It’s a brand new year and Democrats
running the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi, Jim Clyburn
and Steny Hoyer need to rebrand themselves in preparation for the 2020
elections. So Team Pelosi has rolled out what they and their far flung
chorus of corporate media hacks
from MSNBC to so-called “woke” social media are calling their flagship
bill for the 116th Congress. To hear them tell it, it’s all about ending
corruption in Congress and the White House, about taking the Big Money
out of politics, and most of all, it’s about protecting voting rights.
It’s HR 1, a 571 page monstrosity, actually
a sleazy ghetto ice cream truckload of empty promises Democrats
wouldn’t keep even if they had the power, and which they refused to put
forward when they DID have the power. In typical Democrat fashion HR 1
also contains a couple of serious threats against American left dissenters in general and the Green Party in particular
which Democrats might just be able to carry out if they seek and secure
the support of a modest number of House and Senate Republicans. As of
our publication date HR 1 does not yet appear on the official House web
site, but we read the version on the web site of its sponsor, Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland. You can also find it at the Brennan Center for Justice .
HR 1 pretends to be a voting rights bill, but is in fact a sleazy
ghetto ice cream truckload of empty campaign promises intended to
rebrand Democrats as the party of voting rights, despite their dismal non-record of struggle
to protect or expand these rights. They are all commonsense measures
Nancy P, who has been part of House Democrat leadership since the 1990s,
and has led Democrats in the House since 2003, could have tried to put
into law at any time, many times over the past twenty-five and more
years. But they didn’t.
-- Bruce A. Dixon, "House Democrats’ HR 1 – Faking the Funk on Voting Rights, Spreading Fear and Gunning For the Greens in 2020" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
Monday, January 21, 2019
Truest statement of the week II
At the midway point of the Trump presidency the Democrats have
nothing to show in the way of meaningful resistance. The Women’s March
has been exposed as a fraudulent get-out-the-vote effort that was
dispatched soon after the mid-term election. Now the Democrats have been
reduced to using curse words in what passes for opposition to Donald
Trump.
Trump’s shutdown of the government in the dispute over the border wall is an opportunity for the Democrats to show their mettle. But they can’t fight what they never really opposed. They may call it a fence or a barrier or some other euphemistic term but they have voted to support the same thing over the years. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama requested and got funding for border walls in the past. They are boxed in by their own past misdeeds and now present nothing but acquiescence to right wing tropes and call themselves a resistance force.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Phony Resistance Can’t Beat Trump" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
Trump’s shutdown of the government in the dispute over the border wall is an opportunity for the Democrats to show their mettle. But they can’t fight what they never really opposed. They may call it a fence or a barrier or some other euphemistic term but they have voted to support the same thing over the years. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama requested and got funding for border walls in the past. They are boxed in by their own past misdeeds and now present nothing but acquiescence to right wing tropes and call themselves a resistance force.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Phony Resistance Can’t Beat Trump" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Early Monday morning on the East Cost, here on the west, it's still Sunday.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
And what did we come up with?
Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Early Monday morning on the East Cost, here on the west, it's still Sunday.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Bruce A. Dixon gets another truest.
As does Margaret Kimberley.
What did the media cover last week instead of Iraq?
Ava and C.I. look at four new offerings.
Egos should not triumph. It needs to be what's best for immigrants.
A product fails our latest test kitchen entry.
Goes to John Stauber.
Did no one else notice this disappeared?
What we listened to while writing.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.Peace,
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: They buried Iraq again
Friday's Iraq snapshot spent over 30 paragraphs dealing with an important report -- long suppressed -- that the US military had just released the night before. By contrast, MSNBC and CNN -- supposed 'news' networks -- deal with what?
A BUZZFEED 'report' that was surely going to get Donald Trump impeached!
Those of us who have repeatedly seen this film before knows how it ends. But for newcomers, the BUZZFEED 'report' quickly collapsed as Robert Mueller denied all the points it supposedly made.
There was real news to explore on Friday -- the findings the military made in 2016, findings that have been suppressed ever since. They have finally been released: "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003-2006" and "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War — Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011."
But where is the coverage?
Instead, they rush to jabber away for hours about a BUZZFEED 'report' that ends up false.
What would the American people think if they knew the US government strategy in Iraq was repeatedly to appoint a puppet and hope he managed to become popular?
Or if they knew how quickly Bully Boy Bush turned on his puppet (Nour al-Maliki) and how soon he began speaking of removing Nouri from office?
So much to address. But it was all too much reality.
So they instead focused again on "Trump's going to be impeached!" based on a 'report' that fell apart on them so quickly.
A BUZZFEED 'report' that was surely going to get Donald Trump impeached!
Those of us who have repeatedly seen this film before knows how it ends. But for newcomers, the BUZZFEED 'report' quickly collapsed as Robert Mueller denied all the points it supposedly made.
