Ann's Mega Dub

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Anya Parampil can't leave the plantation

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Return of Diva Don." It went up about an hour ago. Let me note Elaine's two posts from last night "Chase Rice, Anne Heche and more" and "Don Lemon continues to tarnish CNN" -- the latter one was her filling in for me. We had a school thing for the kids last night.

Meanwhile, over on the plantation, the hideous Anya Parampil insists:

Anya Parampil

@anyaparampil

·

22h

We can debate whether or not teenage girls should have to share locker rooms with biological males later. If the US continues down this war path, those questions won't matter.

What a stupid woman. To a teenage girl, this is a pressing issue. First off. Second, we're already at war. Why don't you wake up and stop your nonsense. Get off the plantation, you stupid idiot. If you think you can stop the war, do it. If not shut up. I'm sick of you and all the others who go around dismissing basic rights as something that can be put on hold because your issue is so damn important. We're still at war in Iraq and in Syria, for example. The Palestinians continue to struggle for freedom. There are a ton of issues. Stop acting like yours is so damn important and stop thinking anyone takes you seriously. See my "Anya, do they give you bathroom breaks on the plantation?" for more on the idiot Anya.

And yes, I made this statement deliberately. I am sick of being smeared as racist & transphobic bc I stood up w/ my libertarian friends to oppose war. If others want to play that game, then as "a woman of color" I have to say you are missing the plot.

I don't know that we -- African-Americans -- consider you a woman of color. Isn't it the caste system that rules in India? So don't try to play like you're one of us. Stop. Just stop. You're pathetic.

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

Wednesday, February 22, 2023. Hate merchants in the US continue to sport their stupidity, Human Rights Watch notes the attacks on the LGBTQ community in the Middle East and North Africa and much more.

Starting in Iraq where Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reports:

An earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale hit Nineveh governorate in northern Iraq on Wednesday morning, according to a statement issued by the Iraqi Meteorological Organization and Seismology.

The Seismology Department of the Ministry of Transport mentioned in the statement that the seismic observatories recorded an earthquake on Wednesday morning, February 22, 2023, at 10:09 local time, 39 kilometers southwest of Al-Hadar district in Nineveh governorate, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The statement confirmed that the earthquake was felt by the citizens in the area, and emphasized that no losses were reported.

No losses will hopefully continue to be the reality. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has issued a new report on the targeting of LGBT people in the Middle East and North Africa:

Government officials across the Middle East and North Africa region are targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people based on their online activity on social media, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Security forces have entrapped LGBT people on social media and dating applications, subjected them to online extortion, online harassment, and outing, and relied on illegitimately obtained digital photos, chats, and similar information in prosecutions, in violation of the right to privacy and other human rights.

The 135-page report, “‘All This Terror Because of a Photo’: Digital Targeting and Its Offline Consequences for LGBT People in the Middle East and North Africa,” examines the use of digital targeting by security forces and its far-reaching offline consequences – including arbitrary detention and torture – in five countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. The findings show how security forces employ digital targeting to gather and create evidence to support prosecutions.

“The authorities in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia have integrated technology into their policing of LGBT people,” said Rasha Younes, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “While digital platforms have enabled LGBT people to express themselves and amplify their voices, they have also become tools for state-sponsored repression.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 90 LGBT people affected by digital targeting and 30 experts, including lawyers and digital rights professionals. Human Rights Watch also reviewed online evidence of targeting against LGBT people, including videos, images, and digital threats. The research had support from members of the Coalition for Digital and LGBT Rights: in Egypt, Masaar and an LGBT rights organization in Cairo whose name is withheld for security reasons; in Iraq, IraQueer and the Iraqi Network for Social Media (INSM); in Jordan, Rainbow Street and the Jordan Open Source Association (JOSA); in Lebanon, Helem and Social Media Exchange (SMEX); and in Tunisia, Damj Association.

