Media is supposed to inform and impart knowledge. But that's not enough for some. Amy Goodman began her attacks on balanced media years ago -- before the influx of foundation money to DEMOCRACY NOW! led her to support US wars -- such as the one on Libya.
You remember those days? Those were the days that saw Glen Ford of BLACK AGENDA REPORT dismissed. Those were the days when Aaron Mate worked for DEMOCRACY NOW! Mate thinks he remembers those days. For example,
I wish I could tell the Amy Goodman I once worked for, and learned a lot from, that a future Amy Goodman would be approvingly airing *full CNN reports* on @democracynow about an African country targeted by the US government. https://t.co/6qiVNMfeLi
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 7, 2021
Again, Aaaron was there, at DEMOCRACY NOW!, when Amy Goodman was serving up 'reporting' (commentary) backing NATO and empire. He's never had to cop to that. But he is fond of slamming Amy.
We're fine with that. We've slammed Amy many times. See the people who keep snarling about objective journalism, they're not honest. Amy's viewers? Do they know that Amy had an inaugural ball for Barack Obama in 2008 (naturally, it was also a fund raiser)? Is that how an independent lefty holds power accountable?
No, it's not.
And they lie all the time. That's the especially sad part.
It's one of the most depressing lessons that we've learned -- and demonstrated -- since this site began. We were, for example, fans of FAIR -- annoyed by the lack of representation of women, but we listened and we learned. In October 2006, for example, as FAIR was celebrating its 20th anniversary, this site was pointing out that instead of just pointing fingers at NPR and PBS for their lack of equality when it came to the gender make up of the guests, maybe CounterSpin could also attempt to book an equal number of male and female guests. They're real good about criticizing others while ignoring the fact that they are just as bad as the mainstream. In fact, maybe they're worse because they were calling out the mainstream and not realizing that they themselves had the same problem.
The last few weeks has been all about beggar media (send us money!!!!!) exposing themselves as hypocrites.
A rally will take place this month. Those opposed to the rally?
They're CIA, they're FBI, they're plants, they're this, they're that. That's what the Ritter boyz say.
It goes to how stupid and out of touch Panhandle Media is.
Scott Ritter has been arrested three times for trying to set up sex with underage girls. The first two times were during the time Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House and Scott was able to spin the one arrest as retaliation for him speaking out against the impending Iraq War. He didn't talk about the other arrest. And some believed him because he was such a great 'anti-war' voice.
No, he wasn't. Even he declared this month that he's never been anti-war (in a Tweet where he attacked the people of Ukraine -- not the leaders, the people). He's Mad Maddie Albright with a penis. His supporters -- currently and in the past -- elected to overlook the fact that he supported the 90s sanctions on Iraq -- which devastated the country and left thousands and thousands of Iraqi children dead.
To this day, Tom Feeney's INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE hosts a video of Mad Maddie -- on the left side of the page -- appearing on 60 MINUTES saying that the deaths were worth it. It's an ugly video of an ugly woman with an ugly soul. She's dead now but it is her legacy forever more and she was called out for it during her lifetime.
So why does Tom post Scott Ritter's bad writing? (Bad as in verging on unreadable.) Tom's never held Scott Ritter accountable for sanctions despite Ritter advocating for it and supporting it. Is it just wrong if we're talking about a woman? Does a penis give Scott a pass?
The hypocrisy never ends with the Beggar Media.
Scott Ritter was supposed to be featured in the rally this month. The thrice arrested pedophile was supposed to be onstage, soaking up the applause and lending his damaged name to the festivities. THE VANGUARD covered this last week.
Objection to Scott Ritter, a convicted pedophile who served time in prison and is now a registered sex offender appearing at the rally was evidence of a new COINTELLPRO!!!!!! Of infiltration!!!
No, it was evidence of basic standards.
You don't put rapists or pedophiles on stage. Sorry, this is so hard for you to grasp. It does explain why MeToo was needed in the first place -- so much of the left doesn't give a damn about women -- and that includes some women. And our statement there? It's nothing news. We've made it here forever. More to the point, before we ever wrote one word about it, Ellen Willis, Robin Morgan and many others had written at length on this issue -- on a supposed belief in equality on the left but with men who never recognized how they oppressed and harmed women. Many women covered this terrain but we need to especially note Casey Hayden and Anne Butterfield Weills who learned first hand just how sexist the left could be -- from first husbands Tom Hayden and Robert Scheer. Robert was part of TRUTH DIG . . . until a woman purchased it. Now he does SCHEERPOST where he gladly publishes Scott Ritter so that we all know he's still anti-women.
