumers are taking in public affairs programs and news stories, we're getting garbage that among the oldy crowd (elderly and those born old), FOX "NEWS" is a success!!! When in fact the streaming on YOUTUBE says otherwise. And you pull segments from THE FIVE out of the mix and FOX "NEWS" is an embarrassment in terms of streams.

By the way, here's the CNN video on Russia that beat MSNBC and FOX "NEWS."

Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:

Donald Trump has promised to cut energy costs, but an expert said some of his policies might end up hurting his own supporters.

The price of natural gas looks likely to jump despite record-high production, which could undermine the president-elect's campaign pledge, and political analyst Leah Wright Rigueur told CNN that energy costs are largely outside the government's control.

"I think, you know, the secretary of the interior, I think the secretary of energy both understand that or the newly appointed, the nominated secretaries understand that," said Rigueur, an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. "What is more interesting, I think right now is the fact that under [president Joe] Biden, these kind of energy policies, particularly under the Inflation Reduction Act, have actually been deeply beneficial to red states and blue states, but in particular red states, in some cases rescuing manufacturing, rescuing energy production, rescuing all kinds of industry, and so there is a push amongst Republicans, particularly Republican congressmen, to keep those acts and to keep those things in place."

As much as the press actually doing their job could help educate voters, the reality is that lived experience is about to educate a lot of people over the next four years.

Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) notes:

Adding to alarm over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's immigration plans, his "border czar" toldThe Washington Post in an interview published Thursday that the administration plans to return to detaining migrant families with children.

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump's first term, said that ICE "will look to hold parents with children in 'soft-sided' tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges," the Post summarized. "The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children, he added, leaving it to those families to decide whether to exit together or be split up."
Since Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris last month, migrant rights advocates have reiterated concerns about the Republican's first-term policies—such as forced separation of families—and his 2024 campaign pledges, from mass deportations to attempting to end birthright citizenship, despite the guarantees of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Homan—who oversaw the so-called "zero tolerance" policy that separated thousands of migrant kids from their parents—said: "Here's the issue... You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position."

And then there's Elon and other idiots.

Their statements are outraging even MAGA. Educating MAGA now in the way that the media failed to do in the lead up to the election. Charlie Nash (MEDIAITE) notes:

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy received heavy backlash on Thursday after he suggested that Americans were not being hired because they were mediocre.

After Ramaswamy and billionaire Elon Musk came under fire from prominent Trump supporters on X, formerly Twitter, for supporting H-1B visas over the training and hiring of American workers, Ramaswamy defended his position in a post which accused the United States of suffering from a culture of “mediocrity.”

The following sites updated:

Thursday, December 26, 2024

Just send the crook to jail already

Disgraced creep Rudy Giuliani is trying a new defense -- he's given all he can. This after violating one judicial order after another and getting violating it. Told to turn over his car, he claims he doesn't have it and then is seen zipping around Florida in it. He's just a damn liar who has repeatedly refused to abide by the legal judgment the court reached, refused to abide by the court orders and has frequently failed to show up in court. Alex Woodward (The Independent) reports:

As he prepares to return to a Manhattan courtroom to face the judge overseeing his transfer of property to women he defamed, Rudy Giuliani is urging him not to hold him in contempt.

In a series of court filings on Christmas Eve, the former New York City mayor implored District Judge Lewis Liman to reject a demand for sanctions from a pair of election workers who accused Giuliani of repeatedly violating court orders — including blowing past deadlines and throwing up obstacles to hand over his property to satisfy tens of millions of dollars he owes them.

He's had more than enough time to abide by the legal decision and he's refused to. Toss him in jail already. Nobody else would get these kinds of breaks. He's refused to follow court orders, put him in jail.

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

Thursday, December 26, 2024. We can't afford fakery which means we can't afford Marianne Williamson.

Yesterday, at THIRD, "Raison d'être (Ava and C.I.)" went up. I want to talk about it for a moment to explain the point of this site as well and maybe also explain why certain things bother me -- and so we cover them -- and certain things do not bother me.

Truth and lies.

In most cases, personal lies don't bother me. I've known far too many survivors -- often burdened by survivors guilt -- to try to play lie detector on your personal lives. I am friends with a very well known couple who are marketed as the perfect couple. As marketed, they are. Reality, he's asexual and she's got a very strong sex drive. They do not have sex together. They never have. He really doesn't have sex at all (other than with himself). But they do love each other and, very early in their courtship, they figured out that they wanted to marry and what their marriage would be. It's unconventional for some, but it's a loving marriage and they support one another 100%. When one of them is doing publicity for a project, I don't hear them speak and think, "Liar!"