Human Rights Watch documented 45 cases of arbitrary arrest involving 40 LGBT people targeted online in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. In every instance of arrest, security forces searched people’s phones, by force or under threat of violence, to collect – or even create – personal digital information to enable their prosecution, Human Rights Watch found.

In reviewing judicial files for 23 cases of LGBT people prosecuted based on digital evidence under laws criminalizing same-sex conduct, “inciting debauchery,” “debauchery,” “prostitution,” and cybercrime laws in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia, Human Rights Watch found that most of those prosecuted were acquitted upon appeal. In five cases, people were convicted and sentenced to one to three years in prison. Twenty-two people were never charged but were held in pretrial detention, in one case for 52 days at a police station in Lebanon.

LGBT people who were detained reported facing numerous due process violations, including officials confiscating their phones, denying them access to a lawyer, and forcing them to sign coerced confessions. LGBT detainees reported being denied food and water, family and legal representation, and medical services as well as verbal, physical, and sexual assault. Some were placed in solitary confinement. Transgender women detainees were routinely held in men’s cells, where they faced sexual assault and other ill-treatment. In one case, a transgender woman held in a police station in Egypt said she experienced repeated sexual assault for 13 months.

Human Rights Watch documented 20 cases of online entrapment on Grindr and Facebook by security forces, who created fake profiles to impersonate LGBT people, in Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan; and 17 cases of online extortion by private individuals on Grindr, Instagram, and Facebook in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, including by organized gangs in Egypt and armed groups in Iraq. The six people who reported the extortion to the authorities were themselves arrested.

Human Rights Watch documented 26 cases of online harassment, including doxxing and outing, on Facebook and Instagram in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. As a result, LGBT people reported losing their jobs, suffering family violence, being forced to change their residence and phone numbers, and deleting their social media accounts, fleeing the country, and suffering severe mental health consequences. Most reported the abuse to the relevant digital platform, but none removed the content.

The targeting of LGBT people online is enabled by their precarious legal status, Human Rights Watch said. In the absence of protection by laws or sufficient digital platform regulations, both security forces and private individuals have been able to target them with impunity.

Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, social media companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, including the rights to nondiscrimination, privacy, and freedom of expression. Digital platforms, such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram), and Grindr, are not doing enough to protect users vulnerable to digital targeting, Human Rights Watch said.

Digital platforms should invest in content moderation, particularly in Arabic, by quickly removing abusive content as well as content that could put users at risk. Platforms should conduct human rights due diligence that includes identifying, preventing, ceasing, mitigating, remediating, and accounting for potential and actual adverse impacts of digital targeting on human rights.

Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia each have obligations under international and regional human rights law to address violations against LGBT people. The five governments should respect and protect the rights of LGBT people instead of criminalizing their expression and targeting them online, Human Rights Watch said. They should introduce and enforce laws protecting people against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, including online.

“Online abuses against LGBT people have offline consequences that reverberate throughout their lives and can be detrimental to their livelihood, mental health, and safety,” Younes said. “Authorities across the MENA region should stop targeting LGBT people, online and offline, and social media companies should mitigate the adverse impacts of digital targeting by better protecting LGBT people online.”

Hate spreads around the world. No doubt helped along by US hate merchants. Which one of our Christian illiterates to start with today? How about the high school drop out who struggled with her GED repeatedly after disappointing her church and her family by getting pregnant out of wedlock and underage? Sorry, Boh-Boh, those are supposed to be your values. Maybe a little more repenting for violating your own church teachings and a little less hate -- and stupidity -- would help you out? Alex Bollinger (LGBTQ NATION) reports Lauren's latest stupidity:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took to Twitter to denounce an international group of scientists that is working to make language in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology more precise and inclusive… and it seems she didn’t really understand what they are doing.

“The ‘party of women’ really wants to erase women,” she tweeted in reply to a screenshot from a headline from the U.K.’s Telegraph.

There is a lot wrong with that statement that could be found in just a few minutes of searching online.

