Ann's Mega Dub

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Joan Rivers

I love Joan Rivers. :D

This is "Here we go again (Ava and C.I.):"

Last night, as Joe Biden floundered, FACEBOOK rushed to assure everyone that he was still alive.

"Joe Biden is live now." If only the campaign were.

The day after the election and six states not yet called and 83 electoral votes up for grabs. It's anyone's race. Here we go again.

Come on now
Oh oh oh oh oh
Here we, here we, here we go again
Well, boy

I caught you slipping (mmm), ooh, you must be trippin'
'Cause now I know, oh, yes I know, mmm
About your other girls in your past, in your black book
A very long time ago, oh oh oh oh
Well, you must think I'm crazy
You must think I'm blind
If you want to keep me, boy
Then stop wasting my time

Here we go again
It's the same old song
You're thinking you're gon' do me
Like the other ones before, baby
Here we go again
It's the same old song
Ooh, straighten up your act
Or else I'm walking out the door

All this time (all this time) I thought that I (I)
Was the one who had the problem, oh yeah, mmm
I gave you everything, hoping things might change
But still you ain't around, so, whoa oh oh
You must think I'm foolish (oh yeah)
You must think I'm blind (Do you think I'm blind?)
If you want (if you want) my precious love (my precious love)
Then stop telling me lies (stop wasting, wasting my time)

-- "Here We Go Again," written by Troy Lee Broussard,Trina Broussard, Jermaine Dupri, Trey Lorenz, Mauro Malavasi, David Romani and Wayne Garfield, first appears on Aretha Franklin's A ROSE IS STILL A ROSE.

Here we go again.

If anyone's image is improved right now, if anyone's stock is on the rise, it's Hillary Clinton's and, no, we're not joking.

Joe may yet pull out a victory. But that's not what he promised -- a squeaker. He and his whores swore he was going to beat Donald Trump and beat Donald in a landslide. We're not just talking about the polls in the lead up to the general election, we're talking about from 2019 and forward. He had, what was the word? Oh, yeah: Electability.

The unstated implication was that Hillary didn't have it.

He was going to be better than Hillary. Why was that again? Help us out?

Because he was promising better programs than she did?

No, that wasn't it.

Because America would unite together for the historic first of electing a White man president?

No, not that either.

Because he was such a better speaker than she was?

No, no.

What was it?

Oh, yeah, because he had a penis. It probably no longer functioned as a sex organ but he had a penis. That's what this was about from day one. Woody Harrelson nailed it in the first SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit when he told America to rest at ease: Daddy's home.

All it took was that dangling Y chromosome -- that was the unspoken but implicit promise.

The 2020 election was all about disrespecting women.

We realized that back in February but leave it to professional bachelor Keith Olbermann to come along yesterday and really nail the point down.

Tuesday Keith Tweeted, "Yes, @realDonaldTrump has always been, will always be, and on the day of his bid for re-election, still is: a whiny little Kunta Kinte."

Poor Keith, it wasn't the mid '00s and people weren't so desperate for anyone to call out Bully Boy Bush that they'd look the other way. Instead, he was slammed for racism. (Kunta Kinte first appears in Alex Haley's 1976 ROOTS and when the book was turned into a mini-series in 1977 LeVar Burton and John Amos played the role.)

Faced with an outcry, Keith deleted the Tweet. After the deletion he Tweeted, "I was using an old 70's-80's technique for calling somebody a c*** without writing/saying c***, just using a sound-alike to call Trump a c***. Deleting previous, largely because this one clarifies the c*** part.''

Confronted with his racism, Keith struggles to stay aloft and figures the best way to do so is with sexism.

The c-word. It's an insult to women in the US. In 2008, it was pretty much shocking to see Matthew Rothschild and others using the word and giggling over it. Matthew giggled at the so-called PROGRESSIVE about an anti-Hillary group whose initials spelled the c-word. The words become less shocking -- how quickly and how coarsely our discourse has become -- and we usually refer to it as Cher's favorite word.

But back to Keith. There he is, in trouble, desperate to save himself from charges of racism and he offers sexism. And he does so because this country doesn't give two s**ts about sexism or about women. That's the reality 2020 drove home.

Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard were both on the receiving end of sexism. It's easy to chart that. But it's equally true that all of the women running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination were targeted with sexism. That was especially obvious early on with Kirsten Gillibrand who was attacked by Al Franken's fools. Al had multiple complaints from multiple women. He also had a damning photo that the USO found both disgusting and embarrassing. Because Kirsten led the calls for his resignation -- a resignation Al went along with -- she was attacked repeatedly in 'progressive' circles.

History was re-written by Al Franken and his idiot cult who astro-turfed over the reality that Al supported the Iraq War. Who ignored his non-stop sexism which stands out most to us when he had Meg Ryan on as a guest for his awful AIR AMERICA RADIO program. Meg was against the Iraq War and spoke of that and the need for an immediate withdrawal. Al? The coward waited until after she was off mike and leaving to tell his listeners that Meg wasn't really informed and, of course, more informed people like himself knew better.

That is the perfect example of 'mansplaining.' But Al's cult is as sexist and dumb as Al Franken.

This go round, Tulsi, Elizabeth, Kirsten, Kamala Harris, Marianne Williams and Amy Klobuchar sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Six women. And often, you would read gripes that this or that woman needed to drop out because her presence was hurting another woman's chance to sew up the nomination.

Interesting, though, there were 29 candidates. If six were women were the others non-Cis genders? No, they were men. 23 were men. And no one ever made the case that if this or that man would drop out that it would help another man because there were too many men in the race.

23 men in the race and a-okay. But six women and suddenly we're reading that too many women were in the race?

Too many women for whom?

