The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
Lord Trump is now, thanks in great part to Supreme Court Judge Alito and his “boy” Uncle Thomas, officially “untouchable” and “above the law” of this fragmented and divided land.
In an unprecedented display of judicial catastrophe, the Supreme Court’s latest term has been nothing short of a cataclysmic train wreck. Within a mere few weeks, the right-wing majority has ravaged the federal government’s powers, championed the Republican assault on voting rights and gun control, swung open the gates for legalized bribery among public officials, and granted Donald Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card for his relentless attempts to subvert democracy and overturn a legitimate election.
And the chaos is far from over.
Brace yourself for even more dubious deeds: expect rulings dropped in the dead of night without a shred of justification, resulting in the relentless erosion of the civil rights of millions of Americans.
May the Gods have mercy on our naive and apathetic asses.
It’s clear most Americans-of-color, and that minority of independently, democratically-inclined minded White folks have vastly misjudged, miscalculated, misread and misconstrued the contempt, animosity and hatred most of mainstream White America (MAGA) harbors for everyone who isn’t them.
Repost from THE COMMON ILLS for Gaza coverage -- and to note Kat's two reviews and Isaiah's 2 comics since we don't have a "Highlights" this edition. Why's that? Here's where I (Jim) get to it.
And this is why the edition went up this morning. Ava and C.I. did the book discussion with Kat first. Then they looked at the other ideas and said, fine, they're going off to write the media piece and when they were done it was going up regardless of whether there was any other content to go with it. What were they writing about? On the Fourth, they discussed THE BOYS, the Jessica Alba NETFLIX movie and something I forget. They were not doing politics. They were doing something easy and light. On Friday, they watched Joe's ABC interview. They said nothing to us about but excused themselves from the room. Jess thought they were discussing whether or not to write about the interview. I thought they just didn't want to hear anything more on the topic. This morning, after they wrote this and I read over it, I asked them why they didn't mention it? It's a great piece but why hide it like they did. C.I. noted that she posted Saturday night at THE COMMON ILLS and that she didn't mention Joe. They were holding it for this edition. And that's why stuff had to go up Sunday morning.
Friday, July 5, 2024. As the slaughter in Gaza continues, the official
death toll has passed the 38,000 mark, 'progressive' David Sirota is
pimping a candidate to replace Joe Biden and David doesn't want you to
get how he's tricking you again (Israel loves David's choice --
environmental activists, First Amendment supporters, and opponents to
genocide aren't crazy for Josh Shapiro), Joe Biden will be on ABC
tonight with an interview while he tries to assure Democrats that he's
up to the task of running for the presidency, and much more.
Today, the European Union's Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Committee released the following:
High
Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Crisis
Management, Janez Lenarčič, have issued the following statement:
"The
European Union is deeply concerned about the Israeli army orders to
evacuate civilians from the area of Khan Younis. Some 250,000 people are
impacted by the evacuation orders. These orders also threaten the
patients of the European Hospital, one of the few remaining partially
functioning hospitals in southern Gaza.
Injured and sick
patients from the European Hospital, including pregnant women and
elderly people, were forced to relocate to other facilities, such as the
Nasser Hospital. Staff also tried to save medical equipment. This
evacuation decision is certain to worsen overcrowding, and cause severe
shortages in the already overwhelmed remaining hospitals, at a time when
access to emergency medical care is critical.
Forced
evacuations are creating a humanitarian crisis within the crisis. They
exacerbate an already catastrophic humanitarian situation, with nearly
1.9 million Gazans displaced within the Strip, as stated by UN Senior
Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag in the
Security Council. There are no facilities to accommodate people, and
humanitarian partners struggle to meet the immense needs of the newly
displaced.
The European Union reiterates that for
evacuations not to amount to prohibited forcible transfers, they must
conform with International Humanitarian Law, guaranteeing safety in
transit and proper accommodation in areas of refuge for Palestinians
called on to evacuate. Israel is likewise responsible for guaranteeing
that displaced persons are able to return to their homes, or areas of
habitual residence, once hostilities end. Displaced people also need to
have access to the necessary services and have their needs met.
Faced
with the deteriorating situation, the European Union has mobilised all
its crisis response and humanitarian tools to channel needed aid to
Gaza. This includes medical supplies, drugs and medications, and a
significant increase in EU funding to humanitarian partners.
A
ceasefire is all the more important now, and would make possible a
surge of humanitarian assistance to Gaza as well as the release of all
hostages.
