Can Fatty shut up? I'm referring to Megham McCain and
her hammy body and hammy brain. Megham seems to think she's done
something. Eat herself into an early grave? Maybe.
Other than that, no. I don't want to hear what she thinks about THE VIEW. Fatty got fired long ago. I just don't care. This:
Meghan McCain can’t seem to quit talking about The View and is once again bringing up her former place of work, deeming it “the most dramatic show on the planet.”
While appearing on 2 Way Tonight,
the Republican claimed ABC News doesn’t have any true conservatives in
their organization and noted she was the only one on the network when
she co-hosted The View.
At this point, Megham is
making Elizabeth Haskell (or whatever that idiot's name was) look
normal. Does Miss Piggy MegHam not get that America hates her and
always has? She's a nepo baby. She's an idiot. She's ugly. Her
mother is very attractive woman and also a very smart one. I don't know
what happened to Megham. I assume God asked her if she'd like to be
smart and she just replied, "Oink! Oink! Show me to the food!"
Thursday, December 5, 2024. Trump and his embarrassing nominees --
including the little bitty boy who needs to hide behind his Mommy.
Satan's
set to return to the White House January 20th. He was supposed to be
prepared and this was going to be a drama free transition -- or at least
as drama free as mincing Queen Bone Spurs could manage. Project 2025
in hand, he was going to show something different. He even agreed to
tone down the ridiculous orange foundation that had been his beauty
trade mark for a decade or so. But just as the last weeks have
demonstrated how old and tired Trump actually is, lessening his orange
make up has also emphasized his age, revealing facial skin akin to Mae
West in SEXTETTE. He's older -- 78 -- he's fatter -- 319 pounds -- and
he's dumber.
Under bipartisan pressure to clear the way for more extensive vetting of his administration picks, President elect-Donald Trump's
transition team announced Tuesday they entered into an agreement with
the Department of Justice for background checks and security clearances.
Of
course he is. The people he says he's going to nominate when he's
president are disasters. He won't be sworn in for his term for over
another month and the whole world is laughing at him -- un gran idiota
in Mexico. This is a way for him to try to spread the blame around.
Already,
alleged sex trafficker and rapist Matt Gaetz has been forced to flee.
Gong are his dreams of being Attorney General of the United States.
There are others in peril but let's zoom in on one that is especially
illustrative of just how deeply stupid Donald Trump is. Zachary Folk (THE DAILY BEAST) reported yesterday:
Sheriff
Chad Chronister, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Drug
Enforcement Administration, withdrew himself from consideration to lead
the federal agency on Tuesday night, instead adopting to remain sheriff of
Hillsborough County, Florida.
In a statement post on social media on
Tuesday, Chronister thanked the president-elect and called the
nomination an “honor of a lifetime,” but said he was withdrawing his
name from consideration.
Huh? What did this nut job do? His job. Ariano Baio (INDEPENDENT) explains, "President-elect Donald Trump admitted that he un-nominated Chad Chronister from Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator after learning the sheriff publicly scolded and arrested a Florida pastor for hosting large church services during the pandemic." He probably would have been Trump's best nominee.
Notice
just how stupid Trump is: He should have known this. His cult wasn't
going to go for it. But no one did their damn work -- not fat ass, not
any of them. So after his name is released to the press, they learn
what they should have known already.
That
goes to how stupid Trump is and it goes to how much danger he's already
putting the country in. Nut job Tulsi Gabbard? Trashy Garbage, as Trina's
dubbed her for years, has held hands and played footsie with Bashar
al-Assad. She's a psycho nut job who can't be trusted with national
intelligence -- let alone to become the Director of National
Intelligence. While she was part of the DNC, it is rumored she leaked
the Hillary Clinton data to WIKILEAKS. She didn't get her way in 2016
-- she backed Bernie -- so she leaked data to WIKILEAKS. That's that
accusation.
She's going to
be in charge of national intelligence. Someone credibly accused of
leaking information because she didn't get her way?
Wow.
Imagine how many times, as DNI, she might not get her way -- hint, that
would be several times on a daily basis. If we're 'lucky,' she'll only
be leaking to the press and only about employees and officials who've
upset her. If we're not so lucky, she's on the phone with Putin or RT
(they love her at RT) leaking national intelligence. Trump doesn't take
her advice on bombing Generic Muslim Country That He Hates and she's on
the phone to Russia to tell them a strike's about to take place.
How do you trust anyone like that -- anyone credible charged with leaking private documents?
The
thing with crazy crooked Tulsi is, she wouldn't be confirmed if a vote
were taken today. The cult is just too much. Republican senators are
hearing from their constituents that 'this is a Christian nation and
she's a member of a cult.' They can't fight for Tulsi. They'd also
look like hypocrites because of them have used that very argument ('this
is a Christian nation') as an argument for their vile and racist
policies. I guess the party that's killing DEI (Diversity Equity and
Inclusion) now has a patch of road they can't cross when it comes to
backing cult member Tulsi and 'guru' Chris who she owes everything too
and has pledged to share everything with since he's the head of her
cult. Everything. That would presumably include national security
information. Guru Chris must be seeing the prospect of DNI Tulsi as a
rainmaker and finally he can have the cult do something other than
harass people at airports.
And then there's Pete Hegseth who Trump wants to make Secretary of Defense.
As
Lawrence O'Donnell notes in the video above, in an attempt to rescue
him, Pete's had to deploy his Mommy to go make the case for him.
A 44 year old man needing to hide behind Mommy.