As Norman Solomon and others made clear repeatedly, six was too many but so was one. Just one woman was enough to qualify as 'too many.' So they repeatedly slimed Elizabeth Warren. And then when everyone dropped out at the urging of Barack Obama so that the race was now down to Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, these same pigs who'd made one sexist argument after another against Elizabeth started whining about how she wasn't endorsing Bernie. They should have been glad -- doing cartwheels, in fact -- that Elizabeth was being kind enough to stay out of it. She was always going to endorse Joe over Bernie due to the problems she and Bernie had and due to the way his worst supporters had treated her and, let's be honest, because she saw the writing on the wall: Democratic leadership wanted Joe.

You saw the hatred for women in what the press made the biggest moment in the Democratic Party debates -- Tulsi's trashing of Kamala.

This was ground breaking, so many commentators (including Michael Tracey) insisted. Tulsi had destroyed Kamala.

We never saw it that way. And we were right.

"Destroyed" Kamala ended up the running mate on the ticket. That doesn't sound like she was destroyed. Maybe Tulsi was? Maybe Andrew Yang was? Maybe Beto was destroyed?

Kamala wasn't destroyed.

But sexism fueled the way the media viewed and portrayed the exchange. They turned it into a cat fight and celebrated it with glee.

What they should have done is examined both candidates. Were the charges true of Kamala, the charges Tulsi made. (Yes, they were but the press really didn't want to go there.) And they should have examined Tulis and her behavior in that debate. Consistent?

No.

Not at all consistent. She walked onto the stage as the self-proclaimed anti-war candidate. And this is the debate where she attacked Kamala on something other than war. It is also the debate where she was expected to take down Joe Biden. This expectation came not only from her supporters but also from the press because of all she'd said in the lead up to the July debate that finally found her onstage with Joe.

So if she went gunning for Kamala, you know anti-war Tulsi went gunning for Joe, right? Wrong. She gave him a pass. It was shocking. It was shocking to watch. It was shocking to the moderator of the debate CNN's Jake Tapper. So shocking to him, in fact, that he took the question back to Tulsi and gave her a second chance. All she offered was that Joe Biden had apologized for voting for the Iraq War. No, he had not. He apologized -- or said a weak 'sorry' -- only for trusting Bully Boy Bush. He didn't regret his vote. He regretted the way Bully Boy Bush executed the illegal war.

That's not an apology. It also doesn't get into all that he did as a senator after the war started or the damage he did as vice president when Barack had put him in charge of Iraq. That included his initial backing of the awful Ambassador Chris Hill over the top US commander in Iraq Gen Ray Odierno, that includes his brokering The Erbil Agreement -- a legal contract that overturned the votes of the Iraqi people and gave Nouri al-Maliki a second term -- the second term that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq . . .

That's not the full list. And anyone who's 'anti-war' and running to become president damn well should have known that.

Tulsi refused to confront, call out or even fact check Joe.

And we're not just talking about the debate.

The press is sexist and they loved reducing that debate to a 'cat fight' between two women. As a result, Tulsi got two to three days of press coverage the likes of which her campaign hadn't seen before and would never see again. During those interviews, over and over, 'anti-war' Tulsi vouched for Joe Biden.

If you're not thrilled with Joe as a nominee, never forget that anti-war Tulsi went into the July debate determined to knock one person off the stage and it wasn't the only one on the stage who voted for the Iraq War.

29 candidates. Many dropped out. But we saw the sexism in play when Kamala dropped out.

As noted here in the December 4th "Iraq snapshot:"

Let's close this discussion with numbers.

24.

That's the number of Tweets Michael Tracey has done about Kamala Harris since the news broke that she was dropping out of the race.

1.

That's the number of Tweets Michael Tracey did about Steve Bullock since the news broke that he was dropping out of the race.

24 and 1. It's an obsession and, yes, it's Bash The Bitch. As Ava and I noted when Katie Couric was the target in 2006:

For some of the left, though not all, that's at the root of their pursuit of Couric. It's the gift of impunity that allows them to operate in a fact-free environment as they compose the charges against Couric. But those who hear such a statement and nod agreeably are also engaged in the national pastime of bash-the-bitch.
Bash the bitch is as American as apple pie and rush to judgement, so who are we to complain? If it makes us "America haters" to say "Just a minute now" then so be it. Let all the ones partaking in bash-the-bitch wrap themselves in Old Glory, we'll call it the way we see it.
Here's what we see. A woman's trashed. For what she did?
Oh cookie, please, it's for being a woman. Read the commentaries. "Cheerleader" is a trumped up charge -- as usual, the true crime is gender.

Michael Tracey and a lot of others need to look at their actions in the last 24 hours. There's a lot of latent sexism bubbling up.

Throughout 2019 and 2020, we felt like it was 2008 all over again. That's when anything could be and was said about Hillary. 2016 saw a huge improvement. And we wondered at the time if that was because we'd all grown or if was because Hillary being the nominee meant some partisans had to keep it in check?

It was clearly the latter to judge by 2020.

Tara Reade told the truth. And she was slimed for it. We're moving over to that topic because a lot of women need to be called out.

Some women supported Joe Biden. Guess what? If you're not a feminist, we don't really care. If you're a feminist, we do care. If you're a feminist, your support was outrageous. Joe is accused of assault and you prioritized him over a woman.

Why do women not come forward? Because they're not believed or because the dominant society justifies the assault and makes excuses. Linda Hirshman is not a feminist. If that's too harsh, at least join us in saying, "She's not a good feminist."

She says she believes Tara but she was voting Joe.

Don't call yourself a feminist. If you believe a woman and you back up her attacker, you're not a feminist.

A woman could be and was sacrificed and we were told it was for the good of the many.

No, it wasn't.

And they were backing Joe, these 'feminists,' at a time when they didn't have to. There was talk, because Joe was still so weak in the polls (as he is right now), that Andrew Cuomo or Gavin Newsom might be able to sweep the convention. Those 'feminists' could have used their voices to publicly pressure the DNC into selecting an alternate candidate like either Cuomo or Newsom. Instead, they three in the towel and, with their words and actions, made clear that, to them, rape is no big deal, that, to them, the suffering of women is no big deal.