They do love each other and are committed to one another. The fact that they don't -- and have never -- slept together is not a detail that they make public for the press. Nor should they have to. And when one of them speaks to the press and a remark might portray their relationship different than it is, I'm not bothered.

It's nobody's business.

I also don't do dog piles. Except on politicians. They're public servants so they need to be held to a higher standard. But I don't do pile ons. When Britney Spears was being mocked by everyone in the '00s, Ava and I didn't mock her. When she was suing to be responsible for her own actions, an e-mail came into THIRD lumping us in with all the people who had called her crazy and worse. Ty told us ab out the e-mail and we said it never happened. Because it didn't. We considered a comment of some kind only once, when she guest starred on a sitcom and we chose to instead ignore the appearance. In the '00s, it was pile on and attack young women.

We did write about that -- the pile ons and how they piled onto young women. We did note Lindsay Lohan being attacked or this woman attacked or that.

And you had a lot of outlets attacking. I'm not referring to TMZ or whatever garbage outlet. I'm talking about THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, for example. Young men and early middle aged men at TAP and other left outlets attacked various female celebrities over and over. And largely got away with it. But while Ana Kasparian was eager to be one of the boys -- always -- and doing the same thing at TYT, some of us had standards and didn't play that game.

And some of us were actually interested in equality. When you see some media s**t storm, the smartest thing you can ever do is take a step back and look at the person involved. Did they bring it on themselves? Sometimes people do -- you go to a prestigious industry function and you run up on stage and punch (or in Will's case, slap, because that's the kind of 'man' he is), then you've brought it on yourself. You've done something cowardly and embarrassing and no one's ever done that at the Academy Awards before so you brought it on yourself.

But there are more often media s**t storms show that if you take a step back and look at it, you'll find that the person isn't doing anything that's very important to the world and, most often, is being held to a different standard. So a woman, for example, gets slammed for something that a man would never be slammed for. Or a person of color gets slammed for something that a White person gets a pass on.

Media s**t storms often -- but not always -- are rooted in racism and sexism. So I try to give people a pass and avoid pile ons. Again, I'm referring to when the target is an average citizen, an entertainer, that sort of thing. Not to a politician.

Mel Brooks lies about about his relationship with Anne Bancroft and has for years. I'm not going to go into that but I'm not going to pretend that I don't know reality.

I don't talk about it and I don't write about it.

Ava and my "Raison d'être (Ava and C.I.)" has bothered a few people. Too damn bad. If you're a Mel Brooks fan, you've already got some problems that I can't help you with. He is a nasty person and if that's news to you, what world have you lived in?

He was held accountable by Ava and myself and he should have been. He's a nonstop liar and glory hog. So if you're putting him on camera -- as the idiot who made the 'documentary' did -- you're responsible for what you put on screen.

Ava and I focused on only two lies in that short 'documentary' (I believe it was 38 minutes). He made a big to do about SILENT MOVIE and how it was hard for him to sell it to the studios. No, it wasn't. We didn't go into that lie but easily could have. He pretends, on camera, that he sold the film on himself and Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise and since most people never saw the movie -- then or since -- he gets away with that lie. That's not what got the film made.

Liza Minelli agreed to be in the movie. This was a big news. She was coming off her Academy Award win and the success of CABARET. Yes, LUCKY LADY bombed. That film was released December 25, 1975. After SILENT MOVIE had been filmed (SILENT MOVIE was released in June of 1976). He also had Paul Newman do a part. That helped get the movie made. But what got the move made was Burt Reynolds. He and Anne invited Burt to their home to beg him to appear in the film and, not only that, to do a shower scene in the film. Now, we'll be kind, and we won't note what was done to Burt in that scene -- unless Mel Brooks wants to be known as the new Harvey Weinstein. But that's what got the movie made. Burt was one of the biggest box office stars at the time, his COSMO spread (nude but privates covered) had been huge and all of his movies since involved ways to get him shirtless and, when possible, in his jockey shorts because he was considered to be sex on a stick.

For reasons Mel Brooks should go into himself, Mel doesn't want to tell that story. Instead, he decided to lie. Again, on camera. And a s**ty 'director' allowed it to go onscreen.

So you get Mel telling this hugely convoluted story claiming that STAR WARS was a huge success and because of that the studio had money to spend and because of STAR WARS huge success Wall Street was suddenly interested in films and buying up studios and SILENT MOVIE worked in commentary on that.

The only truth in the paragraph above? STAR WARS was a huge success.