First, she is referring to the Democratic Party in the U.S. with the expression “party of women,” but the article she is sharing is about the EEB (ecology and evolutionary biology) Language Project, which is being led by an international group of ecology and evolutionary biology researchers. The British newspaper article she was referring to even presented quotes from English and Canadian scientists. None were from the U.S. or associated with the Democratic Party.

Second, the article isn’t about an attempt to erase any language in common speech, but instead about a discussion of language used in scientific articles. That is, literature that Boebert herself is not likely to ever encounter.

Third, the specific complaint about “egg-producing” and “sperm-producing” replacing “female” and “male” isn’t about women, which is a word used for humans. Since they’re biologists, they are often talking about other species that express sexual dimorphism.

How humiliating. She's just reminding everyone what an uneducated moron she is. Poor Boh-Boh, such a stupid idiot. Humiliated by her own mouth and her own ignorance yet again. If stupidity were a felony, Lauren would be serving a life sentence.

Daniel Villarreal (LGBTQ NATION) reports on one of Lauren's supposedly smarter peers:

Former Trump administration official and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) kicked off the first rally for her new presidential campaign on Wednesday in South Carolina with an invocation by John Hagee, an evangelical pastor who opposes same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination ordinances. Hagee has also said that the Antichrist is gay, that God sent Hitler to push Jews into Israel, and that God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for holding a Pride parade.

The following day, while speaking at an Exeter, New Hampshire town hall, Haley said of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law “I don’t think [it] goes far enough.” While the law bans Kindergarten through third-grade teachers from discussing subjects related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which some say includes even mentioning LGBTQ+ people, a teacher’s same-sex partner, or a student’s LGBTQ+ parents, she compared such acknowledgment to sexual education.

At her South Carolina kickoff rally, Haley said “Pastor Hagee, I still say I want to be you when I grow up,” after he finished his invocation. The line was met with scant applause from the audience. When she served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, she spoke to Hagee’s group, Christians United for Israel, at its annual summit. Hagee also presented her with an award for her support of Israel.

Wait. Nikki wants to be Pastor Hagee? She wants to be a man? Did she just come out as transgender?

Regardless, at 51, you should have already grown up long ago, Nikki. But thank you for explaining that you hadn't and thereby giving the American voters another reason to reject you.

Where there is hate there is always Marjorie Taylor Greene. Alex Bollinger notes Marjorie's fallen for another conspiracy:

While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been under fire during Presidents’ Day weekend for calling for secession, she also promoted an unlikely and unverified story about a transgender teenager who regrets taking testosterone as part of hormone replacement therapy.

The eccentric Canadian anti-transgender activist Chris Elston posted a screenshot to Twitter of a story an anonymous person wrote on Reddit. Greene decided to share that with her nearly two million followers and wrote: “This is incredibly heartbreaking. We must pass my bill Protect Children’s Innocence Act.”

Let's note THE DAILY SHOW again for Chelsea Handler's look at MTG.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: I have people come up to me and say crazy things to me out of the blue in public places that they believe because they read it on the internet.

Chelsea Handler: Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle QAnon. This woman thought 9/11 was a hoax, that the Clintons killed JFK Jr. and that Jews are in charge of space lasers. But please, don't come at her with some crazy ideas -- she might believe them.

Some are surprised that the great Glenneth Greenwald would make Marjorie his gal pal. Why? It's just his way, as the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War approaches, of Glenneth returning to his roots. He pretended to be left but he never was. He was always a Libertarian and he was always the pathetic ass that was cheerleader for the Iraq War. Naturally he'd want MTG for his hag.

CODESTINK quickly. Yesterday's snapshot resulted in questions. I'm going to try to zip through this.

Medea Benjamin and her ilk have betrayed many and that includes a number of veterans who turned against the war. We could go into details on that but the leadership is good at getting headlines and press coverage, but they're not helping anyone -- and, in fact, they've left a number of people hurt.

Grass roots activists have also been hurt.