And, in the end, wasn't that Joe's real campaign slogan?

Lucy Flores and other women bravely came forward to talk about his harassment and their reward was Joe issuing a non-apology video and days later making fun of their complaints as he spoke to a union audience.

Over and over, it was made clear that women did not matter.

That was true in the selection of Joe because the underlying point was that he would beat Donald unlike Hillary. Senile, feeble Joe was going to do what Hillary couldn't.

He may yet accomplish that. But the election remains up for grabs as we write this and he has not delivered anything he promised.

Anything? Excuse us, that's imprecise. The only thing he and his supporters ever promised was that he was electable. They insisted that he was more electable than Bernie Sanders, they implied that he was more electable than Hillary Clinton and now, as he struggles throughout the vote counting, it's becoming even more obvious that he was never the best choice.

Maybe some of the above will be explored if he loses? Probably not. A lot of liars are very vested in the pretense that Joe was the best our party could do.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Amen, Jeff Melton, amen

First up, "We voted Green (Ann and Jess)" went up a little while ago at Third. Jess was going to write it so that they could be done with the edition. And then he asked me if I wanted to co-write? Absolutely. Thank you, Jess. We are both Greens and I think we made some good points.

I know Jeff Melton makes important points in his essay:

As always, in 2020, mainstream Democrats have tried every possible means to thwart challenges to their left. A media smear campaign against Bernie Sanders and other progressive candidates, rigging of the Democratic primaries, and ultimately the uniting of the Democratic Party elite behind Joe Biden cemented the nomination of yet another corporate Democrat. Allegations of corruption and sexual harassment and assault, and Biden’s long track record as a faithful servant of corporate America, warmonger, architect of mass incarceration, and friend of the world’s worst polluters, have all been swept under the rug in favor of the story that Biden is a “decent man” who will return America to “normal.”

Anyone who questions this narrative, let alone backs a third-party Presidential candidate such as the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins, is derided as “irresponsible” and regarded as essentially a Trump supporter. Fearmongering to the effect that fascism is imminent if Trump is not defeated is used to bully even progressives residing in “blue” or “red” states into voting for Biden. Electoral reforms such as ranked choice voting that would eliminate voters’ fear that withholding their votes from a Democrat could result in a Republican victory are ignored or opposed by most Democrats. Meanwhile, the Democrats have made a concerted effort to prevent voters from even being aware of Green candidates, using legal challenges to disqualify Green candidates from the ballot in several states despite their comfortably surpassing the required number of signatures on ballot ballot access petitions; in New York, they tripled the number of required signatures.

Unfortunately, rather than challenging the Democrats’ fearmongering and scapegoating, many leftists are echoing it. For example, in a recent open letter (“Dump Trump, Then Battle Biden”) in Common Dreams, fifty-five prominent leftist activists and writers asserted that the “most urgent task” of the left was “defeating Trump . . . with as big an Electoral College margin as possible, to undermine his predictable efforts to steal the election” — as if attempting to steal Presidential elections were not already a standard Republican practice that succeeded in 2000 and 2016. They even advocated that leftists vote for Biden in solid “blue” or “red” states such as California and Alabama, apparently attributing to Trump magical power to steal electoral votes in heavily Democratic states and create additional ones out of thin air in states he is already winning.

Rather than making an empirical case that Biden being elected would be better for the country than Trump being re-elected, they resorted to empty hyperbole: “Protestations that Biden is beholden to elites are true but beside the point. The lesser evil is evil, but in this case, the greater evil is simply off the charts.” How the difference in perpetration of evil between Trump and a man with a 47-year career of war crimes and corrupt, bigoted, and ecologically catastrophic policies who, like Trump, has been credibly accused of rape is “off the charts” was not explained. It’s hard to imagine that Republican extremists such as John Kasich, John Negroponte, Bill Kristol, and Rick Snyder who have endorsed Biden do not consider him sufficiently evil for their tastes. More likely, the broad bipartisan coalition of members of the ruling class who have endorsed Biden consider him the “more effective evil.”

The authors of the open letter not only advocated voting for Biden without conditions, but they engaged in shaming leftists who refuse to vote for him, claiming that “the message that not voting in swing states sends in 2020 is that we are okay with Trump for four more years as long as we don’t have to sully our hands by voting for Biden.” The suggestion that those who refuse to vote for either Trump or Biden are doing so because they are “too pure” to vote for Biden, rather than because of deep dissatisfaction with both, and with a political system that has foisted them upon us is, frankly, offensive. Why is it “purist” to demand of presidential candidates that they not be men accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women? Or that they stop persecuting, jailing, and torturing whistleblowers and journalists, fracking and drilling the hell out of the planet, or engaging in perpetual war and the support of fascist-led coups against foreign governments? Why is it “purist” to demand that they support universal health care and a real Green New Deal, instead of spending more of the federal budget on the military than the next 10 nations combined?

Thank you, Lawanda for e-mailing me that. I hadn't seen it or I would've already highlighted it. It's a great essay.

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

Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The nightmare continues.

Election day.

BLOOMBERG NEWS didn't write the lines the two candidates above said, they only highlighted them. It's embarrassing. Donald Trump's message is "I'm not Sleepy Joe." Joe Biden's message is "I have no idea where I am which is why, with two microphones in front of me and no crowd noise because no crowds come to see me, I'm going to yell like an idiot." Did they isolate his scream? Is this a smear job like with Howard Dean where they eliminated the crowd noise to make Howard look crazy? No. No, there was no crowd noise. Joe makes himself look crazy.

