Each week, Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, the Green Party's presidential ticket in 2020, do a program to put Green issues at the forefront of the discussion and help us imagine a better world. This is the program for this week.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021. We take a look at the stupidity.
Picking up from yesterday, press whores and fan bois never learn. Chris Willman of VARIETY.
I was nice yesterday, I didn't single out any of the whores by name.
But Chris learned enough to grasp that he couldn't blindly praise Phil
Spector, the convicted murderer. So, instead, he offers an embarrassing
column that questions his sanity. That would include the praise he
heaps on the late Jack Nitzsche -- a roll dog of Phil's who did a lot of
the arrangements for Phil. You know what else he did? He beat Carrie
Snodgrass with a pistol, threatened to kill her and her son and then he
raped her. Little man, if you're looking for a hero, it's not going to
be Jack Nitzsche.
It's a sad time for little men with
tiny penises and a desire to terrorize women. Back in 1973, the
landscape was so different, wasn't it? Back then, the hideous Chris Hodenfield, writing about the stars of a TV variety show, could work in this little 'gem' in an article for ROLLING STONE, "Many of my friends favor the belief that after work, Sonny beats the s[**]t out of her with a tire iron.""Her"
is Cher. Oh for the days when the fan boyz could be as misogynistic as
they wanted. These days, these same boyz have to pretend it's
something other than hatred of women that keeps so many women from being
inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
Shirley said
an e-mail -- a lengthy one -- came in stating that David Geffen getting
hit by Phil Spector was fine because David "didn't know anything about
music until the eighties so in the seventies he was just an idiot and
Phil Spector knew what sold."
Phil Spector knew what
sold in the sixties. In 1974, Phil didn't know what sold. In 1974,
David headed ELEKTRA/ASYLUM. David started ASYLUM and then it was
merged with ELEKTRA and David was over both. In 1974, David's label saw
the release of many hit albums including Carly Simon's "Hotcakes"
(featuring the hits "Haven't Got Time For The Pain" and "Mockingbird"),
Joni Mitchell's COURT AND SPARK, the Eagles' ON THE BORDER, Jackson
Browne's LATE FOR THE SKY and Bob Dylan's PLANET WAVES.
David knew music.
Does
anybody know Iraq? I think often that it's a bad thing that Iraq gets
so little attention from US media. Then I catch the nonsense JACOBIN
served up 'on' Iraq.
Felix
Biederman 'protested' online. Does he "shampoo" online as well? That
would explain the hair. "Protesting" online is nothing to brag about.
He never went to a protest. So why is he on the show?
I
saw the video -- didn't stream it -- last night. I think JACOBIN has
serious issues with Ana and that they need to drop her. So I've been
avoiding noting JACOBIN. But I slept on it and thought, "It's Iraq. We
should note it." And then I streamed it.
What a
stupid and wasteful discussion. Everyone knew, the unwashed Felix
says, that the war was going to last forever. Oh hell, no, you little
piece of crap. I stated at THIRD years before 2008 that the site
(THIRD) would end in 2008 and that the Iraq War would still be going
on. Jim will tell you he thought I was wrong about the war still going
on. We were going to elect Democrats to both houses of Congress and
they were going to end the war!!! Readers of THIRD also rejected my
assertion. It's not fun being a Cassandra and Felix is an idiot who
doesn't know what he's talking about. (I've never encountered the
bathing-challenged Felix before this video.)
So it's
nearly 18 years after the start of the Iraq War and apparently we still
can't acknowledge the Iraqi people -- we can't acknowledge how they've
suffered or how they continue to suffer.
Let me be
clear to the two dumb women hosting -- your giggles in the face of the
Iraqi dead and the birth defects, in the face of a land of widows and
orphans? It's embarrassing and it's shameful. The lives of the Iraqi
people are not a joke. How disgusting that they thought they could
treat the subject like that. It's a lot like Bully Boy Bush with his
jokes "Those weapons of mass destruction have to be around here
somewhere."
It wasn't funny when War Criminal Bully Boy Bush tried to turn the Iraq War into a joke and it's not funny when Felix tries it.
Heaven
forbid that we have a mature and real discussion about Iraq, heaven
forbid that we talk about the realities that the Iraqi people continue
to deal with as a result of the US-led Iraq War that destroyed their
lives and their country.
Felix is an idiot wanting to tell jokes. But you're the hosts. Try to maintain some dignity. This isn't a joke topic.
And
it's very telling how quickly the thread of Iraq is lost so that they
can focus on how Donald Trump said mean words about John McCain.
I'm really damn tired of this nonsense. It's shameful.
And
I don't know why, in 2021, JACOBIN is letting a guest call people
"pu**ies" and do so as an insult? That's what we're doing now in 2021
-- from 'woke' JACOBIN?