And as DiFi finally goes packing -- finally -- let's call out Medea for her nonsense.

You need to step aside, old woman.

This was supposed to be a thriving and young organization. You and your old age are killing it.

Gloria Steinem worked to kick Betty Friedan out of leadership on the feminist movement when Betty was in her 50s. Gloria became everything she accused Betty of as she refused to step aside and make room for young blood. Now, in the early seventies, when some feminists (including Gloria) were under fire for being unaware and unsympathetic to the plight of feminists of color, Gloria went around (briefly) with one of two African-American women. So she did know how to share the stage -- when she was afraid of being called a racist -- not so afraid that she'd stay away from a millionaire racist later on and expose Alice Walker's daughter Rebecca to the racist.

But the point is, when it was good for her, she happily spoke with another woman. Yet in the 80s, 90s on up to today, she never felt the need to partner with a younger feminist and ease a transition in leadership.

Medea's become the new Gloria Steinem.

Too desperate for the spotlight to step aside.

CODESTINK doesn't need to die with Medea. The young women have always been the most interesting and most vibrant thing about CODEPINK.

And, in fact, these are the women who opposed sharing a stage with convicted pedophile Scott Ritter and forced Medea to step down from the stage for that fake-ass event.

Medea whined about it on Twitter.

If she were serious about a movement, Susan Benjamin would have said some time ago that she was stepping down, that at 70, she's really too old for this and that it's time for her to let other women, younger women, lead the way.

But I Need Attention Benjamin would rather have her close up for eternity than end any wars.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Don Lemon continues to tarnish CNN

Elaine filling in for Ann who has a thing at her oldest child's school tonight. I deliberately avoided the topic of Don Lemon at my site tonight so I'd have something to write about here. To bring you up to speed on Don Lemon . . . He was a prime time host on CNN who could not deliver ratings and had many ethical problem which were not limited to him being accused by a man of harassment -- some might call it assault. Don apparently stuck his own hand down his own pants, rubbed it around and then took his stank and shoved under the man's nose. This reportedly took place at a bar. In addition, Don was Team Jussie. Remember Jussie Smollett? The man who made up an attack, a hate crime. There are real hate crimes and police resources do not to be diverted by some idiot who is trying to get more money for each episode of his TV show. Last December, Don declared that women's sports weren't interesting to watch and that female athletes should not make as much as males.

Keep all of that in mind. The Russia-gate hoaxer ran off viewers at CNN so CNN removed him from prime time. They then moved him to daytime. No longer would he solo host his own program, he would share co-hosting duties with two women on CNN's new morning show. Since this started, there has been nothing but trouble. One of the co-hosts interviewed a man for a segment. After the segment, Don took it upon himself to 'fact check' the interview -- as though his female co-host wasn't up to do an interview. It was embarrassing and it was hostile. The producers realized that and started playing the bumper music to end the segment but Don insisted no-no-no-he had to finish.

He has also cut the female co-hosts off when they try to speak.

These are his co-hosts, not his back up singers.

So now what's going on. Last Thursday, he took it upon himself to declare -- on air -- that women are past their prime by 50 -- he said they were in their prime (the topic was a woman running for a political party's presidential nomination) in their 20s, 30s, and maybe 40s. For the record, a woman in her 20s cannot run for US president. There's a thing called the Constitution that Don Lemon might want to brush up on. It was an insulting and outrageous statement -- the sort of garbage you'd expect on FOX NEWS, not on CNN.

Don was not on air the next day, nor was he on air Monday or today. Sadly, CNN is allowing him to return tomorrow. Martin Holmes (TV INSIDER) reports:

Don Lemon is set to return to CNN This Morning on Wednesday, February 22, following his controversial remarks on last Thursday’s show regarding when a woman is “in her prime.”

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, CNN CEO Chris Licht made the announcement in a memo to staff on Monday (Feb 20) night, revealing that the long-time news anchor will be back on the show on Wednesday and will also undergo “formal training.”