It's election day and the media continues to cover the duopoly. Over at MINTPRESS NEWS, Alan MacLeod notes:

The two-party system is clearly failing Americans, with both candidates for the United States’ top job largely disliked by the public. The latest survey from the Pew Research Center finds that Biden only has a 46% favorability rating, with Trump trailing at 42%. This is, in fact, an improvement from 2016, which pitted the two least popular major candidates of all time against each other in a historic race which left Americans far from enthusiastic about their electoral process. Only one-third of Democrat voters claim they are voting for Biden, with two-thirds telling pollsters that they feel compelled to vote against Trump. Meanwhile, around a quarter of Republicans are doing the same, voting not for Trump, but against Biden and his agenda.

And while Trump and Biden spend fortunes attacking each other in the media, it is often difficult to establish meaningful differences between their platforms on a number of issues. Today, the president again accused the 77-year-old Delaware native of supporting a ban on fracking, something Biden has vehemently and repeatedly denied, despite pressure from his base to do so. A number of polls have shown that the public clearly supports a complete ban on the practice. Likewise, on foreign policy, healthcare, and defense, the two parties display many more similarities than differences. Luckily, there are other options.

He goes on to discuss the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Howie Hawkins is the Green Party's presidential candidate.

We'll note this from Howie's campaign.

Howie Hawkins, 67, from Syracuse, New York, is a retired Teamster and veteran who has been active in movements for civil rights, peace, unions, and the environment since the 1960s.

He was the first US politician to campaign for a Green New Deal in 2010, in the first of three consecutive runs for New York governor. New York enacted several policies that only Hawkins had campaigned for after he received 5% of the vote in 2014, including a ban on fracking, a $15 minimum wage, and paid family leave.

Hawkins’ vice-presidential running mate is Angela Walker, 46, a truck driver in Florence, South Carolina who is a veteran, union and racial justice activist.

The Green presidential ticket is on the ballot in 30 states representing 73% of American voters and 381 electoral votes. Including the other states where the Green presidential ticket is qualified for write-in votes, 96% of Americans representing 514 electoral votes of the total 538 electoral votes will be able to vote for the Hawkins/Walker Green Party ticket.

Jo Jorgensen is the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate.

This is the most recent statement from Jo Jorgensen's campaign:

GREENVILLE, S.C.; November 2, 2020— Dr. Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian candidate for president, has this to say to voters who are considering voting for the “lesser of two evils” — instead of for a candidate they really want:

“Are you among the twenty-five percent of Americans who disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Are you unhappy with the prospect of either of them being elected?

“Are you also inclined to think one is worse than the other, and that maybe you should ‘hold your nose’ and vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’?

“If so, please ask yourself, ‘How has voting for the lesser of two evils been working for me?’

“If your answer is, ‘Not so well,’ try something different.

“The only way you’ll ever see real change is to vote for real change.

“I am the candidate for real change. I offer proposals that will result in millions of sustainable, private-sector jobs. Health care that is actually affordable. Ending our pointless, counterproductive wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Effective criminal justice reform. Financial responsibility in Washington D.C., and no more debt!

“Are you ready to stop falling for the ‘lesser of two evils’ trap?

“If so, please vote for me, Jo Jorgensen, this election. Vote for real change for real people.”

Dr. Jo Jorgensen is the only presidential nominee besides Trump and Biden who appears on this year’s ballot in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

Gloria La Riva is the candidate for the Party of Socialism and Liberation.

This is the most recent statement from Gloria's campaign:

“Racism is the Disease. Revolution Is the Cure!” and “Jail Killer Cops! Re-Open the Cases!” read signs of the hundred-or-so attendees of a rally for socialist presidential candidate Gloria La Riva on September 18 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. La Riva recently achieved ballot status in 14 states and Washington D.C. and is currently doing a nationwide speaking tour. This particular rally was organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Boston branch.

The rally overlooked Nubian Station, Boston’s busiest bus station and a hub for working class Black and brown people. Nubian Square and the surrounding Roxbury neighborhood are facing extreme gentrification as developers exploit the community’s incapability to contend with rising rents. It is where the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment have hit particularly hard. It is one of the more heavily policed neighborhoods in Boston.

“Winter is coming. It’s getting cold now.” La Riva began her speech by addressing those worries directly. “People shiver outside, and they will die and freeze to death because this city will not open up public buildings. There’s hundreds and hundreds of empty buildings now [that are] shut down because of the pandemic. Give people a place to live. Cancel the rents for all the people. And that includes mortgages as well, even for small landlords.”

“We're fighting for everyone, for everyone who struggles to pay the rent, who doesn't know if they're going to have a job tomorrow. [For everyone] who faces discrimination for being Black, Latino, indigenous, or any other person of color. Or just being a white working class person who also can't make it, who’s part of this exploitation of our country. We're all exploited if you're not a capitalist.”

During the rally, protesters became witnesses to the brutality faced by many Roxbury residents as a Black teenager ran past the rally followed by six police officers. As he rounded a corner, he was tackled to the ground and handcuffed before being punched in the mouth several times by a white officer. Gloria and other rally attendees caught up to the assault and began filming, but the officers kept insisting that everyone back away before the arrest was finished. Gloria refused to leave, telling the officer "we have a right to be here." Later that night, members investigated further to learn that the teenager was a 16-year-old Roxbury resident and that this incident was part of a string of similar arrests.

“To take on this monstrous, racist, vicious system of capitalism, the most vicious capitalist country in the world… is going to take organization, discipline, and a determined fight until we win, which we will.”

This last point seemed to particularly resonate with many attendees. “I want to get more involved with actually doing politics, not just reading about it,” local resident Jack Pierce told Liberation News. “The president has massive overarching powers over foreign policy. They could shut down military bases and pull out troops.”

“We demand that the U.S. lift the blockade of Cuba!” La Riva shouted. “End the sanctions on Venezuela!” Her anti-war track record drew massive applause. Julien Osborne, a student at Emerson College emphasized to Liberation News how there are “a lot of issues with the United States today. There always have been, including oppression of indigenous people and minorities, imperialism all over the world. [The US] crushes democratically elected and revolutionary leaders, and simply doesn’t treat people with human decency, domestically or abroad.”