Community
member Sabina made a point in a roundtable we did Monday. She works
for city government. There was a total loser -- F G -- that worked with
her at the City of Dallas government. He wasn't married. He had
multiple children. He was in his late 30s. He lived at home with his
parents. (Not with any of his children living there, just FYI.) He
blew every check on himself and he rarely came to work. When he did --
doesn't say a lot for the City of Dallas supervisors -- he'd disappear
for four hours or more and he'd do that by transferring his calls to his
cell phone so people didn't know he'd left. He scanned building plans
into the system. And no one apparently ever checked on him. He was
constantly just refusing to go to work. After he went two weeks without
showing up, his mom came to the job to please with his supervisor not
to fire him. He kept his job -- shouldn't have, but he did -- but he
lost all respect in the workplace. People who didn't even know him
before this went down heard about him as a result of Mommy going to his
job to plead and beg with his boss not to fire him, to promise that
she'd make sure he showed up for work.
That's really where we are now with Pete Hegseth.
An overgrown, immature boy who is hiding behind Mommy.
"I
Won't Back Down" -- Lawrence notes that's the title of the column Pete
Hegseth wrote for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL this week. I guess it's only a
matter of days before Mommy Hegseth writes the follow up column "I
Won't Let My Little Boy Back Down."
Secretary of Defense? He can't even defend himself.
Hiding behind Mommy his whole life. And he can't see the strength of women?
Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin praised female members of the armed forces, while his potential
replacement, Pete Hegseth–who has said women have no place in combat–tries to shore up confirmation support among Republican senators.
In
a West Point address Wednesday, Austin recalled one experience while
serving in Iraq in 2003, in which he positioned his command post near
the action.
“I told my team, ‘Look, we need to win this fight, so I need to be at the front,’ Austin told
the audience. ”‘I know what will happen to me if I’m captured. I have
no intention of being captured, and I will fight to the last bullet. But
the risks are serious. I am enormously proud of all of you, and that
won’t ever change. So, if anyone here thinks that they can’t deploy
forward, I fully understand, and no one will ever think any less of
you.‘"
Austin
continued: “The women and men of that incredible team looked at me, and
finally one of the women popped up and said, ‘Sir, what are you talking
about?’”
You know
what I'm remembering too? In 2009, when then President Barack Obama
nominated Tammy Duckworth to a VA position, not only did that Iraq War
veteran get confirmed, she did it without ever asking Mommy to go on TV
and to visit with senators to try to get her the job she was to weak to
fight for herself.
Women are more than strong enough to handle the military.
It
appears the weak sister here is Pete Hegseth and maybe that explains
the many public episodes of Little Petey being drunk and maybe it
explains how, at 44, you are now on marriage number three. That really
doesn't indicate the stability required to be Secretary of Defense.
Mike's the main one covering Pete in this community:
Last
night, he noted that they're testing the waters to see if Ron DeSantis
or Joni Ernst could replace him because that's how embarrassing Pete
Hegseth has become.
Let's note Satanic Trump's unqualified nominees. Pete Hegseth is
not qualified to be the secretary of any department. You didn't have to
go left to find a qualified candidate. There are people serving in
leadership of the military that could have been elevated. There are
people in the Senate who are Republicans who would be qualified -- Joni
Ernst, Mike Rounds, Roger Wicker, Bill Cassidy, etc.
They
have the knowledge base. Hegseth doesn't have the knowledge base or
the experience. What he does have is a sad and drunken assault. It was
seven years ago. It is not the distant past. He was 37 years old. David Kurtz (TPM) notes:
More
details emerged over the weekend about the sexual assault claim against
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of
defense.
The WaPo was first with
extensive new information about the circumstance of the alleged sexual
assault, based on (i) a memo it obtained that was provided to the Trump
transition team late Wednesday by a friend of the victim; and (ii) a
statement from Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore.
The woman later reported the alleged assault to police, but no charges were ever filed:
According
to the police statement, the complaint was filed four days after the
encounter, and the complainant had bruises to her thigh. The police
report itself was not released.
Hegseth settled the woman’s claim for an undisclosed amount, and she signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Trump is standing by Hegseth in the face of the undisclosed settlement of the sexual assault claim.
That's reason enough not to confirm him.
But he's also not qualified for the job.
He shouldn't be confirmed. He shouldn't even be
nominated. He's not fit to oversee the Pentagon -- he does not have the
background. If the nomination was to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs,
I'd have a few problems -- mainly around the issues of female
veterans. And I would also question his ability to oversee any
department because he just doesn't have that experience -- not in his
military service and not in his civilian experience.
This is a huge department that is taxed with many, many duties including ensuring the US military is prepared.
What in Hegseth's past experience argues that he knows a thing about hiring or recruiting, for example?
The last Senate hearing on military readiness was eleven months ago.
At that hearing, US Army Maj Gen Johnny Davis spoke on a number of topics including the statements below:
Today's youth are far more likely to pursue education beyond high school. Currently,
high school seniors and recent graduates account for more than 50% of our annual
contracts. However, they only represent 15-20% of the labor market. We will transform
our prospecting to expand into a greater representation of the labor market and enter
the larger prospect pool. In addition to the high school market, we will target those with
more than a high school diploma, this includes a college degree, some college, or a
technical certification. By FY 2028, it is our goal for one third of new recruits to have
more
than a high school diploma. We are growing our analytical capability
to incentivize and position our recruiting force, tailor marketing based
on segmentation, and place our recruiters in the right place with the
right training, products, and tools. Our quarterly Industry Engagement
Program allows us to identify new tools to improve operations across the enterprise.
As we transform how the Army prospects for talent, we will continue to innovate and
leverage data analytics, artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) to quickly
identify the right talent and provide tailored messaging to potential talent. We are
expanding our presence on both social media and digital job boards to communicate the
Army's Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Expanding our market is critical to
accomplishing the mission today and in the future.
What does Hegseth know about hiring practices, recruitment and
retention? Nothing. Can he address, off the top of his head, the
issue of evidence-based learning capability? Does he know what a
command wide retention surge is? If so, does he approve or does he
think it's a waste of time. Each of the four branches needs to be
adequately staffed (the Air Force didn't make the goal in 2023). How
does Hegseth plan to address this. Does he have an overall plan or is
he going to propose piece meal strategies?