In the Ritter matter, some elected to hide behind Tara Reade. And why not? An obese person like Tara offers a mountain of cover. Tara's not a feminist, she's never been a feminist.
She's a user and she's a liar. She's an unattractive woman today and, in some people's minds, that's what a feminist is. But feminism is not about being good looking or, like Tara, looking like an ugly dog left out in the rain.
Tara came to prominence for her accusation that Joe Biden assaulted her when he was a US senator and she worked in his office. We believe her on that. We think she can support her allegation and has far more proof of it happening than any other he-said-she-said case.
But that doesn't make her a saint. Nor does it wipe away all the people she's hurt over the years, the ones she used, the ones she leeched off of and never paid back.
She's not a nice person.
She's also not an educated person. To watch her stumbling in 2020 and 2021 was to grasp how deeply stupid she is. She sounded like a partisan who never questioned anything but instead just spat out whatever the talking points of the day we were. We've noted that here. After she got the fact that other partisans (partisans like herself) were never going to come on board and support her, she got angrier (and fed her face more out of anger thus putting on even more weight) and refashioned herself into some sot of girl-sidekick -- heaven forbid she act as an adult woman, apparently -- and began appearing on Tucker Carlson and praising him and all this other nonsense.
Now, for the record, there's nothing wrong with her appearing on Tucker. But the time to do it was in 2020. Back then, she stupidly refused -- and we called her out then. If you're taking on a would-be US president, you go on any outlet that will have you to make your case. Instead, she waited forever, to the point that no one cared because the interest in her topic had expired. Then she goes on and acts like a little girl -- do very large, middle aged women not get how ridiculous they look when they giggle and coo? -- and can't stop praising Tucker.
She was ridiculous when she was the left partisan. She's more ridiculous (and fatter) now that she's the right wing partisan. When not lapping at Tucker's crotch, she can be found hanging with Kim Iverson.
She's a yo-yo girl. Yo-yo on the diets, yo-yo on the partisanship. She's not smart enough to grasp politics, she's not intelligent to stand on her own.
And she'll never learn a thing as she goes around madly blocking even the kindest Twitter suggestion that maybe a woman claiming Biden assaulted her shouldn't be promoting a registered sex offender.
For the record, THE COMMON ILLS is banned by her for what one of us, C.I., wrote at THE COMMON ILLS, not for anything Tweeted. She apparently hasn't yet banned THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW which is how we can see her pinned Tweet praising Tucker Carlson.
That would be the same Tucker who has declared war on the LGBTQ+ community and who promotes lies and attacks about and on that community.
A feminist doesn't go along with that.
Again, Tara's not a feminist. Being one would have provided her with a theoretical outlook and she's just an idiot crashing into the rocks every time the sea brings her back to the shore.
She can't stand up for herself because she's so deeply stupid and forever rushing from man to man to find a White Knight to save her.
Pathetic.
A political simpleton, Tara wanted the world to know that she stands with registered sex offender Scott Ritter.
That's a problem for her and the other White supporters of Scott Ritter. Those White men include Jimmy Dore, the White boys of DUE DISSIDENCE, Richard Medhurst, Little Jackie Hinkle, Aaron Mate, Max Blumenthal, Caleb I-Need-A-Spanking-Right-Now-Mommy! Maupin, and so many more.
It's good for them, these White and proud and White Pride men, to support Scott Ritter. Truth is, if an African-American mad had been arrested only once for pedophilia, he'd be tossed in prison for 30 years. But Scott Ritter, being White and a former UN weapons inspector, was able to lean on friends to get the first arrest ignored and to get the second arrest reduced to probation.
White privilege at work, please grasp.
It took the third arrest, while Barack Obama was president, for Ritter to finally be carted off to prison.
Third arrest. DUE DILLIGENCE lost a lot of subscribers last week when one host was out and the other insisted that Ritter was only arrested twice and that he had paid his debt to society.
The host is either a serial liar or just brain damaged. Three arrests. Debt to society? No. Since going off probation -- after being released from prison -- Scott Ritter has taken to denying what he did and what the court found him guilty of. That's not paying a debt to society, don't pretend that it is. You're a damn liar.
David Swanson was pissing his panties recently. Before we go further, note to David: STOP SPAMMING US WITH YOUR GARBAGE.
David and us go back. He's a piece of filth. At one point, he wrote Rebecca. Why did she say such and such, he asked while lying that he was a huge fan of her site. She was kind of enough to reply back to him.
How stupid is David? He doesn't understand the concept of reply all. He ended up griping about her to the head of Hip Hop Caucus and including her in on it by accident. She immediately confronted him and he tried to deny that he had said anything rude about her or that he mocked her or that he had passed on her e-mail.