La Riva supporter and PSL member Lile Kaumeheiwa summarized her rationale for voting socialist well: "The great thing about having a socialist candidate is that they are not caught up with meaningless reforms, or with fake lip service and things that are meant just to pacify the community rather than really changing it. Voting for a socialist means they are not bound by corporate entities, Gloria is truly going to bring us exactly what she says.”

What kind of future is the PSL campaign trying to bring? La Riva’s words:“Imagine a world where childcare is free; where a home is yours because the workers built it; where mass transit is free; where the earth can start to heal because we will stop all that insane production for profit; where everyone's rights will be respected. All culture, all languages, all people. The Palestinians will have their homeland, where true solidarity will flourish. And that will require organization, determination, and a party like the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We got more votes in 2016 than any socialists in 40 years. One, that’s a testament to our party organization, and two, the growing interest in socialism. What counts is the struggle after.”

Today some will vote. Apparently that includes singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman who performed "Talking Bout A Revolution" in front of a microphone with "VOTE" on it on Seth Meyers' bad show. How bad is the host? He called it her "hit" and, sorry, "Fast Car" is the hit from her self-titled debut (number six on the pop charts), "Talking Bout A Revolution" only made it to number 75. Poor, stupid Seth. He hasn't looked so bad since he blamed the subprime mortgage crisis on new home owners. Poor, stupid Seth.

Tracy last appeared on network TV when David Letterman was winding down his CBS show and she performed "Stand By Me." She last issued an album of new material in 2008. Point being, she needs to put together a new album.

On the issue of voting, some people vote by not voting. It's a valid choice in a democracy and the number of non-voters continues to grow. These are not people who are 'lazy,' these are often people who have been left out of the conversation, people who campaigns do not target and are not interested in.

John Stauber discussed voting in a recent interview:

As divided as America is, it will become even more so in the months and years ahead because neither the election of Biden nor the re-election of Trump will be uniting. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are girding for a political struggle that will likely have the election winner undetermined on November 3rd, and a protracted fight between the Trumpists and the Biden forces in the courts and streets seems guaranteed. Whichever is sworn in as President in January 2021 will be rejected as illegitimate by the other’s followers.

Corporate capitalism over the past half century has created an oligarchy that has rotted away the American economy and is shattering Earth’s ability to sustainably support us. Racism and racial hatreds have always been endemic to America, but when the pieces of the economic pie get smaller and smaller for everyone there is amplification of racial fears and hatreds. These divisions serve to prevent people from focusing on the oligarchic system itself and uniting to bring it down and replace it with one that serves people and the planet.

Both Parties are owned by and beholden to the corporate elite who rule America, both serve Wall Street and the American military industrial empire, and together they squash any party that dare question or oppose corporate capitalism. They are aided by their media corporations, the major propaganda arm of the ruling elite and promoter of the capitalist economy.

It’s a simplistic but highly effective system of control and looting, and most Americans feel helpless and thus respond by not voting. Trump voters hate the Democrats, and Democrat voters hate the GOP, and the super-rich smirk as their control and power increases whoever wins. The COVID pandemic has been an injection of steroids into these divisions, collapsing small businesses and throwing tens of millions of working and middle class people into an economic and psychic depression. For the elite the pandemic has facilitated a massive theft and looting as they have gobbled up more and more control and wealth from both the governmental and private sector.

[. . .]

I have come to the conclusion that elections primarily exist to provide the appearance of democracy while thwarting real democracy. They divide people into one of two capitalist-driven political business operations, the Democrats or the Republicans. Elections result in billions being poured into corporate media to purchase paid propaganda, and the media corporations make sure that only the oligarchy’s two Parties receive any positive coverage. Elections are essential to continued social and political control by the corporate elite through their system of two party oligarchy. A majority of voters don’t vote, probably because they see the process as not serving their interests, but there is no unity of opinion and certainly no movement-building among non-voters at this time.

In Janet Jackson's "Got Till It's Gone," it's noted "Joni Mitchell never lies."

Of John Stauber, it could be said, "John Stauber never whores." And he often pays the price for that.

On those who vote, they often have to make difficult decisions.

For example, looking at his record, the following people highlighted by THE CONVO COUCH are not going to be voting for Joe Biden and many explain why in the video.

Jimmy Dore notes that Joe Biden is no friend of the world. In fact, I'd say it takes a lot of xenophobia to rally round Biden if you know Joe's true record.

Alan MacLeod points out:

Yesterday, The New York Times published a long piece discussing the 77-year-old’s plans for Latin America. The Times was hopeful, noting that Biden would seek to “repudiate” Trump’s “hardball approach” to the region, which has caused a great deal of harm, rallying round shared goals of combating climate change.

Yet buried deep in the article is perhaps the most eye-opening sentence:

Mr. Biden’s advisers say they would seek to revive the anti-corruption campaign that set off political earthquakes across the Americas starting in 2014, but largely stalled in recent years.”

What the authors are referring to is a continent-wide campaign to unseat progressive leaders that ended in the jailing of Brazilian president Lula da Silva, the impeachment of his successor Dilma Rousseff, and the rise of the far-right authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro. The so-called Operation Car Wash (“Lava Jato” in Portuguese) was ostensibly an attempt to root out corruption at all levels of society. Yet leaked documents and recordings have shown that, from the beginning, it was a naked powerplay attempt by Brazil’s rich elite to retake control of society from the progressive Workers’ Party administrations through legal means.

Joe Biden destroyed Iraq. He destroyed it by supporting the Iraq War, voting for it and attacking those opposed to it. He destroyed it by continuing to vote for it while in the Senate. He destroyed it by distracting from reality with his xenophobic plan to impose a federation on Iraq (he was going to split the country up into three regions based on sect). He destroyed Iraq by refusing to honor the votes of the Iraqi people in 2010. Instead, he brokered The Erbil Agreement that overturned the votes in order to give Nouri al-Maliki a second term (a term the voters didn't want him to have). He destroyed Iraq by giving thug Nouri a second term and it's that second term that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq.