We detail, Ava and I, how he is wrong about the buyouts he's claiming took place after STAR WARS success -- for example, GULF & WESTERN bought PARAMOUNT around the same time they bought RKO from Lucille Ball back in the sixties. And Wall Street was always involved in the film business and is, in fact, the reason Louis B Mayer got fired from MGM in the 50s -- despite Mel's lie that Mayer got to do whatever he wanted. (Prior to Mayer being fired, Wall Street had imposed Dore Schary on him in 1948 as vice president of production. We left Dore out of our piece because that's a whole long story.)

But the biggest lie of all out of Mel's mouth was STAR WARS.

I've never seen STAR WARS. At this point, I never will. It's such a shock to some people I meet that I feel like I need to continue to not see it. I wanted to see it and I planned to see it when it first came out. But a family emergency meant I missed it at the last minute and I honestly never got around to it.

But a lot of people did see STAR WARS. Above, I noted Liza and how LUCKY LADY came out at the end of 1975 while SILENT MOVIE came out six months later in June 1976. Liza was still a huge star when she was cast in SILENT MOVIE.

But do those dates not make a point for you? STAR WARS came out in May 1977. Mel Brooks went on camera -- and dumb ass fool put it on the screen -- and told a long, long story about how his crappy SILENT MOVIE only got made because of the success of STAR WARS when, in fact, STAR WARS was released 11 months after SILENT MOVIE opened.

He's a damn liar. (And he also lied about inventing the term "high anxiety," but read the piece, I didn't mean to go on this long about it here.)

And now the lies are out there, on film, because idiots didn't think truth mattered.

There's a YOUTUBER who started as a blogger and keeps his nose down and tries to focus on serious matters. I like him. I like his work. But only because he tries to focus on serious matters did I not rip him apart when he repeated one lie after another about William Friedken. If Sherry dies before this site goes dark, I'll be much more vocal about that piece of crap person. But the YOUTUBER who researches everything before writing or doing a video didn't research a damn thing on Friedkin. Instead, he went with lies that Freidken had told and that idiots -- Ben Mankowitz, I'm looking at you -- signed off on. (See Ava and my "TV: Lies and more lies from The Water Cooler Set" from 2017.)

And I love Sherry to death but we still called Friedken out. And I get so damn tired of having to call out lies while others online just do whatever they want to stay in a circle jerk. There is an actor who hates me to this day for panning his show. We knew each other. He was in a lousy show. We praised him -- because he was good in it -- and we praised the female star because she was great in it. But he is convinced that we got his show cancelled and his career destroyed. By the same token, a friend praises us for getting his ABC show moved to a different night when it was going to be cancelled instead. We do the best we can to make real calls and not be part of some stupid circle jerk. (That remark will make more sense when we get to a video later in the snapshot.)

Another thing that ticks me off is when I do the work required and people want to argue in e-mails.

Thanksgiving Day of 2008, Bully Boy Bush and Nouri al-Maliki pushed through the SOFA. I read the entire damn thing and composed an analysis of it -- a legal analysis. And what I got for at least two years was being trashed. Because some people didn't want to believe it. Did they read the SOFA? Obviously not. But they wanted to attack me for my analysis and the only that finally stopped that was the actual events demonstrated I had analyzed it correctly. But too many wanted to worship Barack Obama and refuse to believe he would allow this to happen.

Hysterical since both he and Joe Biden campaigned on the 'fact' that they would not abide by any SOFA Bully Boy Bush negotiated -- and they had senators like Dick Durbin saying the same thing in the late summer and early fall of 2008.

So right there, there rush to rescue Barack and insist I was lying about what the SOFA said? They should have read that thing, that's first, and second they should have noticed that Barack was allowing it to go through and that, in fact, his campaign website immediately pulled the promise that they would abide by no agreement Bully Boy Bush tried to push through.

More recently, I've been attacked over "My Labor Day Weekend" -- actually attacked twice. First, I got attacked by some when it went up in 2022. I have to turn out a lot of copy to post daily, every day. And I try to find new ways to discuss something. I have no idea what I was trying to draw attention to news wise that day. But I had an interesting personal story that I thought might result in more eyeballs for whatever the issue was that day. A spoonful of sugar to get the news down.

So I wrote about an actor who was in the closet. I wrote about how I was asked to speak with him -- I barely knew him -- and how I did. (Some attacked me for my comments about the valley. I'm not driving in the valley, people, I have had serious eye issues for the last few years.) I wrote about it and about him and tried to give a sense of who he was. I noted the type of films he made, an award, etc. Since he didn't want to come out, I didn't put his name in it.