He's garbage who has no respect for women. He continued to e-mail THE COMMON ILLS where he's never gotten a reply. Because Rebecca wanted to let it go and move on, David got highlighted from time to time at THE COMMON ILLS. That ended when he wrote his ridiculous column (see "David Swanson finds his Maddie Albright moment" from this site) and decided the thing to do was stand with Scott Ritter. We don't promote Scott Ritter or those who minimize the actions that result in registered sex offenders.
David took to attacking those who didn't want to stand with Scott at the upcoming rally.
They just don't get it.
No one in their right mind wants to stand next to a convicted and registered sex offender.
'We need to work together!' hisses the pro-Scott Ritter crowd.
Really? Because we need to work together to stop the attacks on transgender persons but Aaron Mate, Jimmy Dore, and all the rest of the White men circle-jerking with Ritter not only won't devote a minute of their time to covering those attacks, they also embrace Tucker Carlson, Kim Iverson and anyone else leading attacks on that community.
The always pathetic Medea Benjamin showed up. Naturally. Where there's a dumpster fire, there is Medea. She wants to speak with Ritter, she explained in a Tweet.
I support the rally and wanted to speak. Most people at CODEPINK were against it, though. So I bowed out as a speaker but I will be there and I'm organizing the lobby day afterwards, on Feb. 21. Hope you'll join us.
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) February 10, 2023
Good for you, Medea. Remember when ANTIWAR.COM was calling you out because you were trying to continue the Afghanistan War? Or what about when you bird-dogged Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in 2007 and 2008 over the Iraq War with your gal pal Jodie -- forgetting to inform them that Jodie was a bundler for Barack Obama. Never did bird-dog Barack and when people rightly wondered about that (John had a stronger anti-war position than did Barack -- even if you reduced it to only the Iraq War), they should have been told that Jodie was using the money she late-life married into to put Barack into the White House. But if you couldn't be a hypocrite, Media, what would there be left for you to be?
CODEPEACE was created as a propaganda front for the Democratic Party. We know it, Jane Fonda knows it. That's why Jane invited Jodie into the ridiculous WOMEN'S MEDIA CENTER. In 2008, three women were running on national tickets for president (Cynthia McKinney) and vice president (Rosa Clemente and Sarah Palin) but WMC was ignoring them all to whore for Barack and it took us calling WMC out here and organizing well known feminists to join us in complaining to WMC to finally get one report -- only one -- on women in the race. They weren't about covering women. WMC is a front for the Democratic Party. That's why it's never accomplished anything. That's why we've done serious work here on the gender imbalance in media while WMC wants to pretend that they've done the same.
All the money and time poured into that useless website that, right now, has a November 18th piece at the top of their page . . . on February 12th. And click "recent articles" on the sidebar and be taken to a November 2nd article. That's how pathetic they are. They wasted money on GREEN STONE MEDIA -- which existed, please remember, to promote the works of Aaron Sorkin and was with Sudan. So very feminist of them. Two hours each day obsessing over Aaron the male genius. And three hours a day pimping war with Sudan.
After having wasted that money, they then came back with a website and it's just more wasted dollars. In February, they can't point to anything more recent than November.
Well, it's not an election year so they'll probably hibernate until it's time to come back and tell you how to vote.
That's what Krystal Ball does. Not hibernate. Too bad because her face does look like she could use a lot more rest. But she tells you how to vote. Again, that's not what the beggar media should be doing.
We're grown ups. We don't need you to tell us how to vote or, for that matter, to tell us to "Grow up!" -- something Krystal infamously hissed recently.
If you want to support someone, support them. But don't tell other people what to do.
Marianne Williamson? We like her. But if you're going to order people to "Grow up!" and get behind Marianne for president, we're required in our role here to tell the truth. And it goes like this: She's a snake oil con woman who needs everyone to do what she says or she bows out or shuts down a facility. She can't work with others, she's never been able to. She's also never held elected office of any form and has nothing to offer but celebrity. We kind of thought we were all done with celebrity after seeing its natural outcome in 2016. In addition, she is a joke to the mainstream press and they get away with making her a joke because that's also how the public sees her.
Now Krystal can be Queen of Lost Causes -- such as her relationship with Kyle -- and we'll be happy to look the other way up until she starts trying to order everyone around.
Is that why BREAKING POINTS exists now? So she can tell us how to vote?
Her nonsense and the Scott Ritter nonsense are not that opposite. In both cases, people wish to do something and instead of going about their business and doing it, they use their platforms to attack others for refusing to go along.