Joe has been wrong on Iraq every time. And please note, in April of 2008 (we reported it in real time) when 'just' a senator, Joe Biden talked in an open hearing about how Nouri was a thug and he did not represent the Iraqi people and there was no real government in place. But two years later, he's working behind the scenes to give Nouri a second term. Joe knew better.

FRANCE 24 reports on the attacks on journalists in Iraq.

Not noted in their report is the government's attack on journalist Suadad al-Salhy who has been threatened with arrest for the 'crime' of reporting.

IRAK | La periodista iraquí Suadad Al-Salhy puede ser detenida por desvelar información relacionada con el ayatolá Jamenei 

RSF pide a las autoridades de Irak que no ejecuten la orden de arresto y se retiren los cargos contra ella 

Inglés @RSF_inter

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Iraqi reporter threatened with arrest over story about Iran’s supreme

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Iraqi authorities not to execute a warrant for the arrest of Suadad Al-Salhy, a Baghdad-based reporter for 

The following sites updated:

Monday, November 2, 2020

Vinyl thoughts

Kat's "Kat's Korner: The art of Joni Mitchell" went up Sunday and it's wonderful. We're not buying that Joni album. :D We love Joni, Cedric and I. But we're really not MP3ers anymore and our interest in CDs has fallen. We're back to vinyl. So what we bought was Joni's Live At Canterbury House 1967. It's 3 vinyl discs (you can get white or black vinyl, we went with black vinyl). You can buy it at AMAZON but you can also buy it at Joni's website. We pre-ordered and it arrived on Saturday.

It's wonderful and we love it. It's now part of our vinyl collection. The other Joni we have on vinyl?

Blue, Court & Spark, Ladies of the Canyon, Shine, Hejira, Shadows & Light and Shine. I would also love to have For The Roses.

We started buying vinyl again back in July of 2019. We probably had 34 or so vinyl albums prior to that -- albums we brought into the marriage. But people we knew were buying vinyl and we ended up getting a record player thinking we'd just listen to what we already owned vinyl wise. But we found that we listened to it, records on the record player, more than we listened to our MP3s and way more than we listened to our CDs. So we started buying vinyl and, according to Cedric, Joni's live album is our 87th vinyl album we've bought since getting the record player. That's quite a lot when you realize we've basically been buying albums for only 15 months.

Not all are new. Probably half of the vinyl was bought used. We have some Sade, some SOS Band, some Diana Ross, some Stevie Wonder, Carly Simon's Playing Possum and Coming Around Again, Prince's Sign Of The Times, Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, the Fifth Dimension, the Mamas and the Papas and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

By the way, that last one? Best album. Best album of all time.

I have no idea why Rolling Stone offered the garbage suggestion that Marvin Gaye's erratic What's Going On was the best album of all time. Stevie's Talking Book? I could go along with that. But What's Going On is an album with a lot of filler and it's not that artistic to begin with. That's before you factor in that Marvin took songwriting credit he didn't earn.

We own no Marvin and the only one we might ever purchase would be the duet album Diana Ross did with him. Otherwise, we have no need for Marvin in our collection.

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

Monday, November 2, 2020. This morning, we talk voting and Glenn Greenwald, among other things.

We're going to start with Glenn Greenwald but first we're going to start with why I'm starting with him. For THIRD, Ava and I have written our piece. Nothing else is completed so if anything I'm writing here steps on some planned feature, sorry, not my intent.

Glenn was a blogger and a citizen-journalist. At that point, he was not someone we noted. I wasn't really impressed with some of the stunts he pulled in 2008 and, if you're surprised by that, you're late to the party. When he broke the Ed Snowden story about the spying being carried out by the NSA, we noted the story here -- extensively. And I repeatedly praised him for what was clearly journalism and clearly superior to what others in the field of journalism were doing at that time.

I did not become a Glenn groupie. I'm still not a Glenn groupie. Over the weekend, a number of drive-by e-mailers to the public account (common_ills@yahoo.com) insisted (a) this story isn't important and (b) I'm part of an organized effort to protect Glenn. Organized with whom?

Seriously. I don't believe the other community sites have been covering this story. I'm not slamming them for that. Mike would have on Saturday had Sean Connery not died. Mike's probably written about James Bond 100 times -- at least at his site. Of course, he would cover Sean's death. Rebecca didn't post this weekend and I know that's because she was upset by all of these attacks on Glenn. Rebecca's probably the closest, in this community, to a Glenn groupie.

Glenn's never done a damn thing for me or this site. I have no expectation that he ever will. So I'm missing the organized effort I'm a part of. Equally true, I do not do press for THE COMMON ILLS. I do press in my own life but not for this website (and, in fact, long ago asked/begged NPR friends to stop mentioning it on air). So it's not as though Aaron Matte is going to invite me on THE GRAYZONE or Krystal Ball is going to invite me on RISING or Katie Halper or . . . I'm so not a part of that that I have never typed or dictated Katie's partner's name. We all grasp that, right?

His name has only appeared here recently and that's my copy and pasting it from ROLLING STONE videos. It appeared once at THIRD because of an interview we did where the person praised that man. I don't hate that man but, as I long ago noted here (and repeated several times over the years), I was asked by one of his parents not to note him. This was during his wilder period. I'm sure, if we spoke today, I would be told differently but I don't have the time to do all of that. We'll get back to the time issue.

I'm not a Glenn groupie. I don't run in his circle and I never want to run his circle. (That could change, if I'm honest, in that the way he's been burned may send him over to some people who already are my friends.) I get nothing out of defending Glenn.

Except for the fact that it's the right thing to do.

You knew we were going to have to insert Carly Simon, right?