I'm sick of the sexism and I'm sick of the stupidity.
And two female hosts going "Yeah, yeah" over and over to everything a sexist and uninformed man says is really sad as well.
Multiple explosions were heard south of Iraq's capital overnight
Monday in what reports suggest may have been US or Israeli airstrikes on
Iran-backed militias.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it was not aware “of any strikes in Iraq,” according to a Reuters reporter in Washington.
We
are seeing reports of potential explosions near Jurf as-Sakhr, south of
Baghdad. We can confirm that no U.S. personnel or assets were in the
vicinity of Jurf as-Sakhr and that there was no U.S. involvement in this
alleged incident. --Embassy Spokesperson
Monday, January 18, 2021. Convicted killer Phil Spector has died
and you can see it as a test for the press. If it was a test, the press
yet again failed.
The press lies. From stupidity,
from the need to whore -- they lie for a variety of reasons. Never
forget it. Phil Spector has thankfully died. The artist Phil Spector
died years ago. A record producer and sometime songwriter (he took
credit for a lot of songs he wrote no part of), Phil was influential in
the sixties. While the artist died long ago, the person just died
January 16th. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has a laughable obit. This may be the most hilarious passage ever:
Spector’s domestic life, along with his career, eventually came apart.
After his first marriage, to Annette Merar, broke up, Ronettes leader
singer Ronnie Bennett became his girlfriend and muse. He married her in
1968 and they adopted three children. But she divorced him after six
years, claiming in a memoir that he held her prisoner in their mansion,
where she said he kept a gold coffin in the basement and told her he
would kill her and put her in it if she ever tried to leave him.
I
love Ronnie Spector but I love the truth even more. Not ''after his
first marriage broke up." He began sleeping with Ronnie in 1963. In
August of 1963, Annette was informed that Phil was having an affair with
one of the Ronnettes. She thought it was Nedra Talley because Nedra
was considered the pretty one. She checked the recording studio to see
if Phil was with her. Phil wasn't at the recording studio. Then she
remembered he had a little studio several floors below their apartment.
She called down there. And what were her exact words upon Phil
answering? "Get that whore out of my building."
Phil
got her to come downstairs and show her it was Ronnie, not Nedra, like
that was going to make a difference. He then promised Annette that it
was over between him and Ronnie. It wasn't over. The affair would
continue.
The notion that Ronnie was his muse? I
think the Ronnettes would laugh really hard at that because Phil and
Ronnie's affair -- and eventual marriage -- did not mean the group
became a priority. It actually meant that Phil lost interest in the
group.
The obit tells us that he gave an early break to Cher.
That's
hilarious. Cher was living with Sonny Bono at the time and Sonny was
his gopher. Phil used Cher for background vocals because he could pay
her cheap and non-union (I think he paid her $15 a session). He didn't
give her a break. He also set out to destroy her when Sonny kept
begging him to record her as a lead artist. The Ringo song was mean to
mock Cher and meant to make people think a man was singing it. Phil
never helped anyone but himself.
His songwriting
credits are mentioned without pointing out that many times he stole
credit from the songwriters. He was more apt to steal from Carole King
and Gerry Goffin than from Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil because Barry and
especially Cynthia wouldn't put up with it.
He died in
prison, yes, but he died a very wealthy man (estimated worth most
recently was $30 million) and a lot of that money came from stealing
writing credits on songs.
I looked over CRAPAPEDIA and what did I see? One lie after another coming after me.
I
wondered as I read the obits -- with one lie after another -- from the
various outlets how they got it so wrong and how they didn't grasp what a
loser Phil was. CRAPAPEDIA.
It pretends it has all
the singles Phil did from 1958 to 2003. I'm not seeing "A Woman's
Story." That's the bomb he produced for his label (distributed by
WARNER BROS in the US, I believe by POLYDOR in the UK). 1974 was the
year. Ignore YOUTUBE's claims, it was 1974. If you see it listed as
1975, be sure before you e-mail to argue that you have a solid source.
I'm not in the mood this week. And CRAPAPEDIA is not a solid source.
Oh, wait, let's stop the e-mails before they start.
Check the copyright at the bottom of the record above -- 1974. Here's the track.
Phil
had no real success after the sixties ended. The Beatles? He didn't
produce LET IT BE, he assembled it. And Paul's right -- and was
demonstrated to be right when LET IT BE NAKED was released -- the songs
sounded better before Phil added effects to them.
He
died in prison. He deserved to be in prison. He'd threatened people
and resorted to violence for years. He did it with John Lennon,
shooting off the gun and having John tell him that he needed his hearing
to record. It's cute how they want to do a greatest hits for killer
Phil that's musical but not one that includes all the times he
threatened people and physically harmed people.
Cher?