Neither group wants an educated citizenry. You just want to tell people what to do and have them march in line. That's not what media is supposed to be about. Yes, it is what the corporate media is about but independent media was supposed to be about refuting the propaganda model -- not about creating a new one.
Now there is worse. In this world, there is always worse. There's Caitlin Johnstone. She's promoted by some people. We have no idea why.
She's the new Luke Ryland. For awhile, some Americans on the left, in the 00s, were promoting him and his awful website WOT IS IT GOOD 4 as worth reading. It really wasn't. And for the same reason that Caitlin Johnstone isn't worth reading.
We're not big fans of 1979's BREAKING AWAY and we especially do not care for Dennis Christopher's Dave. If you've not seen the film, it's another 'slice of life' film that never acknowledges women. And Dave's character is an idiot. An American obsessed with Italy. You watch and you cringe at his failure to live his own life.
That's what Luke and Caitlin need to do. Both are from Australia. Both present as anti-war (Luke's actually vanished -- thankfully). And they have so much to say about what goes on in the US. And nothing to say about what goes in Australia.
In other words, they're cowards who won't call out their own country but are constantly obsessing over the United States. They're like Dave in BREAKING AWAY.
If you're really political, Caitlin, write about your own damn country, the one you live in. Stop pressing your pathetic face up against the glass. Maybe if you held your own country accountable, it would actually work to protect Julian Assange? Instead, you give your own government a pass. That's not brave.
On some lever, Caitlin grasps what a coward she is. After all, she did Tweet this.
It's important that Americans remember to stay very very angry about all the human rights violations in Iran. https://t.co/yLrFsf7yGb
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 12, 2023
She's calling out Branko Marcetic, an American, for focusing on human rights abuses in Iran. But Branko actually does focus on human rights abuses in various countries.
As Chelsea infamously said last week on THE DAILY SHOW, "Well if that's not the Pot calling the Kettle Q-Anon."
Why can't she focus on her own government.
Is she unaware of her government's role in Ukraine? They're delivering $655 million in support. And in January, her government's defense department issued the following:
18 January 2023
Australian soldiers will depart Darwin this week to join partner nations in the United Kingdom, providing critical training to Ukrainian recruits to support their national defence in response to Russia’s illegal invasion.
A contingent of up to 70 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel will deploy as part of ADF Operation KUDU to assist with the UK-led and based training program.
The training conducted under this operation will generate additional capacity within the Armed Forces of Ukraine and will focus on basic infantry tactics for urban and wooded environments; helping Ukrainian recruits gain the military skills needed to defend their homeland.
No ADF personnel will enter Ukraine as part of the program.
Operation KUDU demonstrates Australia’s ongoing commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine, and continued support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
To date, Australia has provided Ukraine with approximately $655 million in support, including $475 million in military assistance.
Yet Australian Caitlin can't call out her own government. Does she honestly think she comes off brave hissing at the United States while remaining silent about her own government? She's the worst kind of coward there is. So was Luke. We have no respect for either.
And we don't have respect for people who refuse to grasp that honest brokers just don't like Marianne Williamson for president. She has no record. She has nothing to her name to suggest that she knows how to work with Congress or how, in fact, to work with others. She was the joke of the 2020 primaries. And that's who you want people to get behind? Hey, Marianne is a step up from Dennis Kucinich, we'll give you that. But even a slug is a step-up from Dennis Kucinich. Dennis was factory made with a collapsible spine.
Maybe Marianne will grow into a great campaigner and we'll all be saying, "Konnichiwa, girlfriend." But until that day comes, Krystal needs to cool her jets. She also needs to grasp that she's not being original. In 2020, Joe Biden supporters screeched "Grow up!" -- as they will in 2024. Imitation being the clearest form of admitting you have nothing to offer on your own.
And the Ritter fans are attacking Jeff Mackler. We don't worship Jeff. We often agree with him. We certainly agree with what he wrote about the Ritter faux action. But instead, the Ritter stans want to attack Mackler. Funny though, Jimmy Dore hasn't done a thing. Mackler spoke out against the Iraq War. He and others continue to call it out but the Jimmy Dores don't. They have all this time to Tweet and to YOUTUBE but never time to call out the fact that US troops remain on the ground in Iraq all these years later. The Jimmy Dores have to smear their opponents, if they didn't people would realize what hucksters they actually were.
The problem isn't those asking questions and refusing to swallow a party line. Those are the people we need. The problem is a beggar media that wants to be as controlling and dishonest as the corporate media. If it worked on actually educating us instead of trying to tell us who to vote for or to ignore the registered sex offender behind the curtain, this country might have a government that actually did serve the people.