And got accused of making it up. And on and on it went for almost two years.

Then what happened? Stan wrote "Earl Holliman" and the attacks began all over. I'm not calling out Stan or griping about Stan. Earl Holliman passed away and suddenly the world knew he was gay. And as Stan noted, I'd written about it two years prior. Now a new group of whiners showed up to attack me for not naming him back in 2022. I thought I went way too close with what I wrote in 2022. I went over some of this in this "Iraq snapshot" last month. But while the ones who'd called me a liar in 2022 were suddenly silent, a new group showed up to trash me for not naming Earl. It wasn't my place to name him. He was sickly, he thought he was going to die (he thought he only had a few months but ended up having two years). We had met at a party many years prior and probably nodded to one another a few times after that. It was not my place to speak for him or to out him.

And it ticks me off because I do real things in my writing. I offend friends, I tick people off. I don't play favorites. And the other side of that is the circle jerk -- a bunch of people getting together offline and coming up with the lie that they're going to sell you while pretending their truth tellers and brave YOUTUBERS and listen to them because they make the hard calls, really, really they do!

I'd planned to write about Jill Stein this morning. Instead, the video below necessitated the above.

Out of respect for people's religious beliefs, I do not use a religious figure's name in vain. That's been the policy since this site started. Were it not for that policy, this is where I would be using Ann Romano's catch phrase from ONE DAY AT A TIME.

There are many things this country needs., Marianne Williamson is not one of them.

I know Marianne. I've tried to be fair to her here and I've tried to be honest. The honest side? Long before POLITICO and others discovered that she was a nightmare to work for, I'd noted that here. Because she is. I never had a problem because I didn't work for her. But I did see people reduced to tears in a manner that, honestly, I've only ever seen from people who worked for MT.

Marianne doesn't just attack them, she destroys them.

In 2020, I just covered the ones running and tried to stay out of it -- didn't endorse anyone -- and let them make their own mistakes. Marianne made more than enough.

After even Marianne grasped her campaign was a loser and over, she appeared on RISING with whispers about how Krystal and her idiot co-host had no idea what really went down. Do tell, Marianne. Well, she wouldn't. Not right now, she insisted, but she'd be back on, after the election, to dish.

She never did. And she was never held accountable. You want to imply that all these awful things took place that would horrify voters? Then talk.

Despite having run the third worst 2020 campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination -- yes, there were two worse than her but remember there were nearly 30 candidates so there were a lot who did much better -- Marianne decides she wants to run again.

There's no demand for this. People aren't asking for it.

Enter the Circle Jerk.

Marianne can't get supporters and can't get big media so she courts YOUTUBERS and goes to Kyle and Krystal's wedding.

Ignore the circle jerk, right?

It has no impact at all and certainly Krystal didn't recruit everyone she knew on YOUTUBE to then start pimping Marianne.

That would be pretty questionable. And the only thing that would make it worse is if she did a video with her gal pals and started screaming at people -- viewers -- that they had to get on board with Marianne, that Marianne was the only answer!

Oh, wait.

That did happen.

And that's why we're ditching Jill Stein and every other topic to focus on the hard truths and those who tell them as opposed to those in the Circle Jerk who regularly lie to you and have their own motives that they never reveal or acknowledge.

When Krystal was pimping Marianne, she wasn't even being honest about how she knew Marianne or that Marianne had just attended her wedding to Kyle.

You didn't 'deserve' to know that, in her mind. Which is why it took other people online to expose it.

That's a detail, a disclosure, that a journalist is supposed to make all on their own.

Instead, Krystal lied and got her gal pals Katie Halper and Bri-Bri and Jugs Needs A Bra, to lie to you as well.

And they continued to lie in the lead up to the primaries and after the primaries started.

And they don't want to acknowledge it but some of these liars then went on to promote Jill Stein -- as late as June and July, some of the whores on YOUTUBE who pretend they're so honest were pimping Jill Stein. They pray to God that you've forgotten.

The Democratic Party has many, many problems.

None of them will be fixed by Marianne.

She has no leadership skills -- leadership is not leaving people in tears running to cry in a bathroom. She has no let's-get-in-touch-with-religion skills. She's a New Age charlatan along the lines of Aimee Semple McPherson, And if you think the DNC seems out of touch now, wait until a crackpot like Marianne gets installed.

She's held no public office -- another Jill Stein -- and she runs lousy campaigns.

She was a joke in 2020.

She was an embarrassment in 2024.