She would record the STARS album and that would be released. None of
her work with Phil in 1974 was released on an album. Those recording
sessions were a nightmare and you'd think the obit of a killer would
take a moment to note that.
Or is it normal that
billionaire David Geffen left a studio with a busted lip? That is what
happened during Cher's recording sessions. David was disagreeing with
the gop and goo Phil was adding to the song and Phil punched him. David
fell to the floor and Phil and Phil's bodyguards had all pulled guns on
him.
Phil killed Lana Clarkson and, at any moment
throughout the decades, he could have killed someone else. Ronnie was
terrorized by him. Dee Dee Ramone says Phil pulled a gun on him when The
Ramones worked with Phil. He put a gun to Leonard Cohen. He pulled a
gun on Debbie Harry. These stories -- and there are so many more -- go
to the type of person he was. Phil Spector was a toxic person.
From
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER obit, "Darlene Love also feuded with him,
accusing Spector of failing to credit her for her vocals on "He’s a
Rebel" and other songs [. . .]"
Excuse the f**k out of
me? Darlene accuses him? It's established fact, not just a charge.
First off, she was Darlene Wright. Second, he took her songs --
including "He's A Rebel" -- and issued them as songs by the Crystals -- a
group that had scored hits already with "Uptown" and "There's No Other
Like My Baby." Darlene Wright and the Blossoms recorded "He's A Rebel"
and had the hit but Phil credited it to the Crystals. Darlene Wright,
now renamed Darlene Love, then recorded "He's Sure The Boy I Love." It
was a top twenty hit on the pop and R&B charts and it was supposed
to be credited to Darlene Love. Instead, it was listed as a song by the
Crystals. Darlene was not a member of the Crystals. "He's a Rebel" is
Darlene Love and it's a number one song but it's credited to the
Crystals. Darlene's not making accusations, she's stating facts and
shame on anyone trying to besmirch her to praise a convicted killer.
Phil
didn't just steal Darlene's credits from her, he did a number on her.
Annette has long spoken of how Phil was manipulative and would destroy
your self-worth as a game. That's all it was to him.
Now
I love "Be My Baby," for example. And I'll always love that song. I
can even say Phil did a great job producing it. But that doesn't make
Phil a good person. He was a violent man who wrecked a lot of lives,
threatened a lot of people and died in prison for killing Lana
Clarkson. As a record producer, he really had nothing to offer after
the Checkmates' 1969 releases. His violence continued for years and
years after.
Militias need war to legitimise them. That is how the Iranian-backed
militias in Iraq and elsewhere in the region justify their existence.
Iraq has seen plenty of war for 40 years, but the latest threat, from
ISIS, has been seen off with American help, and the US will soon
withdraw its troops. If there ever was a need for the militias – which
is doubtful – it is no longer there. But despite all entreaties, the
Iraqi militias refuse to go.
In the words of Abdul-Aziz Al-Muhammadawi, also known as Abu-Fadak or
Al-Khal (meaning “uncle”), the armed militia he leads, the Popular
Mobilization Unit (PMU), is “more legitimate than all other armies” and
will remain in existence “until God wills otherwise.”
Until then, “Uncle” will refuse the options offered by Baghdad of
either disarming all militias and transforming them into political
parties, or of being absorbed into Iraq’s regular military and security
forces. Abu-Fadak, of course, ultimately takes his orders from another
capital, and Tehran says the militias must retain their arms in order to
“liberate” Iraq from “American military occupation.”
Iraqi
parliament’s human rights committee on Friday called for an urgent
investigation into a newly discovered mass grave in Salahaddin province,
in which tens of bodies were reportedly found, some belonging to
children.
Locals on Wednesday uncovered a mass grave in the town of Ishaqi, which according to the commission contains “hundreds” of bodies.
The Salahaddin Clan Council issued a statement the same day confirming the site’s discovery.
The
council’s spokesman Tami al-Majmei told Rudaw English on Saturday that
the mass grave “contained the remains of more than 50 people from
Salahaddin, including women, and children between 8 and 12 years old.”
He
says the presence of women and children is evidence “that militias
committed a mass execution of families," referring to units of the
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, known as Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic)
that he says control security in the area.
More evidence of the crimes against humanity committed by Iran-aligned militias in Iraq: “the presence of women & children is evidence militias committed a mass execution of families, referring to units of the Popular Mobilization Forces that he says control security in the area”
Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial
killings of demonstrators by Iraqi security forces in late 2019 and into
2020 led to government resignations and the nomination of a new prime
minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, in May 2020. Despite an initial seeming willingness to address some of Iraq’s most serious human rights challenges, al-Kadhimi’s government failed to end abuses against protesters.
Iraq’s criminal justice system was riddled with the widespread use of
torture and forced confessions and, despite serious due process
violations, authorities carried out numerous judicial executions.
