Thursday, October 10, 2024

Dystopian Days

 

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



IT'S THE YEAR 2029 AND GOLDEN TOILETS DUBBED "TRUMPERS" ROAM WHAT WAS ONCE THE UNITED STATES EATING CHILDREN AND, YES, CATS AND DOGS.  PEOPLE HAD PRAYED FOR YEARS THAT IF ONLY THEY COULD SURVIVE UNTIL JANUARY 2029 THEY WOULD BE FREE OF DICTATOR DONALD TRUMP.

BUT THAT WAS NOT TO BE.  WHEN HE WON THE 2024 ELECTION, HE REFUSED TO LEAVE.  HE ANNOUNCED HE WAS NATIONALIZING THINGS.

NOT CORPORATIONS -- KNOW HE WAS ALWAYS FOR THE EXTREMELY WEALTH.

HE NATIONALIZED EVERYTHING ELSE.  HE STARTED WITH OUR STATE PARKS AND OTHER FEDERAL LANDS BY STATING, "IN THE NAME OF THE GREAT DONALD TRUMP AND WITH MY SEAL OF APPROVAL" A TWO-POUND PERSONAL TURD STRAIGHT FROM THE ASS OF THE ASS "I CLAIM THIS FOR TRUMPLANDIA."  

THE PRESS LAUGHED AND CHORTLED AND SOME WENT TO THE TROUBLE OF EXPLAINING WHAT THE DIFFERENT SHADES OF TURDS MIGHT MEAN.  JONATHAN TURLEY, POSING AS A LEGAL SCHOLAR, INSISTED THAT AS LONG AS THE TURD WAS CORN FREE, IT WAS LEGAL.  BUT IF THE TURD HAD CORN?  JONATHAN TURLEY SAID HE WOULD EAT HIMSELF.

WHICH HE DID.

WITH GREAT ZEAL AND RELISH.

AT LEAST EIGHTY TIMES OVER.


SO DONALD TRUMP WENT AROUND 'NATIONALIZING' OTHER THINGS.  EVENTUALLY, HE GOT TO 'NATIONALIZING' CONGRESS.  

FINALLY, A FEW PUSHED BACK AND SAID THAT SURELY THIS WAS NOT AUTHORIZED IN THE CONTITUTION -- NOT EVEN IN THE FORMER UNITED STATES NOW KNOWN AS TRUMPLAND.

JONATHAN TURLEY SHOOK HIS HEAD VIGOROUSLY INSISTING THAT IT WAS LEGAL AS HE CONSUMED A PARTICULARLY LENGTHY TURD.


SEXY BEAST -- AS DONALD TRUMP NOW INSISTED ON BEING CALLED; FULL TITLE "THE SEXY BEAST OF THE WORLD AND UNIVERSE" -- INSISTED IT WAS FULLY LEGAL.  HE POINTED OUT THAT HE NOT NATIONALIZED THE SUPREME COURT AND HE TOOK THE CASE TO THEM.

THEY FOUND IN HIS FAVOR WITH BRETT KAVANAUGH PRAISING "THE FLAVOR" OF SEXY BEAST'S URINE AS HE DOWNED BOTTLE AFTER BOTTLE OF IT.


IT WAS AT THAT TIME THAT THE UNITED STATES AND DEMOCRACY OFFICIALLY ENDED.

AND THE ABANDON HARRIS MOVEMENT ISSUED A STATEMENT, "WE ARE HOMOPHOBES WHO LOATHE ALL LGBTQ+ PEOPLE BECAUSE WE ARE EXTREMISTS IN OUR RELIGION.  WE NEVER LIKED AMERICA AND OBVIOUSLY NEVER CONSIDERED OURSELVES AMERICANS SINCE WE PLACED WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AHEAD OF WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY.  WE ARE PLEASED WITH SEXY BEAST AND LOOK FORWARD TO SERVING SEXY BEAST FOR ALL ETERNITY PLUS TEN YEARS MORE."


PERENNIAL GREEN PARTY JOKE JILL STEIN DECLARED THAT SHE WAS THRILLED WITH TRUMPLAND AND GLAD THAT ALL THE PEOPLE WITH SKIN NOT LIKE HER OWN WERE BEING ROUNDED UP.  "THIS WILL BRING ABOUT THE REVOLUTION!  AND I WILL LEAD IT!" SHE EXCLAIMED A DAY BEFORE SHE WAS PUBLICY EXECUTED.  TO BE CLEAR, NO ONE BELIEVED SHE COULD LEAD ANYTHING -- LET ALONE A REVOLUTION.  SHE WAS KILLED JUST BECAUSE SEXY BEAST FOUND HER FACE SO UGLY.  

THERE WAS SOME HOPE -- AMONG THE MOST EXTREMELY NAIVE -- THAT OUR BRAVE PUBLICATIONS AND PROGRAMS MIGHT CHALLENGE SEXY BEAST AND ARGUE FOR THE RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY AND OF THE UNITED STATES.  BUT INSTEAD, IN THESE TIMES, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE AND OTHER ISSUED A STATEMENT:  "WE GLADLY ACCEPT CREDIT FOR DESTROYING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  THAT WAS OUR PLAN  ALL ALONG.  DEATH TO REALISM!  DEATH TO REALISM!  DOWN WITH FREEDOM! DOWN WITH EQUALITY!"  

PEOPLE BEGAN TO WONDER WHAT THE POINT IN EVEN LIVING NOW WAS AS AMY GOODMAN RENAMED HER LOUSY PROGRAM THE WHORE AND PROPAGANDA REPORT AND SPENT HOUR UPON HOUR TRASHING KAMALA HARRIS AND TELLING THE WORLD THAT HARRIS WAS DEAD.  

BUT DEEP IN THE HEART OF AMERICA, A FEW STALWARTS REMAINED HOPEFUL AND BELIEVED HARRIS WAS ALIVE AND THAT, SHORTLY, SHE WOULD SEE TO IT THAT DONALD TRUMP WAS TRIED FOR TREASON IN A REAL COURT -- NOT A TRUMPLAND COURT -- A REAL COURT.   THE ONLY QUESTION WAS: IF SHE WAS ALIVE WOULD THE PROGRESSIVE, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, ZNET, DEMOCRACY NOW! AND SO MANY OTHERS BETRAY HER AND THE UNITED STATES AGAIN?


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

It's amazing to watch this election cycle. Robert Kennedy Jr. thinking he can deny attempted rape accusations -- as though William Kennedy Smith never happened?  Thinking he can be accused of assaulting the baby sitter and still go around to the press and get away with insisting he never said he was a choirboy?  Maybe even more amazing would be that media outlets would speak to him after that or his denial of the known affair with the reporter -- the one that got her fired but he can go on TV and just insists he never speaks about his personal life.  