He wants this office why? How does he see himself delivering in this office?
Where does he stand on waivers?
Due
to his plethora of body markings, I'd assume he is okay with tattoos.
But what about age restrictions -- what his top end for someone serving
in combat? On drug tests, what's his wait window on retesting -- 60
days, 90 days, less, more? And why? Drug testing does include testing
for alcohol.
ESaR has
been a semi-successful recruiting tool for the Navy (Every Sailor a
Recruiter). Is that a policy Hegseth agrees with? Why or why not?
The
Navy's "Make Your Name" series has been successful in recruiting --
noting women's roles and experiences serving in the Navy. It's a fairly
inexpensive recruiting tool and it has been successful. Does he
endorse this recruiting tool? If not, why not? If not, is it because
he has a limited view of what women can do in the military?
Grasp
that -- without him -- women have been moving up in the ranks in the
military. Are these women going to hit a glass ceiling if he becomes
the Secretary? How is he planning to address these issues? How is
going to maintain the US military's competitive edge?
Guess
what, those are very basic questions about basic duties and that's
before we get beyond workforce issues. I see nothing in his background
that demonstrates experience with those type of issues.
Again,
we still haven't gotten to other issues that include oversight, combat,
military exercises and partnering with the VA to improve the transition
from veteran to soldier. On that last one? I don't think he has
expertise but I think his experience -- personal -- could compensate for
the lack of expertise. I do not feel that way about any other
responsibility that he would be tasked with should he become the
Secretary of Defense.
The
US Army is supposed to be refocusing with an emphasis on LSCO
(Large-Scale Combat Operations). That is one of the defined 2025
goals. Hegseth will pursue that how?
These
are not minor details. And you can't learn it on the job, not as
Secretary of Defense. That means being over the defense of this country
so Americans are entitled to expect someone in that role to have actual
experience.
Hegseth has none.
Again,
this isn't a right-or-left issue. There are Republicans who are
qualified for this post. Hegseth is not one of them. Any sitting
senator on the Armed Services Committee is qualified for the post.
They would know the issues needing to be addressed before they were even sworn into office.
Hegseth
doesn't know the issues, he's never overseen any workforce -- let alone
a workforce as large as the Defense Dept -- and he would put military
readiness at risk as the whole world had to wait for him to learn on the
job and familiarize himself with tasks and concepts that he's honestly
not suited for.
--------------
End of excerpt.
Hey,
maybe if Trump puts US troops on the ground in another country and the
losses mount, Pete's Mommy can go over there and beg for a do-over for
her little boy?
Tuesday,
the African American Policy Forum had a roundtable entitled "Views from
the 92%:
Black Women Reflect on 2024 Election and Road Ahead." Professor of law
Kimberle Crenshaw observed at the start, "Conversations
are going forward with us being relegated to a time out space." Black
women were largely silenced before the election and this
has continued. Now when it came to trashing the first Black woman to
seriously run for president, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGESSIVE,
IN THESE TIMES, COMMON DREAMS, etc. Along with Kimberle, the
participants included THE
WASHINGTON POST's Karen Attiah, iONE DIGITAL's Kirsten West Savali,
Black Voters Matter Fund's LaTosha Brown, the National Coalition on
Black Civic Participation and Convener of Black Women's Roundtable's
Melanie Campbell, the National Council of Negro Women's Shavon
Arline-Bradley, the Transformative Justice Coalition, Atlanta Alumnae
Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta's Fran Phillips-Calhoun and Higher Heights'
Glynda Carr.
Excerpt:
Melanie
Campbell: But the reality is that we've got to figure out how we build
our political power in this country where we're not beholden to a party
or to anyone else. The late Dr Ron Walters
always used to talk about how we have to unite. We have to figure out
how we fund our politics so that we're not beholden to those who pull
the funding streams. The other thing is that we do write checks.
There's got to be -- One of the things that's disturbing for me is that
you don't see -- right now, we're talking about four people who they're
talking about who are up for the position to be the head of the
Democratic Party. Why don't we see a woman? Why is there not a Black
woman? If we voted 92% for the [presidential] candidate, why are we not
even seeing one Black woman in the running or in the discussion? So
that's one of the things that I see that we have to address. And that's
how we deal with our money and make demands because we do write checks,
right? And the other has to do with how we find ways to fund our
politics. Until we do that, I think we'll always be in that position.
Kimberle
Crenshaw: Yeah. And thank you so much. This is also the-the
recognition that we need to support our institutions, our own
institutions. There was a lot of fund raising that was done, you know,
by Black folks but it didn't necessarily target Black institutions that
have greater capacity to reach our own people. So on that note, let me
toss it for a moment to our correspondent Dr Kaye who's going to uplift
some of the comments in the chat and also talk about Black institutions
on Giving Tuesday. So, Kaye, take it away.
Kaye
Wise Whitehead: Thank you so much, Kim. Like everybody, all I'm doing
is hearting and thumbs up throughout the conversation. The chat has
been absolutely on fire. People are really engaging in real moment. I
want to lift up some of the things that people have said so far.
Shirley said that this reminds us that like VP Harris said we aren't
going back. If our detractors think that for one minute that Black
women are going to hide under a rock, they've got another thing coming.
