-- Amanda Marcotte, "Donald Trump is not waiting for RFK Jr. — he has already started his war on public health" (SALON).
Monday, January 27, 2025
Truest statement of the week
A note to our readers
Hey --
Sunday.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
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,
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?
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Media: How Amy Goodman harmed immigrants and helped elect Chump
That's USA TODAY's video report entitled "President Trump's radical immigration agenda takes shape | The Excerpt." And indeed it has. What Donald Chump promised repeatedly on the campaign trail has come to pass. Week one.
Just three days into President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportation operation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have already arrested a U.S. citizen who served in the military.
About 10 or 12 ICE agents raided a Newark, New Jersey, seafood wholesaler and restaurant on Thursday and arrested three people, including the Puerto Rican warehouse manager, Ocean Food Depot owner Luis Janota told PIX11 news. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
“I asked [the agents] what documentation they were looking for, and they said it was a license or a passport. I thought, who walks around with a passport?” Janota told PIX11, noting that the agents didn’t ask him for his white workers’ documentation.
“One of the guys was a military veteran, and the way he looked to me was because he was Hispanic. He is Puerto Rican and the manager of our warehouse,” he said. “It looked to me like they were specifically going after certain kinds of people—not every kind, because they did not ask me for documentation or my American workers, Portuguese workers, or white workers.”
The ICE officers also didn’t have a warrant, in “plain violation” of the Fourth Amendment, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement.
We told you this would happen. We called out Chump's immigration attacks for a number of reasons but one, as we covered, was that Americans would be swept up in these arrests.
And that's not us being Debra Messing's Grace and about to do the I-told-you-so dance. We're tell things many times that aren't listened to. But this is a little different.
Keith Edwards does strong YOUTUBE content like this video noting a Latina American who voted for Chump and now regrets it as she sees people afraid to go to work because of these raids.
"I hate that I voted for him," the Latina American in Tik-Tok says. "Now I'm so scared for my family."
And Keith notes, "That's really hard to hear for multiple reasons. one, My heart really does go out to her. But also, I'm just going to put it bluntly, but who -- like did -- what -- Maybe you in the comments can help me with this because I am a loss for words. I know it's my job to have the words bug I just feel like Were you not paying attention? He said everything he wants to do and he's starting to do it. Gosh darn it and doing it he is because he started, he is raiding cities right now."
We agree with Keith one hundred percent that people should have been paying attention.
But unlike Keith we were following garbage media during the campaign. You know garbage media, don't you? The people who don't follow it wrongly think that DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, COMMON DREAMS, IN THESE TIMES, et al are our friends.
They are not. They demonstrated that as they worked to attack Kamala Harris and advance Donald Chump.
The Latina might not watch, for example, DEMOCRACY NOW! but let's not pretend for one moment that the anti-Kamala propaganda they served up daily was intended to tank Kamala Harris' campaign, to sew distrust against her and to make her lose the race.
Let's just focus on one garbage outlet:
Democracy Now! is broadcast daily across the United States and Canada as well as in countries around the world. Our program is on Pacifica, NPR, community, college and satellite radio stations; on PBS, public, community and satellite TV; and viewed by millions of people online each day.
That awful program has a larger audience than THE NATION -- even including the paltry number of issues the print magazine sells -- or any other left outlet.
And how did the program handle immigration from August through the end of October? That would be the general election campaign. How did they handle it?
In August, they did three stories on immigration policy. Two attacked Kamala Harris and the third one attacked Kamala and attacked Chump stressing that they were no different. In September they did no segments on immigration policy. In October?
Two.
They did two stories on immigration policies. One stressed that Kamala was competing with Chump for who could be the worst on immigration. The other was showing some of the documentary SEPARATED -- about what Donald did his first term as president. Neither Amy nor her two guests brought up what Donald was saying he would do if re-elected.
There was no noting, for example, that he was saying he would deport immigrants, round them up and deport them, that he would deport American citizens with them (to keep families together, you understand), that he would end birthright citizenship.
As DEMOCRACY NOW! and Amy Goodman ignored these stated plants, these threats, the ACLU pointed out:
It is tempting to regard these threats as overblown and calculated merely for political campaign purposes. But in recent months, Trump has repeatedly sought to rationalize his plans for mass deportation, blending military and national security rhetoric with xenophobia. When asked about the legality of using the military against civilians, Trump retorted that, in his view, "these aren’t civilians."
Still Amy Goodman ignored the topic.
She and her enablers might try to insist there was a third segment in October: Tim Walz's debate. No, that's not true. First, as we've noted the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) had claimed Tim as their own and their own victory to the press and on their official Twitter feed. That's why they treated Tim Walz's bug-eyed, flop sweat performance as a victory. And second, the footage from the debate and the segment itself focused on the lie that Haitians in the US were eating cats and dogs. This was not about the actual policies Chump was proposing.
The Latina American voter on Tik-Tok got fed a bunch of nonsense by the media. She regrets her vote. She and others should regret the media they consumed.
It's worth noting that while Amy Goodman could only do five segments on immigration policy (again, two slamming Kamala, two saying Kamala and Chump were the same and one focusing on what Chump did in his first term), she had plenty of time for other topics during that same three month period.
105.
That's the number of segments she did on Gaza during the same three month period, 105. Many of those trashed Kamala. In fact, those same three months featured at least 33 segment with Uncommitted (at least 33, many of her guest didn't disclose on air that they were part of the Uncommitted 'movement' that urged people not to vote for Kamala).