“I sat down with Don and had a frank and meaningful conversation. He has agreed to participate in formal training, as well as continuing to listen and learn. We take this situation very seriously,” Licht said in the memo (via THR).

If you took the situation seriously, Chris, you'd have already fired him. That is nothing I have not said over the phone to friends who work at CNN. So what's going on?

What I'm told is that Don Lemon has a high profile attorney and that CNN is taking great care to cross every t and dot every i to avoid any kind of lawsuit should it come to firing Don Lemon. I would argue that his history of low ratings and his on air hostility to his co-hosts is more than enough reason to have already fired him. But I do take comfort in the fact that his next mistake could be his last. Why? He's Don Lemon. He can't play nice or treat others with respect. Meaning he'll be creating another mess shortly.

Two videos from Tamron Hall's talk show featuring Chase Rice (his new album is I HATE COWBOYS & ALL DOGS GO TO HELL).

If you need another reason to listen to Chase Rice's I HATE COWBOYS & ALL DOGS GO TO HELL go read Kat's "Kat's Korner: Chase Rice delivers and then some."

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, February 21, 2023. A look back at how we fool ourselves.

Starting with this from David Rosen (COMMON DREAMS):

On February 2, U.S. prisoner and former al-Qaeda courier Majid Khan was released from the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba after more than 16 years of imprisonment. "We are very pleased with Majid's release," says J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

"Majid's transfer to Belize is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work by the CCR and the law firm Jenner & Block," Dixon tells The Progressive. "Our only regret is that he was not released sooner."

On October 7, 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States, together with Great Britain, launched "Operation Enduring Freedom," the war in Afghanistan and the beginning of the "global war on terror." It was followed, in March 2003, by the U.S. invasion of Iraq ostensibly to end Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and to destroy his alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

On January 11, 2002, the first 20 detainees were delivered from CIA black sites to the Guantánamo military prison, known as Camp X-Ray, on the island of Cuba. Over the following two decades, approximately 780 detainees would be held there. Today, 34 detainees remain imprisoned in the detention facility. Most troubling, this prison held more than 150 innocent men for years. The Guantánamo prison and associated military courts currently cost U.S. taxpayers about $540 million a year (with about $13.5 million being spent on each detainee).

That has got to be a typo. There is no way that $540 million a year is being spent. I remember Barack Obama running for president and promising that if he was elected he would close Guantanamo. And he was elected to two terms as president. I remember. I remember he said he would codify ROE V WAD -- his first thing he'd do as president -- to ensure that a conservative Supreme Court could never, ever rob women of their reproductive rights. He said that. And he said he'd bring all US troops home from Iraq and that he'd close Guantanamo and, heck, I even remember him promising he would end veterans' homelessness.

Surely Saint Barack kept everyone of his promises. I mean, don't you think he would left office in shame after eight years if he didn't do a damn thing he promised?

People would have to be pretty pathetic to glorify him -- to this day -- while he and Bruce Springsteen kickback on David Geffen's yacht and Barack sucks up all that money from NETFLIX while failing produce anything anyone wants to watch if Barack didn't keep his promises.

Sadly, that is the reality.

We didn't get action and we didn't get accountability. We did get The Cult of St Barack and those losers did ensure that he didn't do a damn thing, he didn't keep any promises, and the results are all around us: Guantanamo remains open, ROE has been overturned, US troops are still on the ground in Iraq and many US veterans continue to be homeless.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh he said you think you're immune
Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies

-- "The Last Time I Saw Richard," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her BLUE.

Remember that song? While Ann Wright and others did nothing of value and refused to hold Barack accountable, we'd trot out that song and not the "You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies, pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're only pretty lies, only pretty lies, just pretty lies." Did any other song capture both the lies of Barack and the pathetic cult that surrounded him?