I said here in 2023 that I'd vote for the Democratic Party nominee for president regardless of who it was because of the very clear threat that Donald Trump represented to this country.

It was obvious that Joe needed to step aside. Marianne crashed and burned early. Then she decided she'd get back into the race. And please note that she still floundered and that Uncommitted regularly got more votes in the primaries Marianne ran in.

No one wants her.

She's a raving loon. She gets crazier with each year.

No one wanted her and she dropped out.

Then Joe stepped aside and suddenly the dumb ____ is trying to demand the nomination. No one ever wanted her. But there she was trashing Kamala Harris, trashing the party , insisting we needed a primary!!!! Joe announces he won't run for re-election on July 21st.

There is no time for a primary.

Idiot YOUTUBERS never know history and just yack yack yack about the 'old days' of 2016. You don't know history, you don't know a damn thing.

Primaries wrap up by June for a reason. People are vested in their candidate. They are angry if their candidate doesn't get the nomination. It takes months for the party to then pull together.

The election is at the start of November and Joe announces at the end of July that he's stepping down.

There's no time for primaries because that's not just about voting -- a vote could have been done in a week -- it's also about people coming together around the nominee. A vote could be done in a week but all the voters whose nominee didn't win would be upset for several weeks.

And then we had the issue of Marianne and her whining and her attacking the DNC and stirring up s**t when the quack should have just shut her damn mouth because no one wanted her.

Kamala was the natural choice. She was on the ticket with Joe Biden. Joe was the nominee. Joe was the president. Had Joe passed away in July, Kamala would have become the president. By the same token, Joe stepping aside 29 days before the start of the convention made his running mate Kamala the obvious choice to be the nominee.

But there was Marianne simpering on camera in that hideous voice of hers and attacking Democrats and attacking the party and whining that she wasn't the nominee. STFU.

This had never happened before. The party got a chance at a do over. And we should have all rallied (many of us did). Instead, you had nut jobs like Marianne Williamson working to temper enthusiasm with their stupidity and her non-stop whines about some long ago sleight where she was done wrong years ago. Non-stop whines, please remember, that she took to FOX "NEWS" repeatedly. Anything to be on camera, no matter how much it hurt the Democratic Party, right, Marianne?

She hurt the nominee. She's part of the reason Chump's headed back to the White House.

That's reason one not to support her as chair of the DNC.

Reason two, her constant 2020 attacks, after she dropped out of the race, on the DNC and her whisper campaign against them. If she'd come out with whatever big thing she just knew we were going to be shocked by, that would be one thing. Instead she chose to tease and tease.

Reason three, she has no skills to head an organization.

Reason four, she ran a sleuth campaign (poorly) for the nomination where she and others concealed backroom deals and arrangements that resulted in Krystal and others pimping her for 2024. That was deceitful and dishonest.

Reason five, she's done nothing with her life. She's over 70 and all she's got is some quack books that she tried to pass off, in the 90s, as cures for AIDS and suffering from AIDS.

Reason six, she's over 70 and supposedly we want new blood, fresh blood in the party.

Reason seven, she's not a fighter. She dropped out of the 2020 race before it ended. She dropped out of the 2024 race not once but twice. She couldn't even stand up to Bill Maher when he trashed transgender people.

For all these reasons and so many more, Marianne Williamson should not be even be running for the DNC char position.

Again, that's not what I planned to cover today. We were going to talk about Jill Stein and some court developments. But the Democratic Party cannot afford Marianne or her nonsense or her cheerleaders like Krystal Ball. We can't afford the dishonesty.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: Tori Amos' DEEP DIVE into obscurity" and "Kat's Korner: Will there be justice for Lone Justice?" went up Tuesday.

We'll wind down with this press release from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Merger of Big Drug Wholesaler, Gastroenterology Service Provider Threatens Competition, Cost Increases, and Health Risks to Patients

By allowing wholesalers to control physician practices, wholesalers could pressure doctors to prescribe medicine that is most profitable for them, even if it’s not in the best interest of their patients

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, urging the agency to closely scrutinize pharmaceutical wholesaler Cardinal Health’s $3.9 billion proposed acquisition of a majority stake in GI Alliance, the country’s largest gastroenterology management services organization.

“This deal threatens to limit competition by expanding Cardinal Health’s control of physician practices, while giving Cardinal an incentive to restrict those practices from contracting with Cardinal’s rival wholesalers,” wrote Senator Warren.