Iraqi law contained a range of defamation and incitement provisions
that authorities used against critics, including journalists, activists,
and protesters to silence dissent.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a particularly harmful impact on students
kept out of school for months during nationwide school closures, many of
whom were unable to access any remote learning.
Excessive Force against Protesters
In a wave of protests that began in October 2019 and continued into late 2020, clashes with security forces, including the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or Hashad, nominally under the control of the prime minister), left at least 560 protesters and security forces dead in Baghdad and Iraq’s southern cities.
In July 2020, the government announced it would compensate the families of those killed during the protests and that it had arrested
three low-level security forces officers. As far as Human Rights Watch
is aware, no senior commanders have been prosecuted. After a spate of
killings and attempted killings of protesters in Basra in August 2020, the government fired
Basra’s police chief and the governorate’s director of national
security but seemingly did not refer anyone for prosecution. In May
2020, when Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi took office, he formed a committee to investigate the killings of protesters. It had yet to announce any findings publicly as of late 2020.
In May, security forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region arrested
dozens of people planning to participate in protests against delayed
government salaries, a persistent issue since 2015. At August 2020
protests by civil servants in the Kurdistan Region demanding unpaid
wages, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) security forces beat and
arbitrarily detained protesters and journalists.
Silencing Free Speech
Iraq’s penal code, which dates back to 1969, enshrines numerous
defamation “crimes,” such as “insult[ing] the Arab community” or any
government official, regardless of whether the statement is true.
Although few individuals served prison time on defamation charges, the
criminal process itself acted as a punishment. Reporting on corruption
and abuses by the security forces was especially risky.
Authorities also invoked other laws and regulations to limit free
speech. The Communications and Media Commission (CMC), a “financially
and administratively independent institution” linked to parliament, in
2014 issued
without legal basis “mandatory” guidelines to regulate media during
“the war on terror”—a phrase it did not define. These guidelines were
updated in May 2019 and renamed the “Media Broadcasting Rules.” They restrict freedom of the press to the point of requiring pro-government coverage.
The CMC suspended
Reuters’s license under its broadcast media regulations powers for
three months and fined it 25 million IQD (US$21,000) for an April 2,
2020 article alleging that the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the
country was much higher than official statistics indicated. Authorities
lifted the suspension on April 19.
Civil society efforts were successful in preventing passage of a deeply flawed cybercrimes bill in November.
Arbitrary Detention
Iraqi forces arbitrarily detained Islamic State (also known as ISIS)
suspects for months, and some for years. According to witnesses and
family members, security forces regularly detained suspects without any court order or arrest warrant and often did not provide a reason for the arrest.
Iraqi authorities also arbitrarily detained protesters and released them later, some within hours or days and others within weeks, without charge.
Despite requests, the central government failed to disclose which
security and military structures have a legal mandate to detain people,
and in which facilities.
Fair Trial Violations
In January 2020, the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) published a report
assessing the criminal justice system, based on independent monitoring
of 794 criminal court trials, 619 of them for men, women and children
charged under Iraq’s dangerously overbroad counterterrorism law. It
supported Human Rights Watch findings that basic fair trial standards were not respected in terrorism-related trials.
Iraqi judges routinely prosecuted
ISIS suspects solely on the overbroad charge of ISIS affiliation,
rather than for the specific violent crimes they may have committed.
Trials were generally rushed, based on a defendant’s confession, and did
not involve victim participation. Authorities systematically
violated the due process rights of suspects, such as guarantees in
Iraqi law that detainees see a judge within 24 hours and have access to a
lawyer throughout interrogations, and that their families are notified
and should be able to communicate with them during detention.
Detainees have shared graphic accounts of torture during interrogations in Mosul’s prisons under the control of the Ministry of Interior, in some cases leading to their deaths. These allegations are consistent with reports of the widespread use of torture by Iraqi forces to extract confessions instead of carrying out robust criminal investigations.
Authorities can prosecute child suspects as young as 9 with alleged
ISIS affiliation in Baghdad-controlled areas and 11 in the KRI, in violation
of international standards, which recognize children recruited by armed
groups primarily as victims who should be rehabilitated and
reintegrated into society, and call for a minimum age of criminal responsibility of 14 years or older. One Mosul committee improved its handling of the prosecution of child suspects.
Conditions in Detention
Authorities detained criminal suspects in overcrowded and in some
cases inhuman conditions. According to media reports, authorities released 20,000 prisoners in April as a preventive measure in response to the Covid-19 pandemic but did not share any information
on the identities of those released and the criteria for selecting
them. Authorities refused to respond when asked to share or make public
the number of people in Iraqi prisons, making it impossible to assess
whether the releases sufficiently reduced the acute overcrowding to
enable social distancing. In July, there were 31 Covid-19 cases reported
at a prison in Baghdad.