Thread detailing the dozens and dozens of recent "Russia scandal" media failures. And this list isn't even comprehensive; needless to say, all the "errors" go in the same direction. Which is why the BuzzFeed story can't be looked at in a vacuum
- Can’t get much more explicit than this. Mueller’s statement constituted a wholesale rejection of the BuzzFeed article’s central premise. So either Mueller is lying to the public, or BuzzFeed is toast https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-the-mueller-teams-decision-to-dispute-buzzfeeds-explosive-story-on-trump-and-cohen/2019/01/19/d89dba5b-fa0f-445b-9fd3-72f0e911e28d_story.html …
- Fundamental discrepancy that still hasn't been addressed by BuzzFeed: One reporter, Leopold, says they saw primary documentation. The other, Cormier, says they did not. That's a massive contradiction, and probably played a central role in however this debacle unraveled.
- Michael Tracey RetweetedThe BuzzFeed story about Trump telling Cohen to lie was front page material in the print NYT yesterday. Mueller’s denial is on p. 11.
- BuzzFeed certainly had real sources; they didn't just fabricate. But some of the greatest debacles in journalistic history have involved reporters giving excessive credulity to sources who had incentive to deceptively characterize sensitive material. (See: Judith Miller, WMDs)
- Yes: it's easy to poke fun at, but BuzzFeed really has made some great strides over the years, and produced lots of important journalism and analysis. Nonetheless, this is a huge blemish and must be dealt with as transparently as possible.
- Trump/Russia has always been about elevating and venerating elements of the national security state to serve as a "check" on Trump, but in doing so, the media actually undermined their own capacity to serve as an effective check on Trump. The ironies just keep rolling in.
- This is not an exaggeration: every single time, since 2016, that I've expressed skepticism of Trump/Russia stories, I've been flooded with accusations of secretly supporting Trump. However, it's the Trump/Russia alarmists who've ended up empowering Trump. Kinda ironic.
- Aside from the "has receipts" formulation being so boring and cliched: there was no evidence of "receipts" provided in the initial article. There was only second-hand characterization, which warranted major skepticism even before Mueller's denial. So, multiple layers of fail here
- Laughing about all the people who solemnly declared last night "This one feels different" -- yeah, just like the ten thousand previous ones that "felt different." It's been the same crap since June 2015 and they never, ever learn
- There is MORE THAN ENOUGH to legitimately criticize Trump for: despicable Yemen policy, ridiculous corporate tax giveaways...the list goes on. That this nonstop, frequently-disproven Russia panic has become *the central* criticism of his presidency is both an irony and a tragedy.
- The epic, historic media failure that defined the 2016 election continues to this day. Nothing has changed. If anything, it's only gotten worse
- They've developed a kind of chemical dependency, similar to the sensation associated with inhaling crack, such that caution will never be exercised -- no matter how high the mountain of failures piles up
- Within what seemed like literal seconds, the BuzzFeed story exploded on Twitter and was immediately picked up by every TV network. The reporters were then celebrated as heroes. Can you see why the Trump/Russia saga provides journalists with such misaligned, distorted incentives?
- Weird to depict Mueller's statement as "vague" when it was a categorical rejection of the article's central claims, but I guess that's the line BuzzFeed is gonna have to go with
- On a serious note: a vibrant, thriving journalism industry is a vital check on power in this country. That they keep discrediting themselves in such spectacular fashion is horrible for democracy. There is something seriously, catastrophically wrong with media culture right now.
- Condolences to all the writers who just got done filing their IMPEACHMENT NOW! columns that were supposed to run on Sunday
- Geez, I just can't understand why people often distrust the news media, and some even assume it "fake." Such a mystery!!!!
- If you don't think the brain-rot caused by 2+ years of nonstop Russia alarmism has inflicted incalculable damage on the journalism industry, and on society as a whole, I honestly don't know what else to tell you at this point
- The great infallible Mueller descended from the heavens to rebuke a BuzzFeed story, like Moses from the mountaintop. LOL, sometimes you just have to marvel at the absurdity
- Don't worry, in another week or two there'll be yet another BOMBSHELL BOOM story that causes the entire media to spastically freak out and declare Trump's imminent downfall, only to be sorely deflated shortly afterwards. At this point, it's as easy to predict as the sun rising
- How many times does major "RUSSIA SCANDAL" news have to be substantially modified, corrected, retracted, or outright falsified until the media exercises even a modicum of skepticism? Instead they just scream BOOM! together like a bunch of toddlers. Incorrigible hacks
There was real news to explore on Friday -- the findings the military made in 2016, findings that have been suppressed ever since. They have finally been released: "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003-2006" and "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War — Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011."
But where is the coverage?
Instead, they rush to jabber away for hours about a BUZZFEED 'report' that ends up false.
What would the American people think if they knew the US government strategy in Iraq was repeatedly to appoint a puppet and hope he managed to become popular?
Or if they knew how quickly Bully Boy Bush turned on his puppet (Nour al-Maliki) and how soon he began speaking of removing Nouri from office?
So much to address. But it was all too much reality.
So they instead focused again on "Trump's going to be impeached!" based on a 'report' that fell apart on them so quickly.