Cardinal Health has a long history of leveraging its dominant market power in a way that negatively impacts patients and health care providers. The company controls 28% of the prescription drug wholesale market, making it one of the three biggest wholesalers in the country. Along the way, Cardinal has pursued an aggressive vertical acquisition strategy, buying up companies to solidify its dominance in the wholesaler market , including acquiring a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO), a data analytics firm, medical device lines, specialty pharmacies, and physician practices. These acquisitions are part of a broader trend of health care conglomerates operating as both seller and buyer of prescription drug services.

“Cardinal has consistently locked its customers into restrictive contracts, blocked out rival wholesalers, and squeezed generic drug manufacturers, leading to more frequent drug shortages, higher drug costs, and poorer health outcomes,” wrote Senator Warren.

In October, Senator Warren sounded the alarm about another one of Cardinal’s proposed acquisitions: Cardinal’s acquisition of Integrated Oncology Network (ION), an MSO that oversees over 50 physician practices spanning 10 states. With this acquisition, Cardinal would be able to force its affiliated practices to enter into sole-source or prime vendor agreements, locking them in and effectively blocking competing wholesalers from offering their services — while introducing conflicts of interest that could raise drug costs. The FTC did not act, and the acquisition was completed earlier this month. The new Cardinal-GI Alliance deal is even larger in scope, posing a bigger threat.

“In addition to the concerns I outlined in my October letter, the acquisition of GI alliance introduces further opportunities for self-dealing, as Cardinal serves as the primary supplier of pharmaceutical products for Gastrologix GPO — the only gastroenterology-focused GPO in the nation,” wrote Senator Warren. “Accordingly, I urge FTC to closely scrutinize this deal, including under Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits any acquisition that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.”

Senator Warren has long highlighted the negative consequences of vertical integration in the health care industry on patients, providers, and taxpayers. Senator Warren recently introduced her Patients Before Monopolies Act (PBM Act), bipartisan and bicameral legislation to prohibit joint ownership of PBMs and pharmacies, a gross conflict of interest that enables these companies to enrich themselves at the expense of patients and independent pharmacies.

Senator Warren has led efforts to use every tool available to the government to lower drug prices and fight anticompetitive business practices in the health care industry:

In October 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) urged the FTC to closely scrutinize the Novo Nordisk-Catalent merger and to block it if it violated antitrust law.
In September 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) wrote to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra asking him to lower the cost of vital weight-loss drugs by using the agency’s existing legal authority to issue generic licenses for semaglutide, a prescription drug sold under the names Ozempic and Wegovy.
In August 2024, Senators Warren and King and Representative Doggett wrote to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo reiterating their agencies’ clear legal authority to use “march-in” rights under the Bayh-Dole Act to lower drug prices for Americans.
In June 2024, Senator Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent letters to eight pharmaceutical companies urging them to voluntarily de-list over 100 patents that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has determined may be improperly or inaccurately listed in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Orange Book, which would open opportunity for more competition and lower drug prices for Americans.
In May 2024, Senator Warren and Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, and Under Secretary Laurie Locascio, highlighting the lawmakers’ new review of public comments on the agency’s Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights and urged them to strengthen and finalize the guidance.
In May 2024, Senators Warren, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote to the Chamber of Commerce expressing concern and demanding an explanation for the organization’s opposition to the Biden administration’s proposal to boost competition and lower drug prices for American families and businesses by allowing agencies to consider price when deciding to exercise their “march-in rights” under the Bayh-Dole Act.
In April 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the leadership of Novo Nordisk (Novo), slamming the company for its decision to discontinue production of Levemir (detemir) insulin, one of only three long-acting insulins on the market, and asked the company to commit to continue producing Levemir until a biosimilar is made available.
In March 2024, Senator Warren sent a letter in response to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) discontinuing the brand-name version of Flovent HFA, the go-to inhaler for children, blasting the company for its price-gouging strategy that may cause millions of children to lose access to one of the few drugs that is appropriate to treat their asthma and allergies.
In February 2024, Senators Warren and Angus King (I-Maine) and U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) led 75 lawmakers in sending a letter to the Biden administration in support of strengthening and finalizing its draft guidance to protect taxpayers and reduce prescription drug prices. The lawmakers submitted a public comment supporting the “Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights” and calling for changes to ensure increased transparency, oversight, and accessibility of medical products invented through taxpayer-funded research and development.
In February 2024, Senator Warren and Representative Jayapal announced that three drug manufacturers pulled their sham patents after warnings, and urged the FDA to continue fighting against Big Pharma’s patent abuse.
In December 2023, Senator Warren published an op-ed in Newsweek commending the Biden administration’s announcement that price can be considered in the government’s decision to march-in on a drug, effectively lowering drug costs, and calling on Americans to fight back against an industry that has been taking advantage of them for decades.
In December 2023, Senator Warren issued a statement after the Biden administration announced it would issue guidance to federal agencies that would allow the government to seize patents of certain expensive drugs developed with taxpayer support to create more competition and lower prices.
In December 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Jayapal sent letters to the CEOs of 8 pharmaceutical companies urging them to voluntarily remove sham patent claims improperly included in the FDA’s Orange Book and end their unlawful practices that delay competition and drive up costs for patients and taxpayers.
In December 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, legislation that would radically reduce drug prices through public manufacturing of prescription drugs.
In September 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Jayapal sent a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan urging the FTC to issue a policy statement about the improper listing of drug-related patents in the FDA’s Orange Book.
In August 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Jayapal sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf, urging him to close loopholes that pharmaceutical companies have exploited to block generics from entering the market, keeping drug prices high and maximizing profits.