IF YOU THOUGHT JOE BIDEN'S CABINET COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE, YOU DON'T KNOW JOE!
ALREADY WAR CRIMINALS AND WALL STREET CROOKS -- SAMANTHA POWER, ANTONY BLINKEN, AVRIL HAINES, ETC -- AND HUMAN ODDITY AND TOXIC PERSON NEERA TANDEN AS WELL AS ALEJANDRO I-LOCK-UP-CHILDREN MAYORKAS LITTER HIS SORID INCOMING CABINET.
BUT REALIZING THE LACK OF ENTHUSIASM FOR JOE CONTINUES AND THAT HE HAS NO ENERGY TO PUSH MUCH OF ANYTHING, HIS TOP ADVISORS ARE PROPOSING ANOTHER CABINET ADDITION: DONALD TRUMP.
THE WAY THIS WOULD WORK OUT IS DONALD WOULD SERVE IN THE NEW POSITION OF SECRETARY OF DISTRACTION. AS SECRETARY, TRUMP WOULD CONTINUE TO TWEET DAILY IN ORDER TO MANUFACTURE OUTRAGE WHICH WOULD -- AS IT HAS THE LAST FOUR YEARS -- ALLOW CONGRESS TO POSTURE AND PREEN WHILE ACTUALLY DOING NOTHING TO HELP THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI REPLIED, "I AM FULLY ON BOARD WITH THIS PROPOSAL AND LOOK FORWARD TO ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF HOLLOW GRANDSTANDING."
How was Donald Trump given power by this latest impeachment -- a few ask referring to the comments at the end of yesterday's snapshot. How?
This goes beyond today. Way beyond and so many can't see beyond a 24 hour news cycle.
But Donald Trump's now historic. He's been impeached by the House twice and, guess what, not removed from office either time.
That's historic.
And history will see it as such and wonder why? Was Donald that strong? Was he that powerful?
One hundred years from now, people are going to be making calls and it appears the calls will be an ineffectual Congress was unable to take out a president twice impeached in one four year term.
He has historical power.
He was also given power by the nonsense of impeachment itself.
Was there a reason to impeach him? There were several possible grounds to impeach him on. But what Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in the House went with was ridiculous. I could see an argument for Donald being a clear and present danger -- and I made that point last Friday:
The argument here could be (a) he is a clear and present danger so we must take up the American people's time with this. That's your only pro-impeachment argument. Unless someone comes up with something else, that's really it. And that approach would justify a real trial -- because we would need to determine whether or not Donald was now a clear and present danger to the country.
Otherwise?
If your issue is just what took place on one day in DC, some will respond that the day is already over, what's the point? He is gone in 12 days, what's the point?
To justify using time on impeachment at this point -- the House to quickly vote, the Senate to have a trial -- which would include Donald being able to call all the witnesses he wanted and his attorney arguing on behalf of Donald -- which would probably be a long trial -- you'd need a charge like Donald remaining in office for less than two weeks is a clear and present danger to the United States.
Nancy Pelosi ending up mouthing the words but she didn't make the argument why. She refused to build a case in the Articles for that.
Could a charge have been made on clear and present danger? Yes, a credible one could have been made. But they didn't do that.
Instead they want to say that Donald Trump incited what took place. Legal defitinions of incitement and sedition and insurrection were all tossed aside. I don't know what ridiculous definition of "coup" they're using -- it's not a legal definition and it's not a political science definition.
I guess it's a clutch-the-pearls definition?
The hysteria was ecnouraged and people frothed at the mought and it was all a bunch of nonsense. Quoting Keesha again, last week in DC was an unruly mob storming the halls of Congress. That's all it was. It was not a terrorist attack. It was not a coup. It was not an issurrection.
But they want to turn it into that and pretend that somehow Donald Trump made remarks advocating or violence. No, he didn't. And while bad journalism can selectively quote Donald, a hearing is supposed to examine the full remarks.
By refusing to do their job, they gave Donald power. And by wasting everyone's time, they gave him power. If you wanted to impeach him, make a solid argument for it. Otherwise, you just look tiny and petty. You look ignorant and stupid.
And that's the House of Representatives.
It also empowers future impeachments because it really doesn't matter. Bringing impeachment against a president and failing to remove him from office no longer matters. Mindless idiots will cheer you on and pretend you did something when you did nothing.
We called the cops tonight and got someone arrested. How guilty should I feel? Cedric, my husband, says not at all.
It was 12:40, so about an hour ago. It was after midnight. We hear someone making noise outside the house. Cedric turns on the porch light and goes out to look around, doesn't see anything and comes back in.