It's really something to see.  

There's freak show Jill Stein.  Let's zoom in on the Green Party v.p. slot.  No, not Butch Ware, but the v.p. she wanted to start with:  Abdullah Hammoud.  She had to move back from that choice and she finally selected Butch Ware.

But for awhile she wanted Abdullah Hammoud.  And he was a rising star for some unknown reason.  The right-wing doesn't really like him.  Some elements of the left have promoted him.  And, golly gosh, MOTHER JONES is now.

And the real reason is why?

He's anti-genocide?

So am I.  So are most people.  There's not really a big pro genocide group in the US.  That's why so many refuse to apply the term genocide to what's taking place in Gaza.  But that is genocide.  And the genocide has flared and increased as it does every now and then -- but even in what passes for 'peace' has been a genocide against the Palestinian people.

The problem with Abdullah for Jill was first off that he was too young to be her running mate -- had she won (I know, I know, stop laughing, we're just making a point) and been sworn in January 20th then died in her sleep the night of, Abdullah would have been too young to be president.  He's the Mayor of Dearborn but he's too young to be the president of the United States.

So that was the main problem but what finally had Jill relinquish her fantasy were two Green Party big wigs who pointed out to her that Abdullah was the Mayor of Dearborn.

And if you've read the fawning coverage over him, you might just be nodding blankly like Jill did.

But what Green Party thinkers understood -- and finally got through Jill's thick head -- was that the Green Party could not build a future with Abdullah because he is Mayor of Dearborn.


Dearborn is where many Muslims joined the hate brigade with the fright wing.  It is very anti-LGBTQ+ at this time.  That coincides with Abdullah's term as Mayor.  Like all Democrats representing that area in any form, he was called out by a number of Muslims who felt he was pro-gay because he was a Democrat.

Is he?

As Mayor he hasn't helped the LGBTQ+ population.  

Common sense would dictate that when you do a lengthy interview with him, you get him on the record.

But no one does and MOTHER JONES didn't.

I'm not promoting homophobes.  I'm not promoting politicians who betray Americans.  

MOTHER JONES seems to be okay with it.

They and others create this myth of Abdullah.  And I'm not a myth maker.  

Tim Walz did awful in the debate and I said so. 

The open prejudice and hatred that LGBTQ+ people face now since Abdullah became mayor is not something that you overlook.  

And it's amazing how much attention he's gotten from left media for his attacks on Joe Biden and now on Kamala Harris with no one wanting to put him on the record about the hate in Dearborn that has only increased in the last two years, at the efforts to ban books, to strip away rights.

Shame on MOTHER JONES. 

Abdullah's the new Rocky Anderson and if you're asking "Who?" -- exactly.  THE NATION and others spent forever trying to make Rocky happen.  He never did.  He became famous for being a mayor in leftist circles and then he never delivered on anything.



Kamala Harris has done an amazing job.  Unlike others in the 2024 election cycle, she hasn't had a year or more to build a campaign.  She had to hit the ground running   She'd done and is doing an incredible job.

And that bears stating since this is a left site and I am a leftist. 

I thought THE NATION was left and THE PROGRESSIVE and MOTHER JONES and go down the list.  But I see all these attacks on her.  And we're 25 days away from the end of the election -- voting's already taking place, November 5th will be the final day of voting -- and they're running garbage articles?  They're attacking her.  

She's not doing this and she's not doing that!

I've never in my life seen the left media pile on a Democratic Party presidential candidate like this.  It's appalling.  

But fortunately, she doesn't have to depend upon them.  



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    Wednesday, October 9, 2024

    Trump's mountain of depth, Mike Johnson's lack of Christianity

    Grifters and con artists.  What you writing about, Mommy? 
     
    My oldest asked me that.  
     
    I said, "Grifters and con artists."  Ron Filipkowski (MediasTouch News) reports:


    In his initial filing for bankruptcy to attempt to delay the collection of the massive defamation judgment obtained by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, Rudy Giuliani was forced to admit that the Trump campaign owed him $2 million in unpaid legal fees. Now he is begging a court not to collect that money since it will make it look like he is suing Trump right before the election.

    The bankruptcy court recently dismissed his case as being fraudulently filed in an attempt to simply delay collection of the judgment. So now the case is back in court with the plaintiffs attempting to seize Rudy's assets without delay. Rudy filed a motion today regarding his most substantial assets - one of which are the legal fees he accrued trying to overturn the 2020 election for Trump. Trump never paid him a single dollar for his work.

    [. . .]

    Finally, he asks that the court delay enforcement of the $2 million owed by Trump until the day after the election. He says that should be done because there will be a "media frenzy" if Trump is forced to pay Rudy the money he has owed him for three years, and it will make it look like Rudy is suing Trump right before the election for stiffing him. 


    Of course he wants to delay it.  Trump's mountain of debt could collapse at any moment and Rudy doesn't want that pinned on him.  Everything about Trump is a lie including his supposedly great wealth.  You know Ike Turner -- a con artist who abused women just like Trump -- used to explain how you manipulated the bank.  And he'd talk about how you could ride high for years.  But one stumble and everyone panics and starts calling in the debts and that's when you're bankrupt.

    In other news, I guess conversion camp only accomplishes so much.  Doesn't appear to have left Speaker of the House Mike Johnson with a functional brain.  Charles R. Davis (Salon) reports:


    House Speaker Mike Johnson is a man of faith — a “Bible-believing Christian,” as he puts it, who by his own account does his best to reflect the fact that God is love, not hate.
    “If you truly believe in the Bible’s commands,” the Louisiana Republican told Fox News last year, “and you seek to follow those, it’s impossible to be a hateful person because the greatest command in the Bible is that you love God with everything you had, and you love your neighbor as well.”

    But Johnson is also a loyal ally of Donald Trump, a man who has repeatedly made false, outlandish and blatantly offensive claims in pursuit of political power, and has spent the last nine years blaming people born elsewhere for almost every problem facing America. But Johnson is far more than a modest disciple of a 78-year-old demagogue who hawks his own sacrilegious version of Christianity's sacred text, nor is he just another Republican who swallows his unease over the racist invective in order to get lower corporate taxes.

    No, Mike Johnson is also in it for power. Like his party’s leader, he's given to self-aggrandizement (“entire industries,” he has claimed, are trying “to take down … effective political leaders like me”). In his uphill quest to preserve the Republicans' slender House majority and hold onto the speaker's chair, Johnson is participating — and even leading — a campaign of demonization directed at immigrants, one that he either knows is false or has somehow willed himself to believe is true. (Neither is an excuse, according to the dictates of Johnson's faith, that is likely to satisfy St. Peter).