Loretta followed it up and said look every White pundit denies the
persistence of White supremist thinking while they blame Harris'
campaign -- a blame the victim strategy they always employ. Suzanna
came in and built on that and said that when the media says "working
class," they mean White working class. Yes, Suzanna, absolutely. Kim,
you talked about you're waiting for someone to call the boycott on
Walmart [Walmart donated exclusively to Trump, donated to Project 2025
and announced the end of diversity int heir employment]. In response to
that, Hermaine said look I like the idea of voting with our
pocketbooks. We need to make sure we circulate all those companies we
need to target and not support. And then Bonita, we'll end with her,
she shared as Democrats we must demand changes in the Democratic Party
from top down. Joy Reid's analysis shows us that our money -- their
money -- went to big ad buys not to Black media and not to Black
community organizations or organizers. So there has been some amazing
comments to our very important and significant and heartfelt
conversation that is only happening here thanks to the wonderful work
that's being done by AAPF -- the African American Policy Forum -- and
all the organizations on this call especially during these challenging
times. This is how we build community. The work has never been more
urgent. I'm happy we're here on Giving Tuesday, Kim, because what
better way to move forward and plant those seeds is supporting all the
organizations that we are hearing from tonight as well as supporting
AAPF by donating so that we can continue to make good trouble. Alright,
Kim, I'll toss it back to you.
Kimberle
Crenshaw: Thank you, thank you, Kaye. And at the bottom, we are going
to list all of the organizations that were part of this consortium --
research consortium -- that led to many of the talking points and
efforts that if folks were serious about reaching Black voters we
suggested from our research, this would be the way that they talk to
them. So let me come back to Karen to talk a little bit as the sole
Black woman op-ed writer at THE WASHINGTON POST. So one thing that
stood out looking back at that reel [of coverage of sexist and racist
tropes deployed throughout the lead up to the general election] in the
face of that, THE WASHINGTON POST's decision not to endorse the first
Black woman presidential candidate symbolize at least neutrality with
respect to the misogynoir that we saw. Let's remember THE POST endorsed
[Barack] Obama, the first Black man who won, Hillary Clinton the first
woman. So now we have a Black woman running against Trump and having
endorsed his opponents two times in the past, they flinched. So much
like Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, we now see billionaires using
their influence to effectively disable the fourth estate. As you wrote recently,
"The way democracy dies in darkness, is if journalism is left to die in
cowardice." So I want to combine two questions to you. First, how do
you assess the damage that was done not only to Harris' campaign but
also to democracy. And then, more importantly, what do we need to know
now about the make up of the media, who's in it, and, more importantly,
where are we in it -- so we have a sense of where we need to fight in
our future.
Karen
Attiah: [Laughing] What do I say without getting fined out? Obviously,
the decision to -- and as I wrote in my op-ed -- as I joined my
colleagues in the letter sent that we published with other columnists.
The decision to effectively block the planned endorsement for Harris
came as a media strike. Again, you know, and as I said, and as I said
on Twitter, it was a betrayal and a stab in the back for many of us in
the course of our jobs who put our reputations and, frankly, our safety
and our lives sometimes on the line to be able to stand up to
authoritarians. And so understandably with the outrage -- and I've seen
it in the comments that there is -- this does not lead to trust in the
media. Right? The flip side of this is an uncomfortable truth: It's
that when people own the paper, they frankly can do what they want.
Right? I think part of this is -- and I think that coupled with Elon
Musk and Twitter, I think that back to back in a back to back shocking
way perhaps laid bare the realities of raw power and oligarchy in our
society. And there's been a reason why, for the longest time, from
William Randolph Hearst to the big oligarchs, it's always been thus.
It's just laid bare in real time for a lot of people. So what does that
mean? That is going to mean -- and frankly, you know, in a city that
has for so long been a majority Black city, Washington, DC, it is hard
for me to see how the community, the Black community, the residents of
Washington, D.C. would ever forget this.
The anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya
Raichik, has allegedly been banned from the microblogging platform
Bluesky.
The account — which has inspired death threats against
children, educators, and medical professionals — is just one of several
anti-LGBTQ+ accounts that have found themselves unwelcome on Bluesky.
Progressive social media users have increasingly flocked to it as an
escape from the increasingly right-wing site X, owned by transphobic
Republican billionaire Elon Musk.
Yet another reason to abandon Twitter and move to BLUESKY.
That's Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY -- a film directed by Woody Allen -- a comedy classic --and co-written by Woody and Marshall Brickman. Marshall Brickman has passed away:
Marshall
Brickman, who has died aged 85, was an Oscar- and BAFTA-winning
screenwriter who helped redefine Woody Allen’s screen persona with his
work on Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).
Born
four years apart, the pair had met a decade earlier, when the
bespectacled, soft-featured Brickman was working as head writer on The
Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (1962-92),
the late-night chatshow Allen often guest-hosted. Both had Jewish roots
and musical inclinations; both were frustrated at being typecast as
gagmen.
Accordingly,
Allen recruited Brickman to expand the scope of his hitherto skittish
movie endeavours. Razzing the largely mirthless science fiction that
followed Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), their first
collaboration Sleeper (1973) merely gestured towards comedy’s outer
limits, scattering sight gags as it went. The pair’s next, however,
emerged as a vastly more pointed and profound exploration.
Born
of multiple rewrites and a free-ranging shoot, Annie Hall assumed
haphazard shape in the edit suite, as Brickman later recalled: “When I
saw the rough cut, I thought it terrible, completely unsalvageable. It
rambled and was tangential and just… endless.”
Yet
the more incisive 93-minute release version expanded comedy’s horizons,
principally by allowing for the prospect of romantic failure and
disillusionment. Critics were wowed; cinemagoers stirred to the extent
that it remained Allen’s biggest hit for the next 34 years. With the
director-star a no-show at the 1978 Oscars, Brickman duly collected a
screenplay gong, one of four wins on the night, including Best Picture.
Here's a clip from SLEEPER -- again with Diane and Woody.
I first learned of Marshall
Brickman in college when I checked out a book by Michelle Phillips,
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'. Michelle was one of the Mamas and the Papas (the
other members were John Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot). She
wrote about the band's history. Before she and John were with Cass and
Denny, they were in The New Journeymen with Marshall.
She noted in her book that Marshall went on to win an Oscar for ANNIE HALL. From WIKIPEDIA:
Marshall and Woody wrote four scripts together that were
made into films: SLEEPER, ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN and MANHATTAN MURDER
MYSTERY. Those are four classic Woody Allen films. They aren't his
only classic ones but he and Marshall were good collaborators.