Three minutes, if that, later, someone's knocking on our door. It's some overweight White man in his thirties with a beard. He tries to barge into the house. My husband's six foot-two and very muscular and just shoves the guy back out of the door frame. The guy then starts going, "We cool, bro, we cool. I'm just here for Glen. I'm his dealer. I got weed, I got the hard stuff, I got it all, what you need?" My husband tells him to get off our property. The man then starts in with, "Come on, blackie" -- my husband and I are both African-American and I'm assuming 'blackie' was because of that -- "you may not be living in the hood but you know you want it." My husband said, "Get your ass off our property or I'm calling the police. No one here wants to speak to you." I'm in the doorway by this point. The guy shakes his head but walks away.
At the door, the man was not whispering, he was loud and he woke up our oldest so I had to go calm everything down there and when I came back out, Cedric was in the kitchen. I go in there and we're getting ready for bed and talking about the weird and should we have called the police? He was irritating and we've got two kids here so we don't need some dealer hanging around our front door. We decide we did the right thing, he was just a bother and he's gone and he won't be back, file it under a crazy experience and move on. We head out of the kitchen and through the living room heading for our bedroom when I ask him, "What was that?"
The man is back seated on our porch, on his cell phone, trying to get a ride and when my husband opens the door and tells him to go, the man says, "Big dawg, I'll leave when I get a ride. Might be five minutes, might by two hours." That's it, Ceddric's fishing his phone out of his pocket and calling the cops. The guy starts to walk off but my husband doesn't hang up and explains to the police dispatch what's going on.
They got somebody there in about 15 minutes -- because Cedric noted the man had a large backpack and they can probably get him on possession. But before the police get here we sit down in the living room. And we're wondering should we feel bad about this? Probably a non-violent issue, could we have looked the other way? As parents, we don't want some strange man hanging around our house from now on, so did we do the right thing.
He's back banging at the door. He's yelling and now both the kids are up and they're scared and Cedric's running for the door to kick the man's ass when the police pulled up. They arrested him -- and he did have "the hard stuff" in his backpack.
I don't know.
If it had been during the day and he was calling for a cab and getting out of there quick, I might have looked the other way. That's not me saying Cedric was wrong to call the cops. That was both of our decision and we were in agreement on it. But I do feel a little bad that someone's going to be booked and all so anyway.
Only bright spot, when they put him the squad car, the African-American cop came up to let us know they were taking him to jail and that everything was fine now, he looked us, shook his head, looked back over at the car, back as us and joked, "When did they start bussing White dealers into the neighborhood?" You might have had to have been there because he delivered it perfectly -- a professional stand-up couldn't have done it better. But that provided a needed laugh.
Anyway, I'm going to bed but I'm going to wonder all night if I did the right thing?
Friday, January 15, 2021. A look at impeachment, an activist targeted in Iraq, and more.
Let's
start with impeachment. I'm working for a list of comments, questions,
slams compiled by Martha and Shirley from e-mails to the public
account. First, as Keesha always says, this is a private conversation
in a public space. Second, public e-mail is common_ills@yahoo.com and
community members have the private e-mail but apparently some are asking
"what's the public e-mail"? That's what it is.
I always, several insisted, agree with Jonathan Turley. No, I don't. One example, he's arguing that incoming President Joe Biden should not pardon Donald Trump.
My thoughts on the presidential power of pardon have long been
established here. I think there should be more pardons, not less. I
would love to see Julian Assange, Ed Snowden, Leonard Peltier and many
more pardoned. You will never see me whine over a pardon. If Joe wants
to pardon Donald, okay. If he doesn't, then don't do it. But, again, I
think we need more pardons not less. Jonathan Turley is very
intelligent and highly educated. That doesn't mean I always agree with
him. I think he's probably the best living legal scholar in the United
States. But I don't agree with anyone 100% of the time.
How
was Donald Trump given power by this latest impeachment -- a few ask
referring to the comments at the end of yesterday's snapshot. How?
This goes beyond today. Way beyond and so many can't see beyond a 24 hour news cycle.
But Donald Trump's now historic. He's been impeached by the House twice and, guess what, not removed from office either time.
That's historic.
And history will see it as such and wonder why? Was Donald that strong? Was he that powerful?
One
hundred years from now, people are going to be making calls and it
appears the calls will be an ineffectual Congress was unable to take out
a president twice impeached in one four year term.
He has historical power.
He was also given power by the nonsense of impeachment itself.
Was
there a reason to impeach him? There were several possible grounds to
impeach him on. But what Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in the House went
with was ridiculous. I could see an argument for Donald being a clear
and present danger -- and I made that point last Friday:
The argument here could be (a) he is a clear and present danger so
we must take up the American people's time with this. That's your only
pro-impeachment argument. Unless someone comes up with something else,
that's really it. And that approach would justify a real trial --
because we would need to determine whether or not Donald was now a clear
and present danger to the country.