So, no, there's nothing personally in it for me in defending Glenn. We aren't friends. We aren't acquaintances. I will not benefit in any way from this and, if history holds, I'll actually be harmed for it.

Now for the story isn't important claim. Yes, it is. We're on the eve of a presidential election and he's being censored for covering a political scandal about the candidate his editor ditzy bitsy Betsy Reed is supporting. As when she was part of the move to kill the story (at THE NATION) on Dianne Feinstein's corruption -- including her husband's corruption, Bitsy Betsy won't allow Glenn's story in print. Bitsy Betsy was a nightmare of censorship at THE NATION. She was also a hideous person to work under or around -- her tantrums and explosions are legendary. (And not just for the fool we 'outed' politically -- it was a story -- during the 2008 election. Found out and fearing I intended to reveal more -- I didn't, I had made my point -- he served up one story after another about Bitsy Betsy -- stories I'd already heard from friends at THE NATION -- and he forwarded e-mail documentation to back his claims up).

Betsy's a nightmare and always has been. She has a very difficult and estranged relationship with free speech and what can only be termed an abusive relationship with journalism.

Since February 2003, I've spoken publicly about the Iraq War. And I've noted many times how that enriches me and increases my knowledge and provides me with the equivalent of focus groups. I have another set that provides me with focus groups: My friends.

Some, maybe many, are idiots when it comes to politics. That's fine. I'm not someone who has to talk politics in my real life. Many of my friends are artists and they don't have a clue about politics and that's fine. But there are some, one we'll call Blue, who, when an election comes along, feel the need to scramble to get informed and, sadly, they tend to run to MSNBC. Green showed up yesterday.

She's an artist -- painting and sculpting. And she's a good friend. But I've avoided her for months now because I didn't want to hear about Joe Biden. Our last conversation was in March, when Tulsi dropped out. She was never going to support Joe Biden, she insisted, and she had all these bad jokes that she got from somewhere about Joe. And as she yammered on, I thought, "Oh s**t, she's going to be supporting Joe and rewriting history."

So I've avoided her.

She dropped by yesterday. I didn't know she was there or I wouldn't have come downstairs. But I was looking for something and going to the music room when she saw me from the entry way and rushed over. (She was being sent away prior to seeing me.) "I'm masked and gloved!" she called out as she approached. She was worried about me, she said (I'm sure she was sincere), and knew that between Covid, the chemo I'm on and assorted other things, I was just "sequestering." No sooner did she sit down in the music room (I was looking for some specific sheet music), then she began trashing Glenn.

The Joe Biden nonsense? I'd expected that. But the only news issue she's followed in the last ten years was Ed Snowden (she calls him "Eddie") who she thinks is a national hero and who she talks about constantly. You can not speak to her for more than five minutes on any given day without her bringing up Ed. I'm not joking. And so, naturally, the love for Ed resulted in love for the person who broke the story, Glenn Greenwald.

As she trashed Glenn, it became obvious that her need to be part of the herd around Joe Biden meant that she was abandoning everything she believed in. It was disgusting.

"Oh, C.I., what will you say when she reads this?" She never does. But, for some reason, she's forever apologizing to me, year-after-year, for it having 'slipped' who I was -- in terms of her constantly telling people that I'm online as THE COMMON ILLS. It's always an accident and always a slip and I'm really thinking it may be time to cut her out for that reason alone. (She's also a gamer and, this visit, revealed she'd revealed it in a chat room. Why? It slipped.)

But I'm listening to her garbage about how, this close to an election, ''the most important election of our lives,'' how dare Glenn write anything against Joe Biden and how dare he make a scene and blah blah blah.

She hadn't read a word Glenn had written about the situation. She had read Betsy's garbage. I left the music room and returned with my filed on Bisty Betsy. Yes, I do keep files on certain journalists, files containing what their peers pass on (including e-mails). I handed her the file and told her, "This is the ____ you're defending." She flipped through it and was shocked. Basically, two-thirds of THE NATION writers are in that folder talking about the awful things Betsy did when she was at THE NATION.

I think got to the heart of the matter, which no one seems to have a desire to.

Forget Joe Biden. Set him aside.

If you're going to gripe at Glenn and take Betsy's line that he's having a tantrum? Then you better have done the work.

Betsy didn't. She wrote an attack on Glenn that didn't deal with anything.

And her supporters try to insist that was a good move because then you're repeating what Glenn said about Joe.

No, only an idiot would say that and I'm sorry but I really don't have time for the stupid these days. I'm on chemo. Still. I. Do. Not. Have. Time. For. The. Stupid.

I'm fully aware that I could be dead tomorrow. I don't have time for the stupid.

Glenn had a legal contract with THE INTERCEPT. I know that not only because he wrote about it but also because I've seen the contract. I've also seen Naomi Klein's contract and she should be ashamed of herself. But Glenn's contract promised him certain things. And Betsy violated that contract.

She can't. Legally, she can't violate it. Glenn should sue and I marvel over how a judge would respond to Betsy's published 'response' that was nothing but a character attack and that never responded to the legal violations of his contract.

Whores gotta whore, right, Naomi?

I don't need Naomi's opinions on the US political scene. As far as I'm concerned, White Privilege Klein lost the right to talk about US politics when she invented a conversation. It was the night of the 2008 election and, across the street, she could see two African-Americans talking and she just knew what they were saying, about Barack Obama, about themselves, about life. Now she wasn't close enough to hear them and she knew no African-Americans in her own life that she could talk to, but, as a White person, she felt totally justified in inventing a conversation -- one that she shared for publication with Matthew Rothschild -- that she imposed upon them because, hey, isn't that the basis of White privilege?

Naomi, some would also argue, shouldn't talk about US politics -- certainly not advocate for whom to vote for -- since she's Canadian.

She would respond (in a whisper) that she's got dual citizenship.