He
wrote and directed the cult classic SIMON and the box office bomb
LOVESICK. THE MANHATTAN PROJECT was the last film he directed. He also
co-wrote it. It bombed. It's not a bad film but the cast was awful.
Some people do not like Cynthia Nixon. That hurt the box office. Many
of us have always found Robert Sean Leonard off putting. That's two.
Then they add in John Lithgow. No one in the cast sold tickets and
every one of the main cast was irritating to a large number of people.
So you tose them all in the film and it bombs.
And here's a clip from ANNIE HALL which is the one that won Marshall and Woody the Oscar for Best Screenplay.
To have co-written one of those films is amazing achievement. To have co-written all four is beyond amazing.
Wednesday, December 4, 2024. An actual analysis of the 2024 election
takes place, MAGA hate abounds, behind the scenes with COMMON DREAMS and
me (don't threaten me in an e-mail), and much more.
Starting with last night.
That's
the African American Policy Forum's "Views from the 92%: Black Women
Reflect on 2024 Election and Road Ahead." "Conversations are going
forward with us being relegated to a time out space." Exactly. Black
women were largely silenced before the election and this has continued.
Now when it came to trashing the first Black woman to seriously run for
president, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES,
COMMON DREAMS, etc. The participants include law professor Kimberle
Crenshaw, THE
WASHINGTON POST's Karen Attiah, iONE DIGITAL's Kirsten West Savali,
Black Voters Matter Fund's LaTosha Brown, the National Coalition on
Black Civic Participation and Convener of Black Women's Roundtable's
Melanie Campbell, the National Council of Negro Women's Shavon
Arline-Bradley, the Transformative Justice Coalition, Atlanta Alumnae
Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta's Fran Phillips-Calhoun and Higher Heights'
Glynda Carr.
Kimberle
Crenshaw: Black women are disproportionately working class. So any
argument that foregrounds that Harris lost because she had no class
analysis completely ignores Black women who voted overwhelmingly for
her. And any analysis that fails to ask why the many policies she did
offer that benefited the working class while the GOP's policies like
tariffs, tax cuts, and attacks on workers that would harm them failed to
dislodge White voters from Trump. This is an alibi cloaking, covering
up of the identity politics that underscores the MAGA nation. In short,
why do so many people believe that the economy is the standard
explanation for the election out come as a race neutral one as opposed
to an explanation that is racially loaded? These are the frustrating
details that too many of us are talking about with our friends, our
loved ones and colleagues. This is the tumor in the post-mortem that
analysts unskilled in diagnosing the condition of the body politic that
cannot address. So, in typical fashion, we've got to do it for
ourselves.
You need to ask
yourself about the media you consume because no one is addressing this.
Yes, there are racists like Katrina vanden Heuvel (part owner of THE
NATION) and Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) -- White women who can't see a
Black woman as anything other than a Maid or a Mammy. The 'left' media
-- THE NATION, DN!, THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES, COMMON DREAMS,
TRUTHOUT OUT -- isn't having this conversation. They aren't even
acknowledging it. But you make a donation and they'll acknowledge your
money with an empty thank you. They will gladly take your money and
then happily ignore you.
But expand beyond that.
Sam Seder and his MAJORITY REPORT have repeatedly ignored this. THE HUMANIST has ignored it. SECULAR TALK has ignored it.
These
outlets are more than happy to repeat Bernie Sanders' racist analysis
-- an analysis they're too stupid to grasp -- and they'll platform any
other White person.
But they won't platform Black women and they do not want to discuss racism and sexism.
TABITH SPEAKS, Danielle Moodie's programs and Olay's program can and have discussed this.
What's the common thread between those three and the others on YOUTUBE addressing this?
They are Black women.
THE
NATION and the rest have made it very clear that Black women are not
welcome and they can't call out the racist and sexist attacks on Kamala
because they were making them -- these 'left' outlets were part of these
attacks.
COMMON DREAMS? Check their archives. A man runs for president for the Democratic Party?
They're
not offering multiple daily attacks on what the candidate's
representing or telling him how to word it or telling him what to focus
on. They're not doing that. But when COMMON DREAMS wasn't outright
attacking Kamala, they were still attacking her with their never ending
implication that no Black woman was going to be able to decide. No,
they were going to order the Black woman around, they were going to
disrespect her daily and trash her daily.
This
is not a one day thing -- our noting the video above or our noting this
issue. Please stream it, we will talk about it more in Thursday and
Friday's snapshot.
And when you follow this
topic, follow it beyond the election. Follow the nonsense of these
White speakers trying to use the election 'results' to sell out trans
people, or gay people, or immigrants -- because these people don't want
to work for votes and they don't want to work for voters.
'Results'?
I believe the Dems picked up two seats in the House. I know that
Donald Trump did not have a landslide or a mandate. He barely won the
popular vote.
With almost all the states reporting at at least 99% of the votes counted, AP finds:
Harris: 74,898,009 votes (48.4%)
Satan: 77,193,105 votes (49.9%
More than anyone else, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell has led on combatting the lie that Donald received a mandate. At THE GUARDIAN, Mehdi Hasan takes on the lie in a column:
In 2024, we have a new post-election lie from the Republican party. Trump didn’t just win, they say, but he won big. He won a landslide. He won an historic mandate for his “Maga” agenda.
And it was Trump himself, of course, on election night, who was the first to push this grandiose and self-serving falsehood, calling
his win “a political victory that our country has never seen before”
and claiming “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful
mandate”.
Republican
politicians, masters of message discipline, quickly followed suit. The
representative Elise Stefanik called his win a “historic landslide” while the senator John Barrasso called Trump’s a “huge landslide”. “On November 5 voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it,” wrote the “Doge” co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in the Wall Street Journal on 20 November.