    Speaking to Politico while on the campaign trail in Texas, Johnson this week reiterated a false GOP talking point he has echoed many times before.


    “We know that states are not requesting proof of citizenship … so there's going to be thousands upon thousands of noncitizens voting,” he claimed. “If you have enough noncitizens participating in some of these swing areas, you can change the outcome of the election in the majority.”

    He made much the same fanciful claim in July, when the House passed legislation requiring states to ask for proof of citizenship from anyone filling out a voter registration form. To be clear, it's already a felony for any noncitizen to vote, but voting-rights advocates believe that requiring a passport or a birth certificate — documents many citizens do not possess — amounts to voter suppression. 

    At the risk of tiresome repetition, these claims that thousands of noncitizens are voting are simply not true. Don’t take the liberal media’s word for it: Consider the audits of voter rolls conducted by Republican politicians.



    As a religious person, I don't get it.  He apparently has no real faith, that's the only answer.  Everything he does is motivated by hate.  That's not love.  That's not representative of Jesus' love.  

    If we are tested on this earth, we are tested to show love and forgiveness.  I don't see anything in Mike's attitude or remarks that speak to that or that show any appreciation for Jesus dying for our sins.  All he offers is hate.  

     

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

    Wednesday, October 9, 2024.  Donald Trump's dowry to Vladimir Putin, his damaging lies and so much more.


    Some days you just aren't in the mood for the nonsense lies.  That's me this morning after seeing way too many e-mails to the public account from idiots and liars who insist that Donald Trump is the answer to free speech.  It's as though Glynneth Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Elon Musk had their sock puppets astroturf the public e-mail account.

    But since the liars have bothered me, let's be really clear on something.

    Elon Musk, Greenwal, Taibbi and Robert Kennedy Jr are not for free speech.  They say they are, but they're not.  


    If you're for free speech, you don't, as Elon did, donate to Ron DeSantis who's currently going after TV stations that air commercials about Florida's proposed amendment on abortion. And most importantly, you don't believe in book banning.  Moms For Bigotry backed Ron, was supported by Ron, was appointed to offices by Ron.

    That's not free speech.

    But Matt and Glennie and Junior have been allowed to define free speech as they see it without any real pushback -- and that basically boils down to, I don't believe in vaccines!!!!!

    Now you can go sell that lie on FOX "NEWS."  But in the real world, when you're calling for book bans you're not for free speech and stop pretending that you are.   When others are calling for book bans and you can't say a word about it, then you aren't for free speech.

    As for Donald?  His threats against the press, his threats against comedians -- His threats against the world.  

    I don't have time to waste on stupidity.  

    But looking at some of those e-mails from deeply deluded and disturbed people, I thought it at least called for a clarification that book banning is not free speech and that none of your self-appointed fright-wing Free Speech 'defenders' has pushed back on book bans.

    Donald's 'free speech' beliefs are that he can lie repeatedly and try to pass those lies off as free speech.




                 Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said she thinks former President Donald Trump has no empathy for others as he continues to spread misinformation about the federal response in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

    “It’s profound, and it is the height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness. … Lives are literally at stake right now,” Harris said during an interview on ABC’s “The View.” “I mean we’re talking about real human beings and their lives and they’re losing everything, everything.”

    She added, “The idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself – but this is so consistent about Donald Trump.”

                 “He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it’s to lift people up especially in a time of crisis,” she added.

    Following Hurricane Helene, and with Hurricane Milton barreling toward Florida, Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed, without evidence, that the White House is diverting disaster relief aid to unrelated migrant programs. While FEMA does manage grants for housing and helping migrants, that is a separate account and unrelated to the disaster relief funds.

    Trump has also repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s response to Helene, including falsely saying that the president wasn’t picking up the calls and that there is an anti-Republican bias in how President Joe Biden and Harris are responding to the crisis.     


    Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris was on THE VIEW yesterday addressing a number of topics.  Here's the clip of her discussing the government's response to Hurricane Helene.




    Harris described personal stories she heard from those affected by Hurricane Helene and its aftermath after traveling to Georgia and North Carolina.

    "People are losing their home with no hope of ever being able to reconstruct or return, and the idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself -- but this is so consistent about Donald Trump," she said. "He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about suffering of other people and understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it's to lift people up."

    Harris' sit-down on "The View" marked her first live interview since becoming the Democratic nominee. She is ramping up her media appearances this week with now just one month until Election Day.



    Kamala has one of the hardest jobs in the world right now.  She's got to put forward ideas -- as any presidential candidate would be expected to do -- but she also has to spend a significant amount of her campaign time each day refuting some of Donald Trump's lies.  Some.  Not all.  The media -- even when they're trying to -- is unable to refute all of Donald Trump's lies because the lies never end.




    Former President Donald Trump’s deadly lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — and soon, inevitably, Hurricane Milton — depend on the impermeability of the right-wing information bubble.

    President Joe Biden has directed an ongoing federal and state response to the swath of death and destruction Hurricane Helene left on the southeastern United States, an effort which includes tens of thousands of personnel helping victims across several states. 

    Trump’s Helene response has been characterized by conspiracy theories and grievance-mongering for political gain.

    The Biden administration won plaudits from GOP elected officials across the region, but Trump falsely claimed the federal government abandoned the public. Americans affected by the storm can access a robust program of federal assistance, but he falsely claims they could only get $750 in aid. The White House stressed there’s plenty of FEMA funds to respond to both Helene and Milton — and Republicans are reportedly the ones blocking additional funding — but Trump falsely claims Vice President Kamala Harris blew “all her FEMA money” housing immigrants. 

    The former president, through these deranged fabrications, is trying to win votes in the coming election. He is summoning an alternate reality in which Biden and Harris are blithely unconcerned with the fates of millions of victims because many of those victims are Republicans and they instead prioritize immigrants. And he is doing so despite his own record  as president of allegedly withholding disaster aid for political reasons.

    The only reason this strategy is remotely plausible is that the right-wing media ecosystem is willing to play along with it. The news sources Republicans rely on, from MAGA influencers to Fox stars, have bolstered Trump’s lies at every turn. The result is that right-wing audiences are bombarded with falsehoods from within an echo chamber.

    The MAGA media ecosystem responds in this same fashion to every news event because its function isn’t to report on what is happening. Instead, right-wing pundits offer a scapegoat — immigrants, Jews, journalists, teachers, trans people, Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans — in order to hold their audience’s attention, make money, and support the GOP’s core agenda of tax cuts for rich people and abortion bans.

    This incentive structure is universally toxic. But when it collides with issues like disaster relief, the consequences can turn deadly. Before, during, and after a hurricane, people on the ground need credible information about what to do, what help is available, and how to get it. Right now, the sources many victims depend on for news are lying to them.