The European Union recalls the obligation to
respect and implement the orders of the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) of 26 January and 24 May 2024, which are legally binding. The EU
gives its full support to the comprehensive roadmap presented by
President Biden and calls for the immediate implementation of United
Nations Security Council resolution 2735, as well as the implementation
of UN Security Council resolutions 2728, 2720 and 2712."
Also speaking out is the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. PRESS TV reports:
An international human rights organization says Israel is
using water as another weapon of genocide against Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip by deliberately reducing the amount of water available to
them, especially potable water sources.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a new press release issued
on Thursday that the Tel Aviv regime is purposefully causing the death
of over 2.3 million people as part of its genocide war.
The Euro-Med noted that its field team observed significant damage to
a desalination plant in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza
City, as a result of an Israeli strike. The attack claimed the life of a
young man who was filling a gallon with water there and left several
other individuals wounded.
The station, which provided services to at least 50,000 people in
several nearby residential neighborhoods, sustained significant damage
after being struck by an Israeli guided bomb that broke through multiple
stories and detonated on the first floor.
Yet
the US Congress has no such statement to make collectively? Nothing.
However, US Senator Lindsey Graham has finally learned to breathe
through his nose and did manage to speak while otherwise occupied. ALJAZEERA notes:
United States Senator Lindsey Graham has sparked anger after he
responded to protests outside his home in Seneca, South Carolina, with
anti-Palestinian remarks on social media.
“The Palestinians in Gaza are the most radicalized population on the
planet who are taught to hate Jews from birth. It will take years to fix
this problem,” Graham said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“When I hear ‘from the river to the sea,’ it reminds me of ‘the Final
Solution.’ The Hamas terrorists are the SS on steroids,” he added,
drawing a comparison to a Nazi paramilitary organisation, the
Schutzstaffel (SS).
As part of the post, Graham shared a video of a small line of
protesters — about 20 in total — who held up a large Palestinian flag on
the road outside his home and chanted, “Lindsey Graham, we’re not done.
Intifada’s just begun.”
Lindsey
went on in the deleted post, per ALJAZEERA, to apologize to his
neighbors for the disturbance the protesters were causing. Couldn't he
have just used the excuse he usually does on his neighbors? "They're my
nephews."
Paul Rudnick Tweets:
ALJAZEERA notes:
In response to Thursday’s social media post, Claudia De la Cruz, the
PSL’s presidential candidate, compared Graham to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It’s clear from Lindsey Graham’s comments that he considers the
entire Palestinian population to be ‘the enemy’, making his genocidal
intent as clear as Netanyahu’s. He should be held to account for aiding
and abetting war crimes,” De la Cruz said in a statement posted online.
A majority of Americans likewise disapprove of Israel’s actions in
Gaza: The survey agency Gallup found in March that 55 percent oppose the
military offensive, and approval dropped to 36 percent.
And still the slaughter continues.
That's
a video report from NBC so maybe it'll still visible in the snapshot
five hours from now? I always wonder, when a person or outlet thinks
they want to be noted here: Do they really? Do they not know that when
it's spotted here, there's a good chance that it will be restricted when
the Zionists start complaining and spamming YOUTUBE? I don't know. At COUNTERPUNCH, Vijay Prashad notes the children of Gaza:
Everyday Violence
June 14: One child was killed by Israeli airstrikes in Zeitoun (Gaza City).
June 22: Two children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Shujaiya (Gaza City).
June 25: Two children were killed by Israeli fire on al-Wahda Street, near Al-Shifa Hospital (Gaza City).
June 25: Three children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the Maghazi refugee camp.
Each of these stories is about precious
children, most of whom have not even reached the age of 10. Some of
these children lived through the barbarous Israeli bombardment of 2014
when over 3,000 children had been killed. Sitting in the homes of
families in Gaza City and Khan Younis in the aftermath of that war, I
heard story after story about children killed and children maimed (Maha,
paralyzed; Ahmed, blinded—my notebook a mess of loss and sorrow). As
the bombs continued to fall in 2014, Pernille Ironside, then-chief of
the Gaza office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) saidthat
373,000 children needed “immediate psycho-social first aid.” There were
simply not enough counselors to help the children, most of whom are now
hardened because of the ugliness of occupation and war.
The violence that they experience has
become a daily affair. But this kind of violence can never be mundane.
“I am scared,” said Hind Rajab. I remember meeting a little boy who was
playing with a football on the streets of al-Mughraqa. His father, who
was showing me around, told me that the boy was not able to sleep, but
would stay awake at night and cry. That was in 2014. That boy must now
be in his early twenties. He might not be alive.