None of this is true. Yes, Trump won the popular vote and the electoral
college. Yes, Republicans won the Senate and the House. But, contrary to
both Republican talking points and breathless headlines and hot takes
from leading media outlets (“resounding”, “rout”, “runaway win”), there was really nothing at all historic or huge about the margin of victory.
Repeat after me: there was no “landslide”. There was no “blowout”. There was no “sweeping” mandate given to Trump by the electorate. The numbers don’t lie.
First,
consider the popular vote. Yes, Trump became the first Republican for
two decades to win the popular vote. However, per results from CNN, the Cook Political Report, and the New York Times,
he did not win a majority of the vote. Barack Obama did in both 2008
and 2012. Joe Biden did in 2020. But Donald Trump failed to do so in
2024.
And
the former president’s margin of victory over Harris is a miniscule 1.6
percentage points, “smaller than that of every winning president since
1888 other than two: John F Kennedy in 1960 and Richard M. Nixon in
1968”, as an analysis in the New York Times noted last month. In fact, in the 55 presidential elections in which the popular vote winner became president, 49 of them were won with a margin bigger than Trump’s in 2024.
In
2004, we were apparently smarter on the left. Following that election
and Bully Boy Bush's lie that he had a mandate didn't fly. We
collectively pushed back on that lie. And when the cowards came forward
to attack this group or that group and insist that the Dems had to drop
support for abortion or for equality or for this or for that, we pushed
back.
Well.
Stop me from lying.
Some of us pushed back.
Sam
Seder didn't push back. He platformed Simon Rosenberg (DLC baby) and
let Simon lie non-stop on THE MAJORITY REPORT which then aired on AIR
AMERICA RADIO. He was rightly savaged in the comments on the AIR AMERIA
RADIO blog.
But most of us, not Sam, were able to push back.
Today, it's one effort to gaslight after the other.
And we need to get it together if we're fighting right now.
If?
The
topics addressed in the video above? Many Black women are on vacation
right now. You refused to stand with us so you've given us no reason to
stand with you.
Hatred
is all around. MAGA spreads it like the flu. And we can't count on
the jokes like Seth Moulton to defend the people because cowards never
do anything but advance themselves. Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports:
A far-right
state lawmaker in Michigan called for the abolition of same-sex
marriage on Monday immediately after returning from the holidays — and
caught significant backlash on social media.
State Rep. Josh Schriver, who previously filed a lawsuit to restrict voting rights in Michigan and was stripped of his committee assignment after
posting content promoting the white supremacist "great replacement
theory," posted on X, "Make gay marriage illegal again. This is not
remotely controversial, nor extreme."
He followed up with a second post reading,
"20 years ago, Barack Obama was more conservative on marriage than many
Republicans today. America only 'accepted' gay marriage after it was
thrusted into her by a perverted Supreme Court ruling. America 2124
doesn’t have to be as dysfunctional as America 2024."
"Thrusted"?
Thrust works better but how effete of you, Josh, to reach for some
archaic usage. Thrust is the term your home schooled brain is
struggling for. Save us from the stupid.
And heaven save us from the closeted.
"Gay
face" is a term describes facial features that call to mind stereotypes
of what someone gay looks like. Some may, many more do not. And
having "gay face" doesn't mean the person's gay. That said . . . If
you look up "gay face" in the dictionary, this is what you find.
That's Josh Schriver and if he looks a little strange, it's probably because he doesn't have anything to wrap his lips around.
Again,
he reads gay. He may be gay, he may not be, but he reads gay. So is
this for real or is he just a MAGA sub trying to tick off a dom so he
can get some rough action?
I have no idea but I will not be surprised when he gets arrested for some public incident. Not surprised one bit.
In
response to Schriver, Michigan's Democratic attorney general Dana
Nessel posted to X, saying: "Please explain how dissolving my marriage,
or that of the hundreds of thousands of other same-sex couples living in
America, provides a benefit to your constituents or anyone else. You're
not interested in helping Michiganders. You want only to hurt those you
hate. Shame on you."
Newsweek has emailed Schriver for comment.
This is not the first time that Schiver has sparked conversation after posting on social media. Earlier this year, Schriver posted about "the great replacement," a racist conspiracy theory,
to his social media, resulting in him being removed from the House
Natural Resources, Environment, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation
committee as a punishment.
Schriver's
post on X, which was originally created by right wing figure Jack
Posobiec, showed a map of the world featuring white human figures over
the U.S., Europe and Australia and black human figures across the rest
of the map with the text "The great replacement!"
MAGA subs are garbage and they're all over Twitter.
Oh, COMMON DREAMS!
This
will get attention -- the wrong kind for COMMON DREAMS -- and let's
deal with it today in the hope of more eyeballs streaming last night's
video.
I
heard of their latest e-mail to the public account and was thinking,
"Do I respond?" Yeah, actually it makes sense to do so right here.
Ava
and I noted a lot that COMMON DREAMS was getting wrong. And it hurt
some little feelings. One COMMON DREAMer insisted I was hurting and
that's why I was slamming them "We ignored you."
Uhm,
no, but we can certainly talk about it if you need us to. In June of
2023, CD contacted me about something I'd written here and wanted some
of the stuff I had. I was busy and doing chemo. I dictated a response
to Martha and told her to pull some URLs. She sent it out. I'm
remembering six total e-mails from CD. I believe each one got answered.
They never did anything with it that I know.
I
didn't do anything here with either. I would've assumed that they had
the same issue I did. There were attempts to move the piece over to
THIRD. Betty and my objection to it was were we promoting it?
Dona
was concerned about how we did the visuals. We could put black lines
over some of the stuff, or black bars as needed. But when we attempted
to do a similar feature -- with the same censored type photos -- a
decade before, it left us with nothing but problems -- including
Blogger/Blogspot censorship.
In the case with CD, Twitter had a number of things they shouldn't have.
Remember Target getting targeted by MAGA nuts?