    Hurricane misinformation is plaguing the response to Helene. Local media outlets, federal and state officials, and emergency responders all are desperately trying to swat down rumors and falsehoods — some promoted by the former president. Republican officials in affected areas are begging the people pushing “conspiracy theory junk” to stop lying and pitch in instead.



    On THE VIEW, she spoke of other things, such as Medicare, as well.





    Labor unions and consumer advocates were among those applauding Tuesday after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced her proposal for home healthcare coverage under Medicare—a broadly popular idea, according to polls, that supporters said would be a "game-changer" for millions of families.

    On the ABC talk show "The View," Harris spoke about the "sandwich generation"—middle-aged Americans who find themselves caring for aging parents while they're also raising their own children.

    "There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle," said the Democratic presidential nominee. "And it's just, almost, impossible to do it all, especially if they work. We're finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress. And so what I am proposing is that basically what we will do is allow Medicare to cover in-home healthcare."

    Medicare currently only covers in-home healthcare for short periods of time, such as in cases of a patient recovering from surgery. But the number of aging Americans who need need prolonged healthcare at home is expected to explode in the coming years as members of the baby boomer generation reach their 80s.

    Medicaid covers home care for low-income people who are elderly or have disabilities, but waiting lists are long and beneficiaries are required to max out their savings before qualifying.

    Covering at-home healthcare for Medicare's 67 million beneficiaries would "provide much-needed relief and financial support" to about 37 million people who currently provide unpaid eldercare to their family members, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

    Lisa Gilbert, co-president of consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, said that "home health expansion through Medicare is a smart and desperately needed place to start" on the road to expanding and improving Medicare.

    "This important expansion would finally allow Medicare to cover crucial services where many beneficiaries would prefer to receive them—in the safety and comfort of their homes," said Gilbert. "Such an expansion would lay the groundwork for even further improvements and expansions to Medicare including hearing, dental, and vision services. A low out-of-pocket cap on medical expenses would ensure seniors can afford to get the care they need, and by reining in Medicare Advantage overpayments, we could fund many of these priorities."

    Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president April Verrett said the plan offers the latest contrast between Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who aims to repeal the Affordable Care Act and has said he has "concepts of a plan" to replace the law.

    "Along with her proposals to invest in childcare, in paid leave, and to make Medicaid investments in home care, as well as lower costs for working families and raising wages for care workers, Kamala Harris is showing that she's been listening to working families," said Verrett. "In this presidential election, we have the choice between a candidate who has a plan for working families and one who has only offered 'concepts of a plan,' including gutting the Affordable Care Act and the nonsensical idea of paying for childcare through tariffs, which would actually raise prices."

    "Care workers rallied to elect President [Joe] Biden and Vice President Harris, and this administration has demonstrated again and again that they stand with us," added Verrett. "Now we need to finish the job with Kamala Harris as president, making home care accessible to all and delivering the historic investment in care that our nation desperately needs."

    The vice president said Medicare negotiations over drug prices, which were begun under the Biden administration over the objections of Republicans and which she supports expanding, would pay for the new Medicare benefit.

    "Part of what I also intend to do is allow Medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices against these big pharmaceutical companies, which means we are going to save Medicare the money, because we're not going to be paying these high prices, and that those resources are best then put in a way that helps a family," said Harris.

    Gilbert expressed hope that the new benefit, which would need to be approved by Congress, would be just one step toward expanding Medicare coverage to all Americans.

    "We must continue to expand the availability of Medicare by lowering the qualifying age," she said, "so we can finally build a healthcare system that ensures that every American can get the care they need when they need it without going bankrupt."

     
    Convicted Felon Donald Trump is in the news cycle for healthcare as well.  At the height of the pandemic, when Americans needed test kits to determine if they had COVID and these test kits were in short supply, Donald sent them to Russia for his buddy Vladimir Putin, as Mike put it, "Donald gives it away to Vlad."





    Vice President Harris is criticizing Donald Trump following new reporting by the journalist Bob Woodward that the former president secretly shared COVID-19 test machines with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at a moment in 2020 when tests were out of reach for most Americans.

    The revelation, first reported by CNN and The Washington Post on Tuesday, is detailed in a forthcoming book called War by the famed Watergate journalist, about Trump’s record on the international stage, as well as President Biden’s.

    According to the book, Trump sent the secret shipment of testing equipment to the Russian leader at the height of the pandemic in 2020, even as the U.S. and other nations were facing crippling shortages of testing kits.









    Imagine, for just a moment, if Kamala Harris’s supporters were prone to the sort of political idolatry that characterizes Donald Trump’s devotees. It’s a thought experiment suited to an election for which the word historic feels inadequate to capture either Harris’s political ascent or the sheer number of unprecedented events that led to it. There is the aberration of Trump, the twice-impeached, feloniously convicted, rape-adjudicated former president—a bitter old racist returned for a third time to usher in the white supremacist autocracy that his attempted coup failed to. In any election, President Joe Biden’s age and enfeeblement since taking office would have been an issue of concern, but under the threat of Trumpism, Biden’s disastrous debate performance jettisoned the false narrative that he alone was a bulwark for democracy. Harris—elected in 2020 as the first woman, first Black, and first South Asian vice president because her résumé of legislative and prosecutorial public service made her uniquely suited for the job—should have been recognized as a better candidate than both of those men from the start. And yet, as Biden’s post-debate numbers waned and Trump’s bandaged ear crystallized his MAGA martyrdom, but her unpopularity became a tired echo of 2016’s but her emails. The commentariat, which began sowing doubts about Harris’s viability nearly as soon as she assumed the vice presidency, even floated other names for consideration as Biden’s exit became increasingly probable. Minyon Moore, chair of the Democratic National Convention, said she watched with “fascination” as the media spun a tale she always knew was divorced from reality.
    “The rules dictated a lot. What they did not understand was the rules,’’ Moore told me. “First of all, she campaigned for two years with Joe Biden. She raised money for Joe Biden. She took no shortcuts. What they were trying to do was put in place a process that did not exist…. Those 4,000 delegates literally voted for Joe Biden—but they also voted for his ticket. And she was a part of that ticket.”

    When Biden, a record-breaking 107 days before the election, finally left the race and endorsed Harris, the act unexpectedly unleashed an outpouring of enthusiasm and joy, emotions rarely associated with politics in recent years. The mood shift not only proved Harris’s naysayers wrong but also revealed how Biden’s frailty and Trump’s darkness had drained the party to sepia tones. Harris’s run, quite unexpectedly, infused it with color and light again. If the left had the same sanctification tendencies as the Trumpian right, the improbable events leading to Harris’s nomination might have been cast as divine intervention—Jesus taking the wheel, only to hand the keys to Harris, so she might steer America away from Trumpism and back onto a righteous road.