###

Monday, December 23, 2024

Tara Reade and her buddy Matt Gaetz

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S MEGA DUB & THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS & THE COMMON ILLS -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

NASTY ASS NOTED FATSO TARA READE LOVES HER SOME MATT GAETZ. SHE DEFECTED TO RUSSIA -- POSSIBLY TO ELUDE BILL COLLECTERS THOUGH THE TRUTH ESTRANGED READE HAS ALWAYS INSISTED SHE DEFECTED TO RUSSIA BECAUSE THEN U.S. HOUSE REP. MATT GAETZ SAID IT WAS TOO HOT FOR HER IN THE U.S. SO SHE RUN -- OR AT LEAST MOVE AS QUICKLY AS A WOMAN OF HER SIZE CAN.

LIVING IN RUSSIA, SHE HAS EMBRACED MATT FROM AFAR -- MAINLY BECAUSE WHILE MATT MAY BE UGLY, HE'S NOT ATTRACTED TO UGLY WOMEN -- OR UGLY GIRLS. YES, THE UNDERAGE. IT'S NO LONGER SPECULATION, THE REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES RELEASED THEIR FINDINGS ON REPUBLICAN MATT GAETZ WHICH CONCLUDED HE "VIOLATED HOUSE RULES AND OTHER STANDARDS OF CONDUCT PROHIBITING PROSTITUTION, STATUTORY RAPE, ILLICIT DRUG USE, IMPERSMISSIBLE GIFTS, SPECIAL FAVORS OR PRIVILEGES, AND OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS."

AS LATE AS DECEMBER 22ND, TARA READE WAS TWEETING ABOUT MATT RUNNING FOR THE U.S. SENATE. BUT REACHED FOR COMMENTS MOMENTS AGO BY THESE REPORTERS -- BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S MEGA DUB & THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS & THE COMMON ILLS -- FATTY FIRST CHASTIZED US FOR INTERRUPTING HER TWO HOUR BREAKFAST (IT IS ALMOST 8:30 AM IN MOSCOW CURRENTLY) AND WE WERE GLAD TO HEAR THAT. ONLY A TWO HOUR BREAKFAST NOW? SHE MUST BE CUTTING BACK.

ASKED IF SHE FELT DIFFERENTLY ABOUT HER FRIEND GAETZ NOW THAT SHE KNEW HE DRUGGED WOMEN AND COMMITTED STATUORY RAPE, THE MORBIDLY OBESE WOMAN INSISTED, "I'M JUST FINE. I'VE NEVER CARED ABOUT OTHER WOMEN, ONLY ME. I SURROUND MYSELF WITH RAPISTS AND PEDOPHILES -- MATT, SCOTT RITTER, PUTIN, YOU NAME IT. THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. SOME PEOPLE ACCUSE ME OF BEING A HYPOCRITE BUT I SAY AS LONG AS VLADIMIR PUTIN IS WILLING TO PAY MY GROCERY BILLS, I'M WILLING TO SAY AND DO WHATEVER HE TELLS ME. FUNYONS DON'T GROW ON TREES, YOU KNOW -- NOTHING EDIBLE OR TASTY DOES. ARE YOU RECORDING THIS?"

YES.

"WELL COULD YOU PLEASE NOT MENTION MY FARTS? I THINK I'VE FARTED ON EVERY WORD I'VE SAID. OOPS! ANOTHER ONE. OOPS! NO, NOT ANOTHER ONE. A LITTLE MORE THAN JUST GAS SLIPPED OUT WITH THAT ONE."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Now let's deal with some stupidity from the left or 'left':

An AI image? Oh, I love crap-ass lying Socialists because they make their stupidity so very obvious from the very start. Lamentably Awake isn't using a photo either. He was apparently some Twitter god for Elon Musk's social media once upon a time. And I'll stick with he because he writes like either a "he" or a "man identifying woman." And that latter term has nothing to do with a trans person. It has everything to do with a queen bee who disowns her sisters to be the sole woman in the room (see Gloria Steinem's REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN if you're new to the queen bee).