Some
people thought I wasn't hard enough on Target. Target removed the
LGBTQ+ merchandise to a degree. Some stores completely, some just moved
it around. And, as I pointed out, I didn't approve of any of that but I
also didn't approve of threats.
Those threats still posted. Punk ass White boys threatening to shoot up Target over the LGBTQ+ displays.
So that was some of it but the bulk of it was what was supposed to be Glenn Greenwald's browsing history.
I believe it was his.
He's
into shame and humiliation by straight men. Or "straight" men. MAGA
men generally aren't straight. They pretend to be and part of that
pretense requires them hating who they really are.
So
those URLs were the most vile and disgusting things you could imagine.
Naked women being beaten up, naked women being cut up. The most racist
images of Black men you could ever imagine with captions conveying just
how scared and impotent MAGA truly is when around a Black man. It was
vile and it was disgusting.
The
world is disgusting enough -- Betty and my point. We were fine with
writing about it but weren't fine with giving URLs in article or Twitter
Names because we didn't want to popularize these hate sites.
Again, if CD did nothing with it, that's something for them to answer to.
Betty,
Ava and I took it to the community newsletters and that's why, as a
community, we knew so much better than others just what a threat MAGA
was and how it really works and the reality of just how many closet
cases are in MAGA -- and want to be outed and stripped of their
rights.
And to be clear,
MAGA subs exist but so do MAGA tops and, as we've noted here before,
they tend to be obsessed with Hasan Piker and the notion of forcing him
into submission (including sexual).
MAGA is really just a bunch of flamers waiting for the match to strike.
That
is Donald Trump's crowd and part of this in the community included
bringing in a friend who had been an FBI profiler for a roundtable where
he shared what he'd put together from the URLs.
But
again, I have no idea if CD followed up or didn't. I honestly didn't
care. As noted, that was when I was going through chemo and if hadn't
been CD, I would've ignored it because it was the nautious phase where I
was throwing up constantly, could not retain body warmth and was
constantly shivering (again, this was in June of last year) and just
struggled to get through every day. But it was COMMON DREAMS and I
respected the work they did so I tried to pass on what I could in the
limited amount of time I had.
From
the e-mail that was sent accusing me of being upset that they didn't
write about it -- I'm guessing they did nothing with it. Again, had no
idea, I wasn't traipsing around the net, I was just trying to survive
cancer. Had a bit more on my mind.
It's
a shame they did nothing with it. We get it, this community, because
we addressed it in the newsletters. We get the depth of the hatred MAGA
carries and we get how far they will go.
I am surprised CD didn't even follow up regarding the posted threats by White MAGA males to shoot up Target.
At
any rate, it really has no bearing on why I am demanding that CD
practice actual journalism. But if CD thinks it's why I'm criticizing
them, I've put this up here and I can certainly go into much more detail
if I have to. None of it makes me look bad -- surprising, no? I have
long noted that I pass things on to friends who are journalists,
producers, etc. We covered the Christus nonsense in newsletters and I
noted it here last week but that's something I tried to set up with two
different friends. Texas wasn't seen as big enough of a story. I'm not
friends with COMMON DREAMS -- I never initiated contact with them --
like Anthony Arnove, they came running to me.
If
it makes CD to feel better they can pretend I am angry that they
ignored the story -- and that I knew they'd ignored it before they
e-mailed. But all I'm doing is saying DO YOUR DAMN JOB. You take
people's money and you pretend you're doing journalism. So do it.
I'm
not going to name the person who initiated that year ago conversation.
I'm assuming he told at least one person at COMMON DREAMS about it
since another CDer is writing and insisting I'm angry and -- get this --
hiding something.
You can tell the story, I
don't think I come off badly. And, again, it's known I actively shop
around stories to friends in the media. It's known that in the past, I
would help any campaign that read something in a snapshot where I was
reporting on a Congressional hearing I attended and they needed help
finding it. So if I didn't remember, I would consult my notes and reply
back, that the exchange took place in the second round of questioning,
for example. Now when these campaigns then wanted me to stream a
hearing online and find that exact moment for them? That's when I
stopped helping because I don't work for you and if you're too lazy to
stream a hearing yourself, there's no need for you in Congress.
But by all means, COMMON DREAMS," come at me, bro."
The
reason you're getting criticized by me is because you're doing horrible
journalism. That was the whole point of what Ava and I wrote earlier
this week in "Media: Journalistic Malpractice:"
Now let's wind down with, you guessed it, COMMON DREAMS. Yes, them again. Yes, Jake Johnson again. The article is entitled "Is Bernie Sanders Launching a Third Party? 'Not Right Now, No'."
One thing you have to understand about COMMON DREAMS is that they have
no common sense when it comes to Senator Bernie Sanders. They lust
after him so, we're surprised that they have yet to feature Bernie in a
tasteful nude pictorial.
There's never
a moment of Bernie that COMMON DREAMS doesn't rush to celebrate -- not a
single moment in Bernie's long list of one non-accomplishment after
another. He's on the verge of serving his 34th year in Congress and yet
there are current members of the Congress who will be starting their
third year next month and can point to actual accomplishments.
That
some idiot thought an 83-year-old man was going to start a new
political party was bad enough but that they thought it would be
do-nothing Bernie is much, much worse.
And
while it would be great if COMMON DREAMS could stop acting like TMZ and
also stop pretending Bernie was Drake, that's not the worst of it.
This is:
The senator said the upstart campaign of Independent Dan Osborn—a union steamfitter who launched an unexpectedly close challenge to two-term Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) while shunning the state's Democratic establishment—"should be looked at as a model for the future."
"He took on the corporate world," Sanders continued. "He ran as a
strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent,
he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska. It was an
extraordinary campaign, and it tells me that the American people are
sick and tired of seeing the rich getting richer. They think
billionaires dominate both political parties. They want real change, and
Dan's campaign raised those issues in a very significant way."