    But the Democratic Party is not a cult of personality, a fact proved by Biden’s withdrawal. Harris’s run produced a jubilance incomparable to anything seen since at least Barack Obama’s first run, and it may even have eclipsed that. Within hours of becoming the presumptive nominee, Harris was buoyed by organizers who had begun laying the groundwork for her run years before. A Zoom organized by Win With Black Women drew 44,000 participants, an unprecedented number that required the site’s engineers to increase capacity. The call ultimately raised $1.5 million in just three hours. At least a dozen other calls followed—South Asian Women for Harris, Win With Black Men, White Women: Answer the Call—each enlisting volunteers and strategizing for a Harris win. In mid-September, Voto Latino reported a 200 percent surge in its voter registrations since the day Harris replaced Biden. A senior analyst at TargetSmart, a data research firm, reported that registrations are up more than 85 percent among Black voters overall and a staggering 98 percent among Black women. Potential youth voters increased most impressively. In 13 states, registrations have gone up nearly 176 percent and 150 percent among 18- to 29-year-old Black and Hispanic women, respectively. Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated endorsement of Harris, which came moments after Harris thrashed Trump in the debate, drove “a 400 or 500 percent increase” in people going to vote.gov to register, according to a TargetSmart analyst. What’s more, young Democrats are 14 percent more enthusiastic about voting than their Republican counterparts. While party killjoys such as David Axelrod suggested Democrats were feeling “irrational exuberance,” and James Carville chastised their “giddy elation,” organizers were getting down to work and galvanizing people to get Harris elected. Those on the ground, doing the real heavy lifting, helped consolidate support for Harris, building a campaign powered not from the top down, but from the grassroots up.







    The following sites updated plus Rebecca's "vance and trump and their lies" which isn't showing up





    on No comments:

    Tuesday, October 8, 2024

    One more time on two political crooks

    Let me note the crooked politician Michele Fiore again.  Who?  María Luisa Paúl (The Washington Post) reports:



    Fiore — a politician dubbed “Lady Trump” by outlets and pundits for her gun-toting, fiery brand of conservatism — pleaded not guilty when she was arraigned in July. During last week’s trial, prosecutors accused Fiore of bilking donors who thought they were contributing to a statue of Alyn Beck, a 41-year-old Las Vegas police officer who was shot with his partner in 2014.

    “Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said in court Thursday.

    Fiore’s lawyer, Michael Sanft, did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment. On Thursday, he told reporters that Fiore would appeal the conviction.

    According to an indictment, the fraud scheme unfolded over a seven-month period between July 2019 and January 2020, while Fiore served on the Las Vegas City Council.

    In 2018, the city had broken ground on the Alyn Beck Memorial Park in a ceremony during which Fiore proposed that a statue of the officer be installed at the park’s entrance, court records state. And while a private real estate development company had already agreed to pay a sculptor to create and install the statue, Fiore began a fundraising campaign — soliciting more than $70,000 from Nevadans, including Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), who was the sheriff of Clark County at the time.


    Lombardo, who testified against Fiore, said in court that he had authorized a $5,000 donation from his campaign fund in 2019 to go to Fiore’s political action committee to help pay for the statue — adding that he wouldn’t have made the payment if he had known the funds would be used for Fiore’s personal gain.

    Though Fiore promised donors that “100% of the contributions” would go toward erecting the statue, no part of the raised funds were actually used in the memorial, the indictment states. Instead, Fiore laundered the money through front companies and relatives and used it to maintain her luxurious lifestyle, prosecutors said. Some of the donations, they claimed, were used by Fiore to write checks to her daughter, who then cashed them to pay for rent.


    Crook.  She is a disgrace to humanity.  She's not the only one.  Last week, I noted her in "Political crooks who belong in prison" and also noted the disgraceful Tina Peters.  On that crook, Mark Z. Barabak (Los Angeles Times) notes:


     After the 2020 election, Peters fell in with the tinfoil-hat crowd promoting the phony claim the presidential race was stolen from Donald Trump. In furtherance of that fallacy, Peters allowed an unauthorized person to access voting equipment as part of a crackpot scheme to gather "proof" that Mesa County's voting machines were rigged.

    They weren't.

    But Peters' conniving made her a celebrity in the upside-down universe that is MAGA world. She jetted around the country as a wingman for Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy and feather-headed spouter of election-denying nonsense. Trump hailed Peters as "a rock star" for helping further spread his corrosive claptrap.

    Finally, in August, Peters' duplicity caught up with her. She was convicted of seven criminal counts related to the breach of election security and her deceptive actions surrounding the incident. Last week a judge threw not just the book but multiple volumes at the unrepentant former county clerk, rejecting pleas for leniency and sentencing Peters to a whopping nine years in prison.

    [. . .]
     Dug in to the bitter end, Peters used her sentencing hearing to once more unspool her wacky theories about how the election was stolen — "fraudulent software," surreptitious wireless devices, deleted votes blah blah — until the exasperated judge cut her off.

    “I’ve let you go on enough about this,” Barrett said. “The votes are the votes.”

    Finally facing the consequences for what she'd done, Peters delivered a weepy plea to avoid prison, citing among other things her need for the "magnetic mattress" she's used for years to help deal with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. Tough to find one of those behind bars.

    Oh well.

    Peters should have thought of that before breaching her public duty, giving voters the middle finger and sacrificing herself on the mantle of Trump's ego and incessant lies.


    She should rot in prison.

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


    Tuesday, October 8, 2024.  A lot of typists at news outlets, not a lot of journalists. 


    Rachel Maddow looked at some senate races on MSNBC last night.




    Regarding the above, the Michigan Democratic Party issued the following:


    A bombshell new report from Detroit Free Press has raised questions about “where Mike Rogers lives” after reporting that “Mike Rogers does not live in the house” in White Lake Township as the house “did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy.” 

    The Detroit Free Press found that “Mike Rogers’ neighborhoods have everything but Mr. Rogers.” The Rogers campaign is “mighty cagey” about where Rogers lives and “refused multiple requests to discuss the matter.”

    Neighbors in the Genoa Township house that Rogers claims to live in with his brother confirmed “he doesn’t live [there]” and said they had “never seen Mike around.” They were “surprised to learn a U.S. Senate candidate was living a few doors down,” including one man who said “I’ve never seen Mike around here. Not one time.”