One or Two Legs
An Al Jazeera interactive website has
the names of the children killed since October 2023, one killed every
fifteen minutes; as I scrolled down the names, I felt ill, and then
found this at the very end: “These are the names of only half of the
children killed.” In early May, UNICEF director Catherine Russell said,
“Nearly all of Gaza’s children have been exposed to the traumatic
experiences of war, the consequences of which will last a lifetime.” In
her statement, where she reported that 14,000 children have been killed,
she said that “an estimated 17,000 children are unaccompanied or
separated.” These numbers are estimates and are likely to be
undercounts.
A new report from
Save the Children suggests that over 20,000 children are missing in
Gaza. They are either under the rubble, detained by the Israeli
military, or buried in mass graves. During a detailed briefing on June
25, the Commissioner-General of the UN Palestine Agency (UNRWA) Philippe
Lazzarini said something
staggering: “And you take into consideration that basically, we have
every 10 days children losing one leg or two legs on average. This gives
you an idea of the scope of the type of childhood a child can have in
Gaza.”
The story should not be real. It was the
morning of December 19, 2023. Israeli tanks rumbled through the
neighborhood of Rimal in Gaza City. Seventeen-year-old Ahed Bseiso was
on the top floor of a six-floor building trying to call her father in
Belgium to tell him that she was still alive. She heard a loud noise,
fell, and called out for her sister Mona and her mother. Her family
rushed up, carried her down, and laid her on the kitchen table where her
mother had been making bread. Ahed’s uncle Hani Bseiso, an orthopedic
doctor, looked at her leg and realized that he would have to either
amputate it or she would die. He grabbed whatever supplies he could find
and conducted the amputation without anesthesia. Ahed recited verses
from the Quran to calm herself. Hani wept as he did the operation, which
the family filmed and later posed on YouTube, which was reposted in many places.
These are the stories of Gaza.
These
children are dead and dying and let's not pretend that those lucky
enough to survive are not going to be haunted by their own childhood for
the rest of their lives. Let's not also not forget the countries
feeding this nightmare, making it continue. ANADOLU AGENCY (via MEMO) notes:
Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, now stretching into its 10th month, has
been marked by severe civilian casualties and widespread destruction,
significantly fuelled by Western arms.
Germany, as the second-largest arms supplier to Israel after the US, plays a major role in exacerbating the crisis.
Despite global condemnation and calls for an end to arms sales,
Germany, alongside the US, Italy and the UK, continues to be the main
supplier of military equipment that intensifies the violence and
suffering in Gaza.
I've seen and done things I want to forget I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat Blown and shot out beyond belief Arms and legs were in the trees
I've seen and done things I want to forget Coming from an unearthly place Longing to see a woman's face Instead of the words that gather pace
The words that maketh murder These, these, these are the words The words that maketh murder These, these, these are the words The words that maketh murder These, these, these are the words The words that maketh murder These, these, these are the words Murder
These, these, these are the words The words that maketh murder These, these, these are the words The words that maketh murder
-- "The Words That Maketh Murder," written by PJ Harvey, first appears on her LET ENGLAND SHAKE album
In
the US, we're still caught in the will-he-or-won't-he. Joe Biden is
the US president and the Democratic Party's presidential nominee for
November. Could it change? It could. But those who think they're
helping, those like professional idiots at THE VANGAURD? Zac and
'Cody', I didn't realize that they didn't even have college educations.
I know they're idiots and I know they have no knowledge base and no
core values. But just because you desire Joe gone, is that a reason to
present your segments as Donald-is-a-truth-teller?
They're
stupid and uninformed which is why any lengthy conversation they post
needs to be fact checked. But they're just dumb blowhards.
I am not interested in liars.
Norman
Solomon lied throughout 2008 in radio appearance after radio
appearance, TV appearance after TV appearance. He had no dog in the
fight, he insisted, but Barack was the best nominee. Those who read his
printed opinion pieces at corporate news sites knew better -- and they
saw something that you didn't see when he was reposted by COUNTERPUNCH
or COMMON DREAMS or whomever: That he was a pledged delegate for
Barack. He had to include that when he got actual payment from actual
newspapers because if he didn't include it they could've gotten him for
failing to disclose and that would have taken the whole syndicate his
columns went through down. That's a liar.
We don't need liars in this debate. He elected to lie and we don't need him, can't trust him.
If
you have whored yourself in the past, have lied to the American people
and tried to trick them, you don't belong in this conversation. You are
not to be trusted.
Tonight, on ABC's first hour of prime time, Joe will speak with George Stephanopoulos
EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos
will sit down with Pres. Biden for the exclusive first television
interview since the presidential debate. Tune in across ABC News
platforms Friday, July 5.