And she does. Her father is an American. Her father is an Ameenrican who fled this country to avoid serving in Vietnam, moved to Canada and started a family there. Years after that, Naomi was born. I don't really see her as a US citizen. I do see her as a coward who refused to talk about her father publicly when the War Resisters of the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq needed her -- needed her in her own country. That's why we outed her on this over 15 years ago. She benefitted from the actions of people like me and Elaine who risked a lot to help her father and others. And here she was, big columnist for THE NATION and THE GUARDIAN, best selling author, laughing uncomfortably on air when Al Franken made disparaging remarks about War Resisters. What she should have done, on air, is said, "Excuse me, Al, you do know I am the child of a War Resister, right?"

But the living embodiment of Robin Sparkles showed no courage.

She benefitted from a movement that supported her father but she wasn't going to pay it forward.

She's a greedy self-promoter and I thought that before I saw her contract over the weekend. Looking at her contract and thinking of all the begging THE INTERCEPT does for money? It's appalling. She does not deserve that kind of money and THE GUARDIAN sure didn't give it to her. She's a well paid whore and that's why she attacked Glenn.

She's a busy-body bitch who sticks her nose in the US political scene even though she's Canadian. Her country has enough problems but you won't see her addressing those. She's a shallow idiot who worships at the feet of empire and that's why she hangs with fellow whores like Bill McKibben.

She attacks Glenn's character when you damn well better believe that if her contract was violated, she'd be having a public fit.

Glenn's been calm. He's not thrown a fit. But even my friend Blue got the point when I brought up the contract issue. What if, on one of her art installations, they violated her contract? Oh, suddenly, it hit home.

Glenn was done wrong. And it is a story of censorship and it is a story of pack mentality and much more. It's also a legal story. His contract was violated and Bitsy Betsy can issue all the lies and attacks she wants but, please note, the ____ won't address the legal issue, she won't explain how it was okay to violate what he had been legally promised in a contract.

Bitsy Betsy is circling the drain currently.

Only an idiot would defend her or THE INTERCEPT right now. Defending it is saying, "I will sign any contract but no one has to honor it." If that's your position, that's great and I hope your employers grasp that position because there's no need to pay you what they've promised and there's no need to honor any items in your contracts.

My friend Blue had been fed a diet of lies and even she got the point when we talked about the legal aspects. Betsy Reed won't deal with those aspects, the most important ones -- did the employer honor the contract -- because she knows she loses on those grounds -- on the only grounds that matter in a court of law. Glenn should be suing THE INTERCEPT. He should get every one of them on the witness stand to address what they did and what they've said.

Joe Biden? He's a piece of trash. I say that sadly. I knew Joe for years. Tara Reade is telling the truth. But setting Tara aside -- as so many were willing to do -- there's Iraq. I stated before Tara came forward and before Lucy Florez came forward that Joe needed to get honest about Iraq.

He never did. He never took accountability for his role in the rise of ISIS, for his spitting on the Iraqi people by overturning their 2010 votes with The Erbil Agreement, he never . . .

Go down the list. And what he would talk about, the only thing the press would ever raise, was his 2002 vote. When he did talk about that, he lied non-stop. And they let him. "Joe said his vote was a mistake.' No. Joe said his mistake was to trust Bully Boy Bush. There's a world of difference.

I can't vote for Joe Biden. If you can, that's fine. I'm not here to take you to the polls and hold your hand while you vote. Blue voted for Joe and as she realized that Glenn was in the right legally, she began to see some of the other lies she bought into begin to shatter. "I shouldn't have voted for Joe!" she exclaimed. I told her what I tell everyone: We make the decision how to vote or not to vote based upon the information we have at the time. If we did our best at that minute, then that's all we can do. (Joe's vote for Iraq? Not his best and he didn't try to do any better.) That's all you can do, find out what feels right to you and vote accordingly.

I'm not voting for Joe. He didn't get honest about Iraq and over a million Iraqis are dead. He didn't get honest and Iraqi children are born with birth defects. I won't turn my back on the Iraqi people, sorry. They matter more to me than Joe Biden or any politician. I stated over and over here, for over a year before Joe declared, that he had to get honest about Iraq. If he had, if he'd owned his mistakes and provided ways to make good on them, I might be voting for him.

Might? I believe Tara Reade. I couldn't vote for him after she came forward. Her story rings true and Joe was a 'player' in the 80s and 90s. He cheated on his wife over and over. And he thought he was catnip to women. I wasn't aware he was pressuring women he worked with but Tara's story rings true. And, no, I can't vote for him.

Those are "I" statements. If you can vote for him, do so. If you're going to vote for Donald Trump because he speaks to you, that's your right and more power to you. The same if you're voting for Howie Hawkins or Gloria La Riva or Jo Jorgensen or Joseph Kishore or anyone else. The same if you look at the people running who made your ballot and decide not one of them spoke to you so you're not voting. That's your right. No one needs to tell you how to vote or even to vote. This is the United States. In some countries, the turnout is close to 100% and that's because you are forced to vote. That's not the case in the US.

Candidates campaign. They have to win your vote. If someone has done so, I'm happy for you.

PRENSA LATINA reports:

The antigovernment protests in Iraq were resumed on Monday with new force in this capital, other cities and the port of Basra, after an appeasement of people's anger contained for months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Riot forces dispersed some 500 demonstrators in Basra, as well as in the capital, where activists occupied Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising that started in October 2019.

The square is near Baghdad's Green Zone, where all Government offices and foreign embassies are located.

For a brief period, authorities opened the al-Jamhuriya bridge, which connects Tahrir with the Green Zone, which had been closed since the demonstrations started a year ago.

Another mass protest took place in the city of Nasiriyah, where people condemned unemployment and deficient public services, burned tires and blocked roads.

In the city of Kut, scores of people demanded justice for those assassinated during last year's popular uprising, as a result of which more than 600 people were killed, according to unofficial statistics.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: The art of Joni Mitchell" went up Sunday.