From August 3, 2008, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels." Barack's with Cult of St. Barack members Katrina vanden Heuvel, Matthew Rothschild and Betsy Reed. They -- and many others -- were there to whore for him and get him to office, they just weren't there to hold him accountable. After he became president, they were like Marilyn Monroe trying to potty train a puppy (she would 'strike' the puppy with a Kleenex).

They were so inept and they brought us to this point.

Instead of holding these people accountable -- the Medea Benjamins who, after Barack got elected, started talking about how it was okay for US to remain in Afghanistan -- today's YOUTUBERS treat them like royalty -- and I don't mean they're publishing memoirs calling them out, I mean they lap at their feet and pretend that these people haven't spent forever and a day whoring.

I just shake my head at the stupidity. Like I do at the former soap opera actress and her filthy church that hates gays and lesbians -- honey, we all know what you did -- and who you did -- in the 80s and 90s. Maybe your church doesn't, but we do. And what I'm really waiting for is for your fans from those days to find out what you're doing now.

The stupidity of it all just gets to me.

Tonight, I believe, TCM will be airing two Carole Lombard films -- one of which, NOTHING SACRED, it an all time favorite of mine. WIKIPEDIA notes of the film:

Nothing Sacred is a 1937 American Technicolor screwball comedy film directed by William A. Wellman, produced by David O. Selznick, and starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March with a supporting cast featuring Charles Winninger and Walter Connolly. Ben Hecht was credited with the screenplay based on the 1937 story "Letter to the Editor" by James H. Street, and an array of additional writers, including Ring Lardner Jr., Budd Schulberg, Dorothy Parker, Sidney Howard, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman and Robert Carson made uncredited contributions.

The lush, Gershwinesque music score was by Oscar Levant, with additional music by Alfred Newman and Max Steiner and a swing number by Raymond Scott's Quintette. The film was shot in Technicolor by W. Howard Greene and edited by James E. Newcom, and was a Selznick International Pictures production distributed by United Artists. The film's opening credits feature distinctive caricatures of the leading actors, as 3d-figurines, and creative artists, as 2d-cartoons, by Sam Berman.^[3]

This was Lombard's only Technicolor film. She stated that this film was one of her personal favorites.

Plot

New York newspaper reporter Wally Cook is blamed for reporting a Harlem bootblack Ernest Walker as an African nobleman hosting a charity event. Cook claims he was unaware, but he is demoted to writing obituaries. He begs his boss Oliver Stone for another chance, and points out a story about a woman, Hazel Flagg, reportedly dying of radium poisoning. Cook is sent to the (fictional) town of Warsaw, Vermont, to interview Hazel. Cook finally locates Hazel, who is crying both because her doctor has told her that she is not dying and because she realizes she might be stuck in Vermont for her whole life. Unaware of this, Cook invites Hazel and her doctor to New York as guests of the Morning Star newspaper.

The newspaper uses her story to increase its circulation. She receives a ticker tape parade and the key to the city, and becomes an inspiration to many. She and Wally fall in love, and he asks her to marry him even though he still thinks she's dying. After a medical exam by three independent doctors, it is finally discovered that Hazel is not really dying, and city officials and Stone decide that it would be better to avoid embarrassment by having it seem that she went off to die, "like an elephant". Hazel and Wally get married and quietly set sail for the tropics.

1937. The film addresses the way the press lies, the way it spins, the way it deceives.

What we too often think we're discovering today is a system that's been decried for decades.

And we're unaware of it. The same we're unaware that CODEPINK was used to clear the field in 2008 to get Barack Obama the nomination and that CODEPINK then did nothing. There was a time when you could find reality on that at DISSIDENT VOICE before CODESTINK cried crocodile tears and got the comments closed. Various people -- including several prominent writers now featured at INFORMATION CLEAING HOUSE -- would show up in the comments to note the reality of CODEPINK.

Now days, we just ignore reality and YOUTUBERS tells us how wonderful CODEPINK is. They don't even know that men were in CODEPINK pulling the strings. They know nothing. They take everything at surface value. They don't examine, they don't do anything but they want to host their YOUTUBE programs and for what reason?