Watch, make up your own mind.
Also watch the way some try to spin it. Opinions are one thing and
people can see the same thing and disagree but then there are whores.
David
Sirota, come on down. The man who looks like a drunken doctor mangled
his skull during birth with forceps has always been problematic. There
was the moment when he attacked an Iraq War veterans mother and did so
as though she didn't know what she was talking about. She knew what she
was talking about and, sad for David, we knew why David was whoring --
she was rightly calling out US House Rep David Obey. Let's go back
because David Sirota wants this forgotten. When we called him out in
real time for attacking Tina, he sent us this most foul mouthed e-mail
where he repeatedly stated he was going to sue. As I noted when he got
an undeserved Academy Award nomination, I evened the score by printing
up that e-mail and sharing it at every official Academy Award event I
attended.
You
might not know her name, but she's fast become a fresh face of the
antiwar left. Missouri mom Tina Richards became an overnight YouTube
sensation last week, when an encounter she had with Rep. David Obey in a
Capitol Hill corridor went viral—just as Congress was debating a bid to
rein in spending for President Bush's surge in Iraq. During the
encounter, Richards approaches Obey, chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, to discuss her son, Marine Cpl. Cloy
Richards—who suffers from undiagnosed traumatic brain injuries following
two tours of duty in Iraq and a failure by the military health-care
system to provide adequate treatment, his mother says. Obey responds
patiently, at first, but the congressman grows agitated as the
conversation continues, and he tells Richards that "liberal idiots" were
pushing Congress to defund the war—which, Obey argues, would further
hurt the cause of veterans whose health-care needs are already being
shortchanged.
Richards,
the CEO of Grassroots America, a nonprofit devoted to social-justice
issues, has continued walking the halls of Congress since then, pushing
members to end the war in Iraq. Cloy is due to be deployed to Iraq later
this month despite his injuries, she says, and has threatened suicide
if he is to be deployed again.
That's
who David Sirota attacked in a piece that he later had taken down. In
the piece, please note, he attacked her for not grasping how important
David Obey was. As he relentlessly kissed David Obey's ass, he forgot
to include that, woops, he had been paid by Obey for many years. That's
what professionals call "disclosure." And that's why we called him out
and he was furious and angry and then, a week later, while defending
Obey yet again, he did manage to do the needed disclosure -- bare
minimum.
His second attempt at the topic
omitted Tina's name but did continue to lecture her and others because
who knows better about war than David Sirota? Forget that Tina's son
had served two tours in Iraq, David Sirota knew better than her. Knew
better than everyone because, as he wrote, there are "idiot liberals"
and they are wrong to "berate" David Obey or anyone like him.
Are you getting just what a piece of crap David Sirota is?
Why bring this up now?
David's
been in the conversation regarding the nominee. David wants Joe Biden
out. Okay, he's not alone on that. There are others who want the
same. But David's also pimping a replacement: Josh Shapiro the governor
of Pennsylvania who doesn't believe in mask mandates or addressing
climate change. But for our focus here? Let's note this from ALJAZEERA:
While he may not have the national name recognition that his fellow
governors Newsom and Whitmer enjoy, Shapiro is considered one of the top
candidates to potentially replace Biden.
The governor, who previously served as Pennsylvania’s attorney
general, comfortably won his election in the Mid-Atlantic swing state in
2022. Since taking office, he has had positive approval ratings.
With regards to the war in Gaza, Shapiro has been a staunch supporter of Israel.
“The whataboutism used by some to justify Hamas’s unprovoked actions
is ignorant and wrong,” he said last year. “There is no moral
equivalency here. Israel has a right to defend itself.”
Shapiro has also been outspoken in denouncing what he describes as anti-Semitism by protesters who oppose the war in Gaza.
In April, he likened pro-Palestinian student protesters
to the Ku Klux Klan. The campus protests, however, have been largely
peaceful, and student leaders say accusations of anti-Semitism
misrepresent their aim: to encourage their universities to divest from
Israeli companies linked to the country’s human rights abuses.
“We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were
people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia making comments about
people who are African American in our communities,” Shapiro told CNN.
And
that's who David Sirota supports. David wants Joe Biden out and he
wants Shapiro in. How exactly is David a progressive whatever it is
that he calls himself these days? (I just call him an ass regardless.)
Maybe David Sirota needs to sit his tired ass down and keep it down?
(For the record, he never apologized to Tina.)