Otherwise?
If
your issue is just what took place on one day in DC, some will respond
that the day is already over, what's the point? He is gone in 12 days,
what's the point?
To justify using time
on impeachment at this point -- the House to quickly vote, the Senate to
have a trial -- which would include Donald being able to call all the
witnesses he wanted and his attorney arguing on behalf of Donald --
which would probably be a long trial -- you'd need a charge like Donald
remaining in office for less than two weeks is a clear and present
danger to the United States.
Nancy
Pelosi ending up mouthing the words but she didn't make the argument
why. She refused to build a case in the Articles for that.
Could a charge have been made on clear and present danger? Yes, a credible one could have been made. But they didn't do that.
Instead
they want to say that Donald Trump incited what took place. Legal
defitinions of incitement and sedition and insurrection were all tossed
aside. I don't know what ridiculous definition of "coup" they're using
-- it's not a legal definition and it's not a political science
definition.
I guess it's a clutch-the-pearls definition?
The
hysteria was ecnouraged and people frothed at the mought and it was all
a bunch of nonsense. Quoting Keesha again, last week in DC was an
unruly mob storming the halls of Congress. That's all it was. It was
not a terrorist attack. It was not a coup. It was not an issurrection.
But
they want to turn it into that and pretend that somehow Donald Trump
made remarks advocating or violence. No, he didn't. And while bad
journalism can selectively quote Donald, a hearing is supposed to
examine the full remarks.
By refusing to do their job,
they gave Donald power. And by wasting everyone's time, they gave him
power. If you wanted to impeach him, make a solid argument for it.
Otherwise, you just look tiny and petty. You look ignorant and stupid.
And that's the House of Representatives.
It
also empowers future impeachments because it really doesn't matter.
Bringing impeachment against a president and failing to remove him from
office no longer matters. Mindless idiots will cheer you on and pretend
you did something when you did nothing.
Will Donald
be removed from office? I've spoken to sixteen US senators (14 of them
Democrats) and no one believes the Senate will be back before the
inauguration.
That means a post-presidency
impeachment. That's going to be a hard argument for those of us who
remember Nancy Pelosi's remarks when John Conyers was attempting that in
2009. It's also going to be a hard argument for the country.
In
the midst of a pandemic, we're going to pause to remove someone from
office -- someone who already has left office? We're going to waste the
time and the money for that?
Most Americans are going to be of the opinion, "Turn the page."
That's
why a lot of us told John Conyers that there was not going to be an
impeachment after for Bully Boy Bush. After Nancy took impeachment off
the table in 2006, he sincerely believed he could put it back on the
table after Barack Obama was sworn in. But those of us who talked to
him saying, "Lots of luck but it's not happening," grasped the
turn-the-page attitude of the American people.
It's
been a time of hysteria and that always is used to panic the American
people and make them think they need to give up liberties and give up
freedoms.
Oh, and deep in the night Our appetites find us Release us and blind us Deep in the night While madmen sit up building bombs And making laws and bars They'd like to slam free choice behind us
-- "Three Great Stimulants," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on DOG EAT DOG.
And that's the real danger to the country -- watch the discussion Chris Hedges and Jimmy Dore have in the video below.
We are living in a time where no rights
whatsoever are respected concerning the people
of this country, but the controlling ‘elite’ and
their government puppets continue to live mostly
without restriction. We are now ruled by an
oligarchic upper class, while all the rest of
society languishes at the bottom of the heap as
serfs. Where is all the anger due to this
tyranny that has consumed society? It seems that
we are all fighting against one another while
those in the ruling class that are causing all
the problems are laughing while plotting the
final stage of the coup called the “Great
Reset.”
This government has been given massive power
by the very same people that are now being
abused and destroyed because of that power. This
is the truth of the matter, but the masses
cannot see it. Until this truth is fully
understood and accepted by the common man, our
fate is not only uncertain, but we are doomed to
a life without freedom.
The political system has never existed to
give or protect liberty; it is only there to
seek more money, power, and control over
society. No political solution to this debacle
exists, no voting process is worthwhile, and in
fact, no remedy for this tyrannical sickness
will ever be due to politics or government. The
only solution is for the people themselves to
stand together instead of fighting each other,
to dissent at every level possible, and to
disobey all government orders.
Where is the outrage? How can over 300
million people lay back and take what this
heinous government has done to them this past
year? Why are so many afraid to protect their
own liberty and that of their family? The only
hope for Americans is to find the truth and act
on it, and not expect the government or any
politician to take care of them. The government
does not care about you. Politicians do not care
about you. The one percent and the large
corporations do not care about you.