    Questions Mike Rogers must answer:

    • In August 2024, your campaign told the Detroit News that you “now reside in White Lake Township” and referred to the Genoa Township home as somewhere you “previously resided.” If you were no longer living in Genoa Township in August, and you were not living in the unfinished White Lake Township house – as your campaign confirmed – where have you been living? 
    • How do you respond to Michiganders who say they “don’t like it… not one bit” about the fact that you are lying about living in Michigan?  

    See also: Michigan Advance: Where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood?, Michigan Advance: A new house is being built for Mr. Rogers in his not-yet-neighborhood, Newsweek: Michigan Republican Candidate Caught Living in Florida, MSNBC: In Senate races, GOP haunted anew with ‘candidate quality’ issues


    Let's talk Elon.  Trash.  Twitter Trash.  I'm someone who actively worked on the issue of apartheid, protested, called on our leaders to stop propping up South Africa, marched, haunted the halls of Congress.  My protests?  That started in college.  Our campus newspaper was in such a hurry to glorify an athlete that they printed his words and printed them as truth.  He wanted those of us on campus, and in the US, to know that Nelson Mandela was treated amazingly well, he had a better life than most Blacks in South Africa.  Nelson, at the time, was imprisoned.  In the same article, the athlete from South Africa -- the White athlete from South Africa insisted that apartheid was fine and Black people were happy with it and it was just those of us outside of South Africa that were making a big deal about it.

    I always believe that your best tool is common sense.  Common sense tells you that if a White South African says some Black person brutally imprisoned has a better life than other Blacks, that statement is not logical.  

    Briefly, I wrote a letter to the editors insisting that this feature story should have either not printed the claims of the sports non-star (he crashed and burned) but, since they did, it was incumbent upon them to note some actual facts about life in South Africa for Black people.  They printed the letter.  Then lined up four of their friends to trash me in letters in the next edition of the paper.  I didn't know at the time that was the case.  It was only when some BMOC wanted a date and apologized for the letter he wrote that was printed that I knew about it.  I knew the letters that came in, I didn't care enough to register who wrote them.  (And, no, I didn't go out with BMOC.)  Though their stunt wasn't known at the time, the letters they published led to real letters -- letters opposed to the lies about how great life was for Black people in South Africa under apartheid.

    And the issue just increased over the semester.  At one point, the editor (we'd slept together) came to me as the semester was winding down.  That's when I learned a great deal more about the plot against me -- they were trying to trash me to discredit my opposition to apartheid -- and my rightfully calling them out for their defense of racism. The problem was there were now so many letters, the last edition of the paper for the semester would be nothing but letters.  And, yeah, the letters were in agreement with me.  There had been one or two racists who had written to defend South Africa -- written on their own -- during the semester.  But they had held back a ton of letters.  And now the letter writers were complaining to any college official they could corner.  So they were going to have to print the letters . . . unless . . . I'd agree to an interview.  So you'd ask me questions and I would answer -- that's what I asked the 1 time f**k toy.  Yeah.  And you'd print my answers in full?  Uh-uh.  Yeah, I'm not an idiot about the press.  I said print the letters.

    B-b-b-but.

    Print the letters, print every one of them.

    And that's what they had to do and it was a campus scandal for years because people started finding out how the paper's staff had tried to trash me by recruiting people to write letters -- four of the letters in the last edition were from people paper staff had begged to attack me in print and these people had refused.  It was a campus scandal because the paper wanted to defend racism.  It was huge and it became huge again when apartheid finally fell in South Africa.

    I think we all have prejudices and I'm always going to be suspect of Whites who lived in South Africa and enriched themselves and never made any effort to end apartheid. 


    For example, Charlize Theron.  She's always tried to be nice to me but I've always blown her off.  Why?  She's a White woman who grew up in South Africa.  I consider her suspect. She's always praised her life in South Africa.  I pointed that out to her.  I pointed out that she never says, "Of course, it was great for me because I was White."  That is why she had it great.  She was 15 when apartheid ended and maybe some day she'll be adult enough to publicly correct the record and show some growth.  But I don't care for her.  I don't like her.  


    She benefited from racism.  And I am highly prejudiced against racists.


    Which brings us to Elon and his musky trashy mother.





    Elon Musk’s mom has been accused of encouraging followers on X to commit voter fraud and was fact-checked by her son’s own social media platform.

    Maye Musk quoted a post by her son before he spoke at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania yesterday, where the billionaire wrote: “Super important to get all your friends and family to register to vote. Georgia’s registration deadline is Monday!!”

    But his mom went a step further and suggested to her 1.1 million followers they could vote more than once under fake names - which is illegal.

    “The Democrats have given us another option,” she said. “You don’t have to register to vote. On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”

    Followers, including many attorneys, were quick to call her out, and a community note soon appeared underneath her post which said: “This is, in fact, illegal.”

    The note linked to the US Code which states voting more than once intentionally is federally prohibited.


    I would actually change that code.  I would make it where you can only vote in one national election.  So Elon's trashy mother -- a real tramp, everyone says -- could vote in the US election.  Or she could vote in the Canadian election.  Or she could vote in the South Africa election.  But she shouldn't be allowed to vote in all three or even two.

    I'm really not a fan of multiple citizenship.


    From Crapapedia:


    Maye Haldeman was born on April 19, 1948, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, a twin[6] and one of five children.[3] Her family moved to Pretoria, South Africa, in 1950. Her parents, Winnifred Josephine "Wyn" (Fletcher) and Dr. Joshua Norman Haldeman,

    [. . .]

    As a young woman, Haldeman was a finalist in the 1969 Miss South Africa beauty competition.[3] In 1970, she married Errol Musk, a South African engineer she met in high school. They had three children: Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk, and Tosca Musk. She named Elon after her American grandfather, John Elon Haldeman (born in Illinois).[13][14]

    In 1979, she divorced Errol Musk. Two years later, Elon, who was about 10 at the time, decided to live with his father, as he had the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a computer, things which Maye could not afford to give the children as a single parent.[15] Kimbal joined Elon four years later.[3] After graduating from high school, Elon decided to move to Canada; in 1989, six months later, Maye moved to Canada with her daughter Tosca.[16]

    Maye earned a master's degree in dietetics from the University of the Orange Free State in South Africa. Her major was taught in Afrikaans – one of the four languages Musk now speaks.[3][12] She later earned another master's degree in nutritional science from the University of Toronto.[17]


    Are you seeing how the White woman found fame and fortune in a country that denied Blacks basic rights?  Are you getting how she benefited from racism?

    Israel is an apartheid system as well. And I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone in that country that does nothing to protect and build the rights of Palestinians.  Apartheid will be dismantled.  That's a historical reality.  And those who opposed that happening should be seen for what they are.  