Some
people are genuinely concerned that Joe is not going to win in
November. They are in a panic and they might be right to be in a
panic. It might be good to have a different nominee. But some people
who are injecting themselves into this conversation are doing so for
other reasons and are not being honest about it. We need to be sure, as
the conversation continues, that the David Sirotas and Norman Solomons
who have lied in the past to try to get you to vote for someone aren't
part of this conversation. They aren't honest brokers and we shouldn't
listen to them.
The ALZAZEERA article
does a run down on a number of possibilities that a number of people
are pushing. I've warned about Gretch The Wretch already so we won't
quote from the article on her but you should look over the article and
ponder why some people keep pimping a candidate that has so very little
to offer? Well, I say they have nothing to offer and nothing that says
American President -- I say that but maybe, like David Sirota, you're
ideal President of the United States is a man who proposed to his wife
in Jerusalem? What's more American than that, right?
Yesterday,
the death toll in Gaza passed 38,000. So maybe not the best time to
pimp Josh Shapiro -- who made a dozen trips to Israel before being
elected governor and whose election as governor led to a front page
story by THE TIMES OF ISRAEL insisting "Josh Shapiro's inauguration symbolizes a new age for Jewish politicians" -- an article that basically attacks Ed Rendell ("Josh
shows up for us just by being so proudly Jewish and that is really
something because Rendell, who I worked for and who I love, I mean, he
never hid his Jewishness, but he didn’t wear it on his sleeve"). I know Ed, I've know him for years and this has been disclosed here repeatedly. One example of many, March 2012:
Trudy Rubin (Philadelphia Inquirer) admonishes Ed Rendell here.
Trudy Rubin's one of the few journalists who doesn't forget Iraq so we
note her columns. I don't think Ed's done anything wrong (as noted
before, I know Ed). But we'll use that to note a few things about the
MEK which has nothing to do with the US legal obligations to Camp Ashraf
residents.
So Little Joshy
-- whom THE TIMES OF ISRAEL dished was the best Jewish politician since
Joe Lieberman!!! are your panties wet yet, girls? -- is just THE TIMES
OF ISRAEL's cover boy and, I'm sure, nude centerfold.
He's
clearly not who America needs and it's really past time that the left
started holding David Sirota accountable or at least permanently tuning
him out. Whether it's defending US politicians for prolonging the Iraq
War or pimping a non-Green and pro-genocide man for the Democratic
Party's presidential nomination or, for that matter, attacking the
mother of an Iraq War veteran, David Sirota has shown us what he is and
he's done so repeatedly.
I was going to include
one of David Sirota's Tweets where he basically creams his shorts as he
fantasizes about Joshua Shapiro but the person I'm dictating this too
found something much more interesting.
I'm
sorry, where above did I knock Emily Sirota for her husband's Zionist
beliefs? I didn't. That Tweet is nothing but sexism. Jill Biden is
the First Lady. I never held Laura Bush responsible for her War
Criminal husband's actions. I don't understand why David needs to knock
Jill or to tie her being on the cover of VOGUE -- a common thing for
First Ladies -- to his desire to oust Joe Biden so he can get an Israeli
loyalist nominated for president?
David Sirota
is a piece of crap. You need to grasp that not everyone involved in
the conversation on the issue of who the Democratic Party's presidential
nominee should be is an honest broker. Some are in it to trick you and
they will -- as they have repeatedly in the past -- lie to you and
think they can manipulate you.
Regarding this topic -- following Wednesday's snapshot
-- many e-mails came in to the public e-mail account
(common_ills@yahoo.com) from people saying that here I was telling them
to vote for whomever the Democratic Party's nominee was. I didn't do
that. I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear but that was a huge, lengthy
snapshot.
This does appear in the Wednesday snapshot:
So you're reality is
Cornel West, Chase Oliver or a Democrat if you're voting for president
in 2024. Donald's going to destroy Palestine even more. And his vile
and disgusting comments in the debate received no pushback from Owen or
Glynneth. Or anyone else.
If you're a
Libertarian, Chase Oliver is a great choice. I can certainly understand
someone wanting to vote for Cornel West -- since he's been on fire
since rejecting a bunch of White 'leaders' trying to jerk him around.
We've noted Laura Flanders' interview with his running mate earlier this
morning but I will include it here in the snapshot as well.
In
prior years, we covered everyone running for president -- whether they
had a chance at the slot or not. In 2023, I noted here that I wasn't
doing that. It's a lot of work and there are a lot of liars. When
Howie Hawkins won the Green Party nomination for president, he won it.
He did that by working his ass off. Dario and the other whores thought
campaigning was Tweeting every other week. That's not a campaign.