Because if things are ever going to change, it's going to require honest criticism. If we can't even hold the pathetic I-Need-Attention Medea Benjamin (Susan, let's be honest) accountable, how are we ever going to hold politicians accountable?

The knowledge is out there, if we'd only embrace it and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

We're going to note this action from WSWS:

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary weekend of the criminal U.S.-invasion of Iraq, a major set of actions, including a demonstration at the White House in Washington, D.C., will take place Saturday, March 18, demanding “Peace in Ukraine — Say NO to Endless U.S. Wars” and “Fund People’s Needs, Not the War Machine.”

Since 2003, the U.S. has engaged in sanctions (economic war) on more than 40 countries. These targets of U.S. economic warfare include the people of Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and many other nations. Even in the wake of the worst disasters, like the recent deadly earthquake, Washington keeps its cruel sanctions in place against Syria.

U.S. bases and “commands” blanket most of the world. It is a global empire.

The Biden administration is determined to escalate the Ukraine war. The real goal of the massive arming and training of Ukrainian forces has nothing to do with the interests of Ukrainian, Russian or U.S. people. The aim instead is to “weaken Russia,” as stated by the U.S. Secretary of Defense himself, even at the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war that could end life on Earth.

A U.S. general commanding 50,000 troops in the Pacific also issued a letter to his sub-commanders in recent days, informing them that he believes that the United States will be at war with China within two years. The danger of global war is growing! The people must act!

The demonstration will make connections between the human and financial toll of U.S. militarism at home and abroad. Key demands include:

Peace in Ukraine — No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War!
Abolish NATO — End U.S. militarism and sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism and bigotry at home, not other peoples!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM!

Click here to help build this action

Click here to endorse the action

Endorsers:

United National AntiWar Coalition; ANSWER Coalition; Black Alliance for Peace; The People’s Forum; CodePink; World BEYOND War; Popular Resistance; Veterans for Peace; International Action Center; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Al-Awda; The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Labor Against Racism and War; Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Universal African Peoples Organization; Workers World Party; East Bay Democratic Socialists of America; Socialist Action; Nevada Green Party; Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Ohio Peace Council; Green Party of Connecticut; Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee; Environmentalists Against War; Pacific Green Party (Oregon); Linn-Benton Chapter, Lauren Faith Smith Ministry for Nonviolence; Maine Cumberland County Greens; Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace; San Jose Peace and Justice Center; Servicio Particular Alacran; Minnesota Peace Action Coalition; PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick; UPWARD (Uniting Peace With Actions Respect and Dignity); Socialist Party of America; North Country Peace Group; . . . and more.

I can remember when certain groups ran from ANSWER. We never did here. But I can remember certain groups and individuals -- some of whom were at the recent fake action in DC -- felt ANSWER was just . . . I don't know. I guess the term would be "too left." Well they certainly found the antidote last weekend, didn't they? The antidote to ANSWER and trying to work with the left was, for them, to stand the extreme right.

We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:

BAP-Baltimore Statement on New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

Recently, Maryland swore in its first Black governor, Wes Moore, in a “historic” ceremony cemented with a tearful introduction by Oprah Winfrey and a hand on Frederick Douglass’ Bible. The Black elite flocked to fill the rooms of the inauguration to witness the third elected Black governor in U.S. history. Yet, this “first Black” gubernatorial win is history repeating itself.

African/Black communities have witnessed “first Blacks” consistently continuing over-policing, surveillance, criminalization and austerity policies.

As Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party understands,

“The Black middle-class’ allegiance to capitalism, and not Black liberation, has largely led the Black political leadership class to function as a comprador misleadership class over the Black majority of working peoples on behalf of the capitalist parties, and political machines they are members of.”