     

    Mama Musk lived in South Africa while it was an apartheid system.  She left in 1989 -- just as freedom was about to be a possibility for Blacks in the country.  WIKIPEDIA doesn't mention that, do they?  They just pretend like she an Elon -- two White racists -- both decided to move to the US.  That's not what happened.  Those who were part of the racist system -- or seen as being part of it -- left in 1989 -- some left sooner -- but they left in 1989 because they couldn't deal with Black people having rights.  It was no longer the 'dream world' that they loved so much.  


    Racist Maye made a ton of money in South Africa and lived there until the age of 51.  She's a racist.

    Elon is her child.  She taught him to be racist.  And he's certainly lived up to her teaching.
     



    • Tesla CEO Elon Musk touted a $47 referral bonus that the billionaire's political action committee is offering to the public for each registered swing-state voter whom they refer to an online petition that collects personal contact information of voters who are "in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms."
    • Musk's promotion of the petition came a day after he appeared with Donald Trump at a campaign rally by the Republican presidential nominee in Butler, Pennsylvania.
    • The states where the offer is valid — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina — are considered likely to provide the margin of victory in the election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.


    Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is backing Donald Trump in the presidential election, on Sunday touted a $47 referral bonus that the billionaire's political action committee is offering to people for each registered swing-state voter whom they refer to an online petition that requires signers to submit personal contact information.


     


    That move strikes me as illegal.  Trying to buy a US election.  And worse, doing so when you're not an American.  Oh, sure, needing US tax dollars for his success, Elon became a US citizen in 2002.  But he didn't give up his citizenship elsewhere.  He remains a citizen of Canada and of South Africa.

    The immigration reform we need starts with ending dual and triple citizenship.  

    Citizenship is not a patch work quilt.  And we don't need someone who's 1/3 American trying to influence our elections.  Trash like that -- racist trash -- never should have been allowed to become a US citizen.  We have more than enough racists already in this country, we don't need to open our borders to more.




    We ended yesterday's snapshot with  Alex Seitz-Wald (NBC NEWS) report:


     A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war.

    [. . .]


    The 25 Islamic religious leaders who signed the letter, which comes a year after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war, argue that Muslim voters have a duty to think logically about their voting decisions and that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options."

    “She is a committed ceasefire candidate too and is the best option for ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon,” they wrote.

    The imams argued that former President Donald Trump is a threat to their community.

    “Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure. Particularly in swing states, a vote for a third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the elections,” they wrote. 

    “Given [Trump’s] well-documented history of harming our communities and country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment,” the letter reads. 



    Yesterday, there were a lot of typists, not a lot of reporters.  A typist, for instance, typed this:


    The “Abandon Harris” group pushing for voters to protest Vice President Harris over the conflict in Gaza is endorsing the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the presidential race. 


    The group started as Abandon Biden and, as early as December 2023, they were publicly stating that they wanted to put Trump back in the White House.  That hasn't changed.  Nor has the 'reporting.'  They aren't Democrats.

    In states with closed primaries, some did become Democrats . . . to vote in this year's primary.  They're not Democrats.  They registered solely to trash Joe Biden.  And, even then, they didn't have any real power did they.

    Some typists yesterday came closer to reporters when they worked in that Jill's 'big victories' in polling reached 1%.  That's much lower than the CAIR poll that started all this lying about Jill's 'success' gave her.  We told you, the CAIR poll is junk poli sci.  It's not legitimate. 

    And the group isn't legitimate.  If you leave this year, you find out that Abandon Biden (now Abandon Harris))  is a bunch of non-Democrats many are Green Party members.  


    A bunch of liars and a bunch of fakes.  Pennsylvania co-chair?  That would be Colleen who wrongly believed that refusing to give her last name on the organization's website -- the only co-chair who did -- would keep people from finding out what she really stands for.

    Using the junk science CAIR poll, a number of people have created the mistaken impression that Jill Stein's campaign had anything to offer.  Ava and I covered the nonsense this week in "Media: The damage done by Dave Zirin and The Gaza Freaks:"


    The Gaza Freaks.  You may know one.  They're Americans who pretend to be concerned about the Palestinians.  But they really aren't as their actions -- or inaction -- demonstrate over and over.  Take the movement's self-proclaimed leader Dave Zirin. Dave writes for THE NATION and THE PROGRESSIVE and what he often lacks in intelligence or even basic skills, he often makes up for with passion that he channels into misguided avenues. 

     

    Dave's got a new piece at THE NATION.  We're not linking to it.  Search it if you want but THE NATION and their paywall nonsense gets on people's nerves. It's a paywall that Nation Builders do not agree with.  (Nation Builders keep the magazine-website going by donating thousands each year and they're really not cool -- we did a polling -- with the idea that an election year finds THE NATION limiting the amount of articles someone can read.)


    Dave's piece isn't worth anyone wasting a free click. If you feel it is, search for it, it's entitled "Behind the Harris Campaign's Quest for the Mythical 'Cheney Democrats'."  If you're late to the party, former US House Rep Liz Cheney, a Republican, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president and has spoken with the Democratic Party's presidential candidate at campaign events.  Dave is freaking out.

     

    What's causing the meltdown?  Realizing how ineffective he is and how ineffective his life has been.


    Dave was one of those who jumped on the Occupy Wall Street craze.  We call it a craze and not a movement because where is it now?  Or take Camp Casey.  Both started out with basics we could all agree on and support.  And then they got co-opted by crazies before they could make any real difference.  That's because we surf fads.  People talk about Neo-liberalism shipping jobs overseas but who knew movement building was one of those jobs?

     

    Movement building is hard work and it doesn't have overnight.  There's no quick fix.


    It's something that escaped The Gaza Freaks. 


    After decades of living under apartheid and being slaughtered, the Palestinian people truly captured the world's attention in the last 12 months.  And sympathy for and identification with the Palestinian people had never been greater.  There was talk of the need for a cease-fire to end the genocide the Israeli government is carrying out.  

     

    Longterm observes of the situation knew a cease-fire was little more than a needed band-aid.  If that's all that took place, the slaughter would continue -- as it had in the many years before October 7, 2023 -- and it would do so in smaller numbers to avoid worldwide press coverage.  Longterm observers knew there was a lot of work to do and were proceeding to roll up their sleeves and work for a truly better world for the Palestinian people.  


    And then there were the Daves.  Surfers who hop onto a craze.  You know, the way CODESTINK always does.  They'll hitch a ride on a cause for a few months and then, when press attention moves elsewhere, they'll find a new cause that can gather attention for themselves because isn't getting press coverage much more important than working for -- and bringing about -- actual change?


    2024 is an election year.


    Since July, The Gaza Freaks have insisted they're not voting for Kamala Harris.  They wrote her a letter detailing what they wanted for Christmas and then they threw their tantrum.