Then, filled with sour grapes, they tried to tank Howie by going around
to various questionable platforms (CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX, to cite one)
where hosts would not only air their lies but also encourage them.
Dario didn't run a campaign. Howie did and that's how Howie got the
nomination. The attacks, the smears on Kevin Zeese, all of that
nonsense was repugnant.
And Jill Stein was a
part of that. And Jill's a worthless candidate. If the Green Party
gives her the nomination, it deserves all the ridicule it gets.
So
I noted that we weren't covering every campaign. I said we'd cover
what we could of real campaigns. Cornel came alive as a candidate
during the combative interview with Jimmy Dore and I have no problem
highlighting his campaign. I wish I had time to note Chase Oliver. But
my time is limited.
That snapshot was
directed to those people who were voting Democrat or planning to. I
worded that very badly in the snapshot and the person I was dictating it
to even asked me if I wanted to include a statement like that and I
responded, "_____ no, just get the damn thing up already." A feeling
I've got this morning because this snapshot has gone on way too long as
well. Expect Monday's to be much shorter.
But,
no, I'm not telling anyone that they have to vote for the Democrat. I
am voting for the Democrat and I'm doing that because I am so worried
what's going to happen to reproductive rights, to the LGBTQ+ community,
to our basic rights, to our citizens -- that threat Donald made against
Liz Cheney is not something minor.
But some
people don't want to vote Democrat and I understand that. And when I'm
talking about do we keep or replace Joe, I'm speaking to other
Democrats. It's a difficult conversation to have because a lot of
'celebrities' on the left -- I'm referring to pundits -- pose as
Democrats but they aren't Democrats. They're Socialists, or they're
Democratic Socialists, or they're this or they're that. And they try to
butt into this conversation and pretend to be Democrats. I find that
dishonest, manipulative and disgusting.
You're
a Socialist who wants Joe out? Say you're a Socialist. But if you're a
liar, you don't admit it, you won't fess up because you know the minute
you do, the natural response on the part of many Democrats is going to
be, this is a decision for members of the Democratic Party only.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 273 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted,
"More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza --
have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL noted yesterday, "More
than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since October,
according to the latest figures from the enclave's health ministry. A
total of 58 people were killed in the 24-hour reporting period, taking
the overall toll to 38,011. Another 179 people were wounded, taking the
total number of injured to 87,445. The majority of victims are women and children, according to the ministry." This number has not yet been updated on Friday. Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained
on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000
Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of
their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe
Lazzarini Tweeted:
April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as
killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000
Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has
estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into
Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
As for the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
Friday, US President Joe Biden appeared on ABC in the first half-hour of prime time with George Stephanopoulos.
It was a week and one day after Joe had matched wits with Convicted Felon Donald Trump on a debate stage. Aided by a bored and lazy media, in the 24 hours after the debate ended, concerns over Joe's ability to handle a second term soared. Efforts on his part to reassure voters the day after the debate with speeches -- including one at Stonewall -- failed to stop the media-created tsunami.
As the days piled on, so did the garbage. Norman Solomon -- who used the public airwaves in 2008 to advocate for Barack Obama while pretending he was objective and that he wasn't, in fact, a pledged delegate for Barack -- showed up this go round pretending like he was sincerely concerned. He wasn't. He'd led an earlier effort to prevent Joe from running for a second term. He's as a big a liar as Roseanne Barr -- a Trump supporter who Tweeted the night of the debate that she felt sorry for Joe, genuinely sorry, honest, no fingers-crossed, for reals.
People like that, more than actual Democrats, created a drip-drip that wouldn't cease and kept the topic the focus of the media -- a media that failed repeatedly to hold Donald Trump accountable for his non-stop lying in the debates or for The 2025 Project.
It shouldn't take Taraji P. Henson, at last week's BET Awards, talking on stage about The 2025 Project for the media to finally pay attention to it.
But that's what's happened. And even so, Donald's gotten a two week pass where serious issues of substance were only fleeting media conversations. The drip-drip was very good for Donald and very bad for Democrats.
"For Joe Biden!" hiss the non-Democrats posing as Democrats to influence the conversation.
No, for the Democratic Party.
This has been very bad for the Democratic Party. And Socialists and Marxists and Democratic Socialists and Greens and whatevers on YOUTUBE who've declared their support for presumed Green Party nominee Jill Stein and pretended like they hadn't -- all sorts of people pretending when they really don't give two s**ts about the party.
Which is why it didn't matter to them if they damaged Joe's reputation and he stayed on the ticket. They were and are willing to bloody him to the point that he loses the 2024 election. or that their efforts to damage Joe's reputation and standing would improve Donald's chances at re-election as they kept the focus on Joe.