For nearly a century, radical African/Black people have criticized elements of the African/Black community as being designed to serve as buffers to ruling class elements. Whether discerned as “neocolonial,” “the comprador class,” or “the Black Misleadership Class,” this sector has evaded accountability to the masses of African/Black people, while using their Black identity as cover for self-serving opportunism.

Moore first became famous for his 2010 bestselling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore City. In interviews, Moore is depicted as a Black boy from an economically struggling background who became formally educated, rising to become a U.S. military veteran, and thus a socioeconomically developed Black man. The framing of his “life story,” as told through the book, not only helps manufacture an Obama-like image, politically. But in juxtaposition to the “other Wes Moore,” it leaves room to question how this narrative will affect his policies.

It remains unclear if Moore had been raised in Baltimore City. Yet, as the backdrop of Moore’s life story, the city has been central to his platform on crime. The Public Safety and Criminal Justice page on wesmoore.com states, “Violent crime is on the rise across Maryland and people are dying in our streets.” The solutions presented, however, will be nothing short of a plan to continue what former Governor Larry Hogan started in his campaign to “refund the police,” which increased resources for state law enforcement agencies following the 2020 uprisings.

Citing an “ineffectiveness of leadership,” Moore ignores that not only is Baltimore City already occupied with an array of federally funded police directives, it has just received an additional $7.9 million in federal funds to “fight crime.” This funding is a part of the Biden administration’s $350 million American Rescue plan to “fund the police,” as he enthusiastically announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Unsurprisingly, in 2022, 1,192 people were killed by police, exceeding any other year in U.S. history. Also, Moore has ignored the existing consent decree issued in 2017, acknowledging the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and specific provisions of federal statutory law.

“The BPD has access to the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program budget. They also train with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) through the ‘deadly exchange program’ and continue to receive federal agents through Trump’s 2020 Operation Relentless Pursuit policy,” says Petros Bein, member of the Baltimore City Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance For Peace (BAP-Baltimore). “This is in addition to the approved privatized policing for universities, like Johns Hopkins, engulfing Black communities.”

These continued failed approaches to “crime” have only proven that added resources, as well as changes in policy or the law, will not contribute to public safety. Moore cannot “rebuild and strengthen relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies” by “increasing accountability and transparency” in a city in which the police department constantly violates its consent decree. Nor should funding community-policing initiatives that “recruit diverse officers that reflect the diversity of communities they serve” be taken seriously. The recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (a city also operating under Operation Relentless Pursuit) has been the most illuminating example of the fallacy of Black faces occupying these spaces to the benefit of the African/Black community.

Policies that address crime in an over-policed city cannot be presented in the abstract. As the country celebrates a “first Black” governor, Maryland continues to imprison more African/Black people, per capita, than any other state. Moore needs to provide more specifics to explain what will be done and how this builds or departs from existing efforts to return control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the federal government to Baltimore City.

“Wes Moore’s connections with Mayor [Brandon] Scott’s office and the city design/city planning committee will shape or harm what’s happening in Baltimore. With no control over the city's policing, Moore's decisions directly affect the most marginalized of us,” acknowledges BAP-Baltimore core member, Kimya Nuru Dennis.

The Democratic Party has been able to depict Moore as a trusting solution for Maryland, in general, and for African/Black people, specifically. His socioeconomic status, as well as that of his donors, indicates to BAP-Baltimore what will undoubtedly shape whose voices matter most in prioritizing health, education, and safety-based policies and laws.

The lack of equitable housing that causes displacement, as well as food deserts, and low wages, have been pressing issues in Maryland. African/Black elected officials have not resolved the economic and social crisis facing the African/Black working class of Baltimore City. Instead, their lack of solutions have resulted in the overt criminalization and over-policing of African/Black communities. Police are constantly and consistently well-funded and well-resourced. BAP-Baltimore understands police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of African/Black and other oppressed nations of people. This comes as the city has increasingly privatized and priced out our people. More police funding, while ignoring the causes of crime, cannot resolve the ongoing dilemma facing the African/Black working class in Baltimore City.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

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