So again, it’s pretty clear that America isn’t going to attempt to
reverse the conditions which created Trump and all the extremist
factions that everyone’s been freaking out about since the Capitol riot.
Obama led to Trump, and the strategy going forward is to just keep
tightening the neoliberal screws like both Obama and Trump did
throughout their entire administrations. And, of course, to advance new
“domestic terrorism” laws.
As we discussed previously,
Biden has often boasted of being the original author of the Patriot Act
years before it was rapidly rolled out amid the fear and blind
obsequiousness of the aftermath of 9/11. Now in the aftermath of the
Capitol riot we are seeing a push to roll out new authoritarian laws
around terrorism, this time taking aim at “domestic terror”, which were
also in preparation prior to the event used to manufacture support for
them.
In a new article for Washington Monthly titled “It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law“, Bill Scher argues against left-wing critics of the coming laws like Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin‘s Luke Savage
saying such “knee-jerk reactions” against potential authoritarian
abuses fail to address the growing problem. He opens with the
acknowledgement that “Joe Biden’s transition team was already working on
a domestic terrorism law before the insurrection,” and then he just
keeps on writing as though that’s not weird or suspicious in any way.
Scher
lists among the growing threat of domestic terror not just white
supremacists and right-wing extremists but “extremist left-wing domestic
terrorism” as well. He approvingly cites Adam Schiff’s Confronting The
Threat of Terrorism Act, which “creates a definition of domestic
terrorism broadly encompassing plots that carry a ‘substantial risk of
serious bodily injury’ along with an ‘intent to intimidate or coerce a
civilian population’ or ‘influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or coercion.'” The ACLU has unequivocally denounced Schiff’s bill,
saying it “would unnecessarily expand law enforcement authorities to
target and discriminate against the very communities Congress is seeking
to protect.”
Is Bill Scher shocking for doing
that? I guess if you're only now encountering him. But, never forget,
he played footsie with DLC ("New Democrat") Simon Rosenberg despite
Simon's homophobia, sexism and racism. He played footsie and pimped
Simon's lies when Simon was trying to become the leader of the DNC in
2005. Bill Scher is a big joke and if you're only now learning that,
you haven't been paying attention. It's like being surprised by how
hideous Sam Seder is (Bill's friend, by the way).
Bill
Scher never stood up for the rights of the American people. he thought
he was writing think pieces but they were paint by number pieces that
never challenged the mind and certainly didn't challenge the assumption
that we needed to give up freedoms.
Bill works today
because people didn't hold him accountable and because he was part of
the circle jerk of the '00s. He and the others accomplished nothing but
they did set themselves up nicely, didn't they?
Iraq
remains a failed state and the Iraqi people remain terrorized because
of people like Bill Scher who pretended to care when a Republican was in
the White House and walked away from Iraq as soon as Barack Obama was
sworn in as president.
Baghdad, 14 January 2021 – Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for #Iraq, Ms. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, attended a meeting of Iraqi presidencies at the Baghdad Palace. Right conditions for the conduct of upcoming Iraq’s early federal elections were discussed.
The
elections may not happen in June, UNAMI forgot to Tweet that. They
forget a lot of things that take place in Iraq. For example, Ruba Ali al-Hassani Tweets:
Just learnt that the home of a good friend in Nasiriyah has been targeted with a hand grenade.
He's a known activist in the city.
How does anyone expect the #Iraq protest movement to nominate it's own in the upcoming elections if anyone who mobilizes is targeted?!
Unidentified assailants targeted, with an IED, the house of Dr. Abdul-Wahab Al-Hamdani in Sumer neighborhood in central Nasiriyah.
Activists in Nasiriyah said that Al-Hamdani was one of the most prominent activists in the protests
No
one will be punished for this attack, no one ever is. And elections?
Looks like they may not be held in June as announced. Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:
Holding elections in June may not be realistic, according to the
spokesperson for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).
Only a fraction of eligible voters have updated their electoral records
and most of the political entities have not registered yet, Jumana
Alghalai told Rudaw English on Friday, a day ahead of a registration
deadline.
“Twenty-five political alliances were registered in IHEC records in
2018, but only two of them have registered again for 2021 and updated
their data in IHEC records, although the deadline for registering
political alliances is tomorrow, Saturday,” Alghalai said.
“The commission has issued registration licenses for 230 parties, but
only a few of them have registered and updated their records, despite
the fact that the deadline is soon,” she added.
Most voters, too, have not updated their records. “We have 25 million
citizens eligible to vote this year. While 14 million of them have their
biometric ID, only 105,390 have updated their electoral records,”
Alghalai said. “Therefore, it might be unrealistic to hold elections in
June without political alliances, parties, or voters.”
BREAKING: US force levels in Afghanistan and Iraq have now reached 2,500, as directed by President Trump, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller announces