We're voting for the Democratic Party's nominee whomever it is (while playing it isn't I-Love-Israel-and-have-divided-loyalties-and-I-have-a-toxic-work-enviroment Josh Shapiro) and were fine with this being decided without us.
Then came Friday.
And we honestly now believe that Joe needs to step aside.
We talk a lot in these media pieces about how people paint themselves into a corner and destroy their reputations. They take a position and it turns out they're wrong but their pride keeps them from admitting it so they end up Glenn Greenwalds with no ethics at all.
But there's another way you can paint yourself into a corner: By letting others set the tone.
I don't know Jamaal Bowman. I'm sure he's a wonderful person. But
watching the attempts to save his seat in Congress? Bewilderment.
Who was this sitting member of Congress and why should I care?
Tomorrow
night US President Joe Biden is scheduled to debate Convicted Felon and
well known liar Donald Trump. I hope we don't see the behavior on that
stage from Joe, hope this is some new Democratic Party fad passed off
as 'framing' or whatever.
Jamal is probably a nice person.
But
watching the nonsense that I watched -- as a nonvoter (I don't live in
his state, let alone district) -- I kept waiting for a coherent story as
to why he mattered and I never got that.
Beggars
can't be choosers, agreed. And in a fight like this -- a Democratic
Party primary -- he needed and probably took any support he could get.
That's fine for the voting booth, that's not good for get out the vote.
So the first mistake his campaign made was in the selection of some of the mouth boxes they threw in front of the cameras.
Here's
tip one: Voters don't usually go for painted up whores. If you're a
member of Congress trying to support another member of Congress,
minimize the make up. That's especially true if you're wearing false
eye lashes and even more so if those lashes are opening and closing
repeatedly every time you speak. Do you think anyone's listening to you
when you can't stop batting your eyes with those two to three inch eye
lashes on? They're not. They're laughing at you at worst. The kinder
ones are just distracted and maybe wondering if thick false eye lashes
make it harder for you keep your eyes open.
Here's tip two (and see Marica's "The bald idiot needs to let someone else speak publicly"),
you are trying to get them on the side of the person you're
supporting. Stop yelling at them. It's one thing to be enraged about
possible policy ramifications if the candidate you're supporting doesn't
win. But you push people away when you're just yelling or hectoring.
Nobody wants a big mouth trying to tell them what to do.
In
fact, we could go on and on but we have a lot to cover so let's just
sum the tips above and about 15 more I had as: Watch what Ayanna
Pressley did and don't do that. Any member of The Squad could have done
a better job than Pressley did.
Ilhan Omar,
for example, invites you into a conversation when she's advocating for
someone or some issue. Pressley, from the opening, leaves you off put.
Again,
I don't know Jamaal. More importantly, after weeks of his defenders
taking to the media and YOUTUBE (I'm not referring to podcasters
offering analysis, I'm referring to guests on those shows who were
supposedly advocating on his behalf), I still don't know him.
AIPAC
is awful and shouldn't be allowed to be involved in US races. No
foreign money should be allowed period. And that's something people
could have supported. Israel sticking its nose in a US district
election? No one wants that anymore than they want France or China or
even the UK flooding our 'home' elections.
So
you could have made that a strategy. When AIPAC was raised, I
understood what they were getting at but don't think most listening
would. They needed to make that a strong point and they needed to make
it an easy to understand point.
But they failed at that.
Just like they failed to tell us his record and failed to let us know his plans for the future.
AIPAC defined him as unworthy and all his supporters that spoke to the media did was say, "Oh, but he's a good guy."
That's not how you fight.
We say Joe won the debate -- in part due to Donald's lies. And it goes to the media and the male dominance of the media -- especially our so-called 'independent' media on YOUTUBE -- that something as ridiculous as Donald Trump claiming women were aborting babies right after they gave birth to them was not the biggest moment of the debate and a non-stop ridicule in the media as just how stupid Donald is.
But what women grasp, apparently men don't -- neither do male-identifying women who'll do anything to get by in the male-dominated media.
But while we felt Joe won the debate, we didn't think he did what he needed to.
And as we talked to various Democratic Party operatives -- many of whom were weighing in during media appearances -- we said that what Joe didn't do in the debate and what he needed to immediately do now was pivot to his plan for the next four years.
He really didn't do that in his day-after speeches. He came closest in his Stonewall speech but he blew that almost immediately with his nonsense regarding trans youth (trans youth decisions are parental decisions -- end of story, it was sad to watch Joe cave on that and trans rights out of desperation).