So now Chump's been president for a week. And the biggest issue right now? His attacks on immigrants. Again, in the three month lead up to the election, Amy Goodman did 105 segments on Gaza. She only did five segments on the immigration policies of the two candidates -- four of the five slammed Kamala.
Is it really the Tik-Tok voter's fault?
Or is it the crap ass, beggar (send money, send money!) media?
At what point, on the left, will we see others writing about this?
We're tired of always being the ones who have to go out on the limb while the rest of you -- in private -- e-mail us to tell us good job or to give us information we didn't know about pro-Kamala stories that got killed. At what point are you chicken s**ts going to stop applauding us in private and start using your own forums to address how our 'left' media worked overtime to defeat Kamala?
If you're a Democrat, you damn well should be speaking out because they will do this again.
The damage they did is very real and has harmed this country irreparably. If you're still not getting it, try imagine how different the vote could have been had Amy Goodman not acted as the p.r. agent for Rashida's Uncommitted 'movement' long enough to do actual segments regarding Chump's immigration policies.
Books (Rebecca, Marcia, Ava and C.I.)
As we did in 2021 and 2023 and 2024, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. This go round, we're talking to Rebecca about her "bob hope should be a lesson" and to Marcia about her "Shattered Love: A Memoir." Rebecca, you reviewed two weeks ago so let's start with you.
Rebecca: My book was Richard Zoglin's HOPE. It's a book about comedian and actor Bob Hope. Who started out in the theater and became a radio and movie star. Then he moved on to TV. He had a long term contract with NBC that saw a special of him turning 80. He was beloved for his road movies with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. His film career gets little attention from Zoglin and when he does give it attention, he often gets it wrong. A popular film is either rendered as a box office disappointment or a bad film that was somehow popular. He's not qualified to write on film -- especially when he thinks he's putting Bob Hope's films in some sort of context. He's a film idiot. Bob's MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, for example, has impact not just on film noir -- it was a film noir parody -- and it also had impact on Hitchcock films that followed and on later films like the 70s THE CHEAP DETECTIVE. On that film, MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, he does an especially poor job because it remains one of Bob Hope's most popular films, it is a film Bob also produced for his own company. And? For a book interested in Bob's business abilities, how do you not note that Bob was still alive when the film entered the public domain -- meaning cheap and stingy Bob Hope let the profits slide away on that one? A very disappointing book.
Marcia: Mine was disappointing as well. SHATTERED LOVE: A MEMOIR was supposedly written by the actor Richard Chamberlain. As I noted in my review, he worked with everyone -- Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Barbara Stanwyck, Charleton Heston, Raquel Welch, Katharine Hepburn, etc, etc and he has no interesting stories to share. None. He didn't work with Robert Redford but they competed for at least two roles and you get the sense that Chamberlain doesn't like Redford. It's a very dull book. And nothing to recommend about it as I'll go into in a moment. Rebecca and I talked about our books ahead of time and agreed to provide an overview and then do whether we recommend the books or not.
Okay. Rebecca?
Rebecca: I can recommend my book. It's a poorly written book; however, it does capture Bob's politics and refusal to grow. He killed his own career. As Connie Stevens notes, from one of his Vietnam tours, Bob's getting boos on stage in Vietnam from US troops as early as 1968. Bob can't buy a clue. He just moves further and further to the right. Certain idiot male celebrities should buy a clue and do so quickly. If you thought defending Nixon was indefensible, imagine trying to have a career in four years after Trump's out of office. This book needs to be sent to Mel Gibson especially.
Marcia?
Marcia: I can't recommend this 2003 book in any way. When it came out, it was sold and marketed as Richard Chamberlain's coming out story. It's not. He does acknowledge that he's gay. But he spends all the pages on insane therapy sessions -- that had nothing to do with being gay -- and supposed help gurus and life coaches. All those people? You would have thought at least one of them would have told him he can't write about his life without writing about his life. Meaning if you had a 33 year old relationship with another man at some point we at least want to hear about a dinner the two of you had. He says he's gay in the book. But he's obviously still in the closet in that he can't write about his affairs, the men he loved or why he loved them. Grandpa wrote this at 69. What a coward.
Alright thank you both and this kicks off the 2025 book discussios.
What are they smoking in the halls of Congress?
2025 passings
In 2025, we'll continue to note passings that we see as significant -- as we did previously "2024 passings" and "2023 passings."
"David Lynch" -- Stan notes the passing of a director.
"Joan Plowright" -- Marcia notes the passing of an actress
Book List
Book coverage continues in this community. For earlier lists of books covered see 2021's "Books," 2023's "Books" and 2024 "Book List"
Books reviewed in the community this year.
1) "bob hope should be a lesson" -- Rebecca reviews Richard Zoglin.
2) "Shattered Love: A Memoir" -- Marcia reviews Richard Chamberlain's insipid autobiography.
sfd
This edition's playlist
2) Diana Ross' THANK YOU.
3) Fiona Apple's FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS.
4) The Mamas and the Papas' THE PAPAS & THE MAMAS.
5) Diana Ross' SUPERTONIC MIXES.
6) Chase Rice's THE ALBUM.
8) Billy Joel's LIVE AT YANKEE STADIUM.
9) Laura Nyro's CHRISTMAS AND THE BEADS OF SWEAT
10) Aretha Franklin's A ROSE IS STILL A ROSE.