    Using a questionable poll by CAIR, they convinced themselves that they had the numbers when they didn't.  They trashed her.  They used their outlets: COMMON DREAMS, THE PROGRESSIVE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, etc, etc -- to try to destroy enthusiasm for Kamala and her presidential campaign.


    Donald Trump is not going to be a better choice for the Palestinian people and only a liar says he would be.  If you actually cared about the Palestinian people, you wouldn't be urging people to vote for Jill Stein who is yet again running for president on the Green Party's ticket and is financed with Republican dollars and Republican attorneys working for her campaign for free.  Why?  Because they hope she can steal enough votes from Kamala to put Trump back in the White House.


    Now the lying Greens (not all Greens are liars but the ones who pretended to care about Palestine are) are as frustrated as non-Democrat Dave Zirin.  They're getting so frustrated that they're getting their lies mixed up.  Take Building A New World who has been all over the internet in recent weeks insisting that if you care about the Palestinian people, you cannot vote for Kamala and must instead vote for Jill.


    Building A New World let it slip on Sunday with this comment, "Getting Green to 5% is the most valuable thing you can do with your vote."


    See, it was never about the Palestinian people.


    No, it was about whoring and lying.  And here's some truth for the dirty whores: The Green Party isn't getting 5% of the vote.  They couldn't do that in 2000 when they had a real candidate (Ralph Nader).  They got 2.7% -- and that was with the help of Patti Smith, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, The Indigo Girls, Phil Donahue, Paul Newman, Eddie Vedder and many more stumping for the campaign.  Jill has previously gotten 0.4% of the vote (2012) and 1.1% (2016).  So, yeah, they're lying when they pretend that they're within reach of 5%.


    It's a dead party and that's why it's nominated Jill for the third time.  They're unable to grow the party and they make clear that they have nothing new to offer.


    When we looked at the CAIR poll and found all of its problems -- it's a junk poll -- we were surprised by the reaction.  We expected condemnation but didn't get it.  Instead, people who checked our findings (glaring imbalance in gender among those responding and sample size too small too represent everything CAIR insisted it did and much more) found that the poll was seriously questionable.  Last week, more polls came out and they didn't back up the claim the CAIR poll had spread -- the false claim -- that Jill had all this support.


    The CAIR poll didn't pass the sniff test when it originally got some press attention.  But it was popularized by the Gaza Freaks.  And they spread the lie hoping the lie would become truth.  That didn't happen.


    And now Dave and the rest of The Gaza Freaks are feeling powerless and impotent.


    He's having a hissy fit that Kamala's not catered her campaign to him and that she's not going to because he doesn't have a lot of support.  The CAIR poll being exposed as a lie -- and no other polling backing it up -- left the Gaza Freaks out in the cold -- as though Carole King was singing to them when she sang, "Now, girl, take a tip from one who knows, If you open a new door, You may find the old one's closed" ("Out In The Cold").


    That's certainly what happened to Dave.  Now, mere weeks out from the election, he and the Gaza Freaks realize that they have no input.  So he comes along to lie again -- this time insisting that 'the base' has more voters than there are Cheney-types who might vote for Kamala.


    He doesn't even have a CAIR survey to back up his lies this time.  


    And facts don't work for him.  All you have to do is look at the numbers that Nikki Hayley got in the GOP primaries this year.  That's a significant number.  Bringing some of those over to Kamala could swing the election.


    By contrast, nothing she has done has been good enough for The Gaza Freaks.  Nothing.  A nuanced speech at the DNC was either ignored or attacked by stupid people who honestly thought a viable candidate for president is going to give a speech in the midst of a campaign proclaiming that they will terminate a long standing alliance with another country.


    If Kamala's elected president, there's a chance we can pressure her on the Palestinian issue.  Donald Trump?  Not a chance.  

     

    The smart thing to do would have been for Dave and his fellow unwashed freaks to have made clear that they were giving Kamala conditional support to get her into the White House and then would be pressuring her seriously on this issue. 

     

     The Gaza Freaks -- who make us such a large part of independent media and such a very small part of the actual left (and none of the center-left) -- have done nothing week after week but try to defeat Kamala Harris.  They've done everything to destroy enthusiasm about this historic run.  Pick up any issue of THE NATION this year and compare it with 2020 if you're not getting just how poorly they treat Kamala.  And if you're White, you probably need to stop a moment to think about because Black people get it.  Black people are very clear that Kamala's been spat on.

     

    The Gaza Freaks, in their tiny bubbles where everyone echoes everyone -- even the token person of color who only got into the bubble by echoing the others -- you don't encounter reality.  But we do.  Speaking around the country, we do.  Crowds around the country are outraged over the way Kamala's been (mis)treated by so-called 'independent' media (THE PROGRESSIVE, COMMON DREAMS, DEMOCRACY NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, THE NATION, etc).  They have every right to be outraged.  Joe Lieberman wasn't treated this poorly in 2006 by this media (that's when he lost to challenger Ned Lamont and Joe left the Democratic Party).

     

    And, honestly, what has been the point? 

     

    The Gaza Freaks never really cared about the Palestinian people.  

     

    'Ava and C.I., that is your claim!'

     

    Yes, it is.  But the facts back us up.  Kamala is not the president of the United States.  Joe Biden is.  He'll be president until January 20th.  What have the Gaza Freaks done since July?  We're not seeing any demands made to Joe.  We're not seeing any protests of Joe.  We're not seeing any action at all.

     

    But they do flap their gums and work their keyboards to tear apart Kamala.  


    In 2006, in a roundtable at THIRD, I said I would be closing shop at the start of 2008 -- closing shop online and that it was a shame that the Iraq War would still be ongoing and US troops would still be in Iraq.  Jim especially couldn't believe that.  The country's opinion had turned against the Iraq War, Americans wanted it to end and wanted US troops home.

    US troops remain on the ground in Iraq.

    Jim was a college student then.

    I'm not a psychic.  I did have experience with many causes.  I knew that a year or two doesn't accomplish anything.  These are long term struggles.  You have to commit and you've got to do the work.  

    Gaza Freaks don't get that -- nor do they get how they push people away with their nonsense.  And, clearly, trying to elect Donald Trump is nonsense.  It will not help the Palestinian people.

    The Iraqi people who followed US 'leaders' -- self-appointed, unelected -- noted how despite their words -- Norman Solomon, CODESTINK, et al -- they quickly dropped the issue of US troops out of Iraq.  

    You can't pick up and drop an issue and expect change.

    The apartheid in Israel needs to be dismantled.  And it will happen.  Historically, these abuses end.  We can help it end by working on the issue.  The notion that putting Donald back in the White House will help is a lie.  
     

    The following sites updated:

     

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