It didn't happen the day after. So we took our complaints higher and higher. At one point, a White House insider told us that we didn't get it, he was shut out and couldn't do anything regarding Joe. That's because the wagons were circled. And as a bunker mentality set in, Joe's chances vanished.
In last Friday's ABC interview, George had things he wanted to do and questions he wanted to ask. We're not faulting him for that. We're acknowledging what his job was.
Joe had a job as well.
And Joe failed at it.
His job wasn't too spar with George or to bicker over this or that. His job wasn't to refer to the debate and his health constantly.
His job was to put that behind him but he instead dwelled on it.
He made it the interview. The November election is months away. He has wanted people to give him a chance and people have. We have. We were staying out of calling for him to step down until Friday.
What changed?
Some have drawn attention to this exchange:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS:
And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning
about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?
PRESIDENT
JOE BIDEN: I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as
job as I know I can do, that's what this is about. Look, George. Think
of it this way. You've heard me say this before. I think the United
States and the world is at an inflection point when the things that
happen in the next several years are gonna determine what the next six,
seven decades are gonna be like.
And
who's gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who's gonna be able
to be in a position where I'm able to keep the Pacific Basin in a
position where we're-- we're at least checkmating China now? Who's
gonna-- who's gonna do that? Who has that reach? Who has-- who knows all
these pe…? We're gonna have, I guess a good way to judge me, is you're
gonna have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week.
Come listen. See what they say.
Because we only have one real shot to defeat Donald?
There is that. But it's more than that. It's Joe's response there and throughout.
George is doing his job -- asking hard questions. Joe had a job in that interview as well and that was to make the case for himself.
NATO isn't making the case for Joe but it was better than nothing.
Know what else wasn't making the case for Joe? All those excuses he gave.
Over and over, the debate was the them tooth that just fell out of his mouth and whose empty space Joe's tongue kept going back to.
That wasn't how you reassure. Joe's painted himself into a corner and is unable to get out.
What he needed to do was pivot on every question.
Example:
George: Americans are worried that you're not going to win the election.
Joe: We're all worried about a lot of things. But we're going to roll up our sleeves and address them. We're going to get ROE codified, we're going . . .
What Americans needed to hear was what the next four years under a Biden presidency would be and how it would impact their lives.
Joe carping about the debate, whining about the debate, accepting George's terms about the debate did not help him nor did it help America.
Joe of olden days was a confused mess more often than not. That's why we weren't that concerned about his slow start at the debate. Barack Obama, for example, tasked him with selling the unsellable to Iraqi leaders in 2010. That fall, he had to go to the winners of the 2010 elections (Iraqiya) and tell them that the US wasn't supporting them, that thug Nouri al-Maliki (who had come in second in the election) was getting a second term and that a contract (The Erbil Agreement) was going to do this and that all the Iraqi leaders -- including Iraqiya's Ayad Allawi -- were going to sign off on it. Encountering resistance, Joe pivoted to a tale of North Ireland that had nothing to do with the topic at hand and left the Iraqis confused bu achieved the goal of getting them to sign on. See Emma Sky's THE UNRAVELING: HIGH HOPES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN IRAQ if this is new to you.
Or think about how Joe wanted to split Iraq up into three regions. And how Joe would then spin it to insist (as late as early 2008, right before he dropped out of the Democratic Party's presidential primary) a federation was what he was advocating for and that wasn't splitting up anything and then he'd bore you with examples to the point that you just didn't care.
He can't pivot now.
Is it age related? It might be. But we think the debate was a horror for him and that the media coverage that followed was an even bigger horror. He's turned it into a chip on his shoulder and instead of saying, "George, I've answer the question about that night and I've answered it repeatedly so let's talk now about what the next four years are going to be about?"
Joe is a politician. It's all he's ever been. He entered the US Senate in 1972. He left in January 2009 only because he moved on to Vice President. He held that post until January 2017. This was followed by two years where he was not in office and not on the campaign trail. Those were the first two years since 1972 where Joe wasn't a politician. In 2019, he'd begin campaigning again.
He's always known how to pivot and now he can't. And the Democratic Party is supposed to spend the next three or so months enduring Joe's obsession with that debate, accepting his inability to move on?
Joe's not up for the job. Pains us to say it but it's true. He needs to go. Friday's failure to present a vision of the future made it clear that Joe can't pivot and that he has no long range vision for where the country can go.
We would recommend Joe step down as the nominee. We don't know that that will happen, but that's our recommendation. Should he not? As we've said for the last two years, we'll be voting for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination whomever it is.