La-La really needs to find a lane and stay there. Veronica McDonald is a Democrat. She's talking about a Democrat. And she's holding a Democrat accountable.

Now, I get it, since US SOCIALIST WORKER went down in flames and accusations and charges, it's been hard for the JACOBIN left and 'left' to educate their followers but there's nothing right-wing about what Veronica Tweeted. Or are we unaware of the Spanish Loyalist War? How damn stupid is La-La?

I don't have time to educate the intentionally stupid.

Rashida Tlaib is Zell Miller -- a Democrat who betrayed the party in a presidential election. She made the decision to work to take down the party's presidential nominee. In terms of party politics, she's a Benedict Arnold. B-b-b-but Palestinians!!!

Palestinians didn't elect her to the Palestine Congress.

She was elected to the US Congress and took an oath to uphold the Constitution-- an oath she abandoned when she worked to support Chump's campaign. With her sister, she worked to destroy Joe Biden and, when Joe dropped out, she worked to destroy Kamala.

Gaza was important to her than the Democratic Party or the American people or immigrants in this country or addressing climate change. Suggesting that she take her protected ass to Palestine and fight for the last thing she supposedly believe in isn't a right-wing talking point. On the left, it was often deployed against those in the US who favored the military uprising in Spain -- the left suggested that right-wingers take their safe little asses to Spain and fight for the fascism that they rooted for.

Veronica Tweeted nothing that was offensive unless you're a whiny ass cry baby outside the Democratic Party who thinks you have a say in this. Because you really don't. This is a party matter and we don't need nor do we want your input. She took money from the DNC and would not have been re-elected without it. She then turned and s**t on the Democratic Party. That was her choice.

She has to live with that choice now. We're not going to ignore her betrayal. We will laugh at her hypocrisy. Such as this:

In the crucial last month before President Joe Biden leaves office, immigrants and allies on Tuesday urged the president to offer protections for immigrant communities before Donald Trump is inaugurated.

The president-elect has promised the largest deportation in U.S. history, stoking fear and uncertainty among undocumented immigrants and immigration advocates over a sweeping platform that marked the core of Trump’s GOP presidential campaign.

Speaking near the U.S. Capitol, the “Home is Here” campaign featured immigrant youth, allies and advocates demanding Biden take executive action.

[. . .]

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib also voiced her concerns Tuesday over the president-elect’s immigration plans.

“We cannot underestimate, as you all know, what will unfold the moment Trump takes office in January, and we need as many people as possible working to resist this hateful agenda,” the Michigan Democrat said.

Tlaib noted that Biden “still has power to take immediate executive action to protect our immigrant communities.”

She also said “we must continue to work incredibly hard, not only to outwork the hate, but to really promote love and justice within our communities.”

Shut your lying mouth, just shut it. You don't care about immigrants. No one who does would have ever voted for Donald Chump. No one who cares for immigrants would have worked to defeat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

You made your decision and you'll have to live with it. And Home Is Here and other organizations are going to have to learn that she's not going to pull people over to the cause. No, she's as toxic now as, for example, Cynthia McKinney was when they ran her out of Congress the first time. That's not me endorsing the running out of Cynthia. That's me noting reality that others try to ignore. Rashida's done. Her actions in 2024 have doomed many people in this country and no one's going to paper over that to make it pretty. She has to be held accountable for her part in putting Chump back in the White House. She has to be held accountable for all that follows.

And her fan base of uneducated Socialist -- not all Socialist are uneducated -- most are highly educated -- though many DSA-ers are come off as home schooled -- can glom to her and try to protect her but that's not going to work. It never has historically. She's done. Fork in her ass time. It's over. Whatever national platform she once had is over. So much so that I'm sure even Chump considers her more of a joke than a threat and she won't make his enemies list.

If it helps any, I don't think she was motivated just by her desire to put Chump back in the White House. I also think Rashida was motivated by her hatred of Black women.

And, one more thing, when you've actively done your part to destroy the Democratic Party's presidential ticked in 2024 the way Rashida did, you're a f**king hypocrite to think you can then make demands on Joe Biden in the final days of his presidency. You're gall is appalling.