Wow.
At last, a path forward for the party! At last, no faux nonsense
that's really an attempt to push the Dems to the right.
Oh.
Wait.
That's exactly what Bernie's doing (yet again) and what COMMON DREAMS is enabling them.
Who's
the moron from Nebraska? We don't know. We're not Bernie groupies.
So we looked him up. And found one unimpressive detail after another as
well as the fact that Bernie's yet again lying. We could provide
multiple examples but we think Jacob Crosse, at WSWS, did it better than we ever could:
Sanders presents Osborn as a champion of the working class in
opposition to both the Democrats and Republicans, when the reality is
the opposite. Prior to running for Senate, Osborn was the president of
Local 50G of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain
Millers International Union (BCTGM) in Omaha, Nebraska. Throughout his
Senate campaign, Osborn touted his stint as a union bureaucrat to
posture as a friend of the working class.
However, Osborn used his
role not to fight for the workers against the corporation, but to
strangle their struggle and impose a pro-company sellout. During the
2021 Kellogg’s strike, Osborn waged a national chauvinist campaign to
keep striking workers in the US isolated from their class brothers and
sisters internationally.
In a broadside against Mexican workers, Osborn said in an interview at the time:
A
lot of Americans probably don’t have too much issue with the Nike or
Under Armor hats being made elsewhere, or even our vehicles, but when
they start manufacturing our food down where they are out of the FDA
control and OSHA control, I have a huge problem with that.
In a preview of his anti-immigrant Senate run, he campaigned for a boycott of “made-in-Mexico Nabisco products.”
After
the workers had struck for 77 days, Osborn helped Kellogg’s push
through a contract betrayal that expanded the hated “two-tier” wage and
benefits system and led to the closure of the Omaha plant and destruction of 550 jobs.
The
Democrats failed to field a candidate and Osborn only narrowly lost his
Senate race against incumbent Republican Deb Fischer. In the course of
his campaign, Osborn never once pointed out Trump’s fascist politics or
condemned him for having tried to overturn the 2020 election. Instead,
Osborn solidarized himself with Trump and claimed “Fischer stabbed Donald Trump in the back” for calling on Trump to drop out of the presidential race in 2016.
During
and following his campaign, Osborn pledged to work with Trump to
“secure the border,” including through the completion of Trump’s border
wall.
[. . .]
In addition to Sanders, those endorsing Osborn’s anti-communist, anti-immigrant, pro-bureaucracy campaign include Jacobin
founder Bhaskar Sunkara and elements of the trade union bureaucracy,
such as United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and Dustin Guastella,
director of operations for Teamsters Local 623.
In a November 22 article published in the Guardian,
Sunkara and Guastella praised “Osborn’s ideas” and his “class
background,” which, they wrote, “was key to his being able to deliver a
credible populist appeal.”
Sunkara and Guastella called on the
nationalist labor bureaucracies to recruit “talented candidates” and
work with “organizations like Osborn’s to get these candidates the funds
they need to win elections.”
The “organization” to
which Sunkara
and Guastella were referring is Osborn’s political action committee
(PAC), known as the “Working Class Heroes Fund.” The PAC, which allows
anonymous donors, raised nearly $8 million by mid-October, according to
the Nebraska Examiner, which noted that Osborn “benefited from roughly
$20 million in outside spending on his behalf” during the campaign.
The “about”
section on the Working Class Heroes Fund website explains that the
purpose of the PAC is provide money for politicians to get elected and
unite “the working class across party lines.” In other words, to forge
pro-imperialist “national unity.”
Get it?
We're
being tricked and lied to over and over by a left media that wants our
money, that wants us to donate to them. A left media that rightly calls
out Mika and Joe but we'll never, ever own up to their own mistakes.
Congratulations to MEDIASTOUCH NEWS which is setting new streaming
records and to other YOUTUBERS such as TABITHA SPEAKS, COACH D and
Danielle Moodie who are increasing their subscribers due to strong and
important work. But the bulk of left media is being produced by idiots
who, forget actual research, can't even carry out a basic GOOGLE
search. It has to stop and, if it doesn't, maybe it's time for
Americans to join together in a class action lawsuit against this
continued journalistic malpractice.
You need to stop your Bernie worship. That's the first way you improve the quality of your journalism.
We're going to wind down with this joint-press release from Senators Elizaveth Warren and Richard Blumenthal:
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote a letter to President
Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, urging them to issue a
policy directive prohibiting the mobilization of active duty military or
federalizing National Guard personnel to be deployed against Americans
unless specifically authorized.
This comes after President-elect Trump recently indicated that he
could invoke the Insurrection Act “on his first day in office.” He has
called his political opponents “the enemy from within” and said they
“should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or
if really necessary, by the military.” When asked to clarify these
remarks in late October, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance reiterated that
President-elect Trump would use force against Americans.
The senators asked for the directive to state the Insurrection Act should
be narrowly applied and that the President must consult with Congress
to the maximum extent practicable. The senators also point out the
urgent need for this policy directive given questions raised by the U.S.
Supreme Court’s Trump v. United States decision, which significantly expanded presidential immunity for official acts.
“Given the disagreement amongst scholars on the serious implications
of the recent Supreme Court decision, it is reasonable to assume that
service members, other DoD personnel, and the broader military community
may not be aware of or fully understand their rights and
responsibilities,” wrote the senators. “If
unaddressed, any ambiguity on the lawful use of military force, coupled
with President-elect Trump’s demonstrated intent to utilize the military
in such dangerous and unprecedented ways, may prove to be devastating.”
Specifically, the senators are urging President Biden to issue a policy directive that includes that:
The narrow application of the Insurrection Act should be
limited to instances when State or local authorities are so overwhelmed
and that the chief executive of the State requests assistance or attacks
against the U.S. government overwhelm State or local authorities;
In instances when federal forces are necessary to protect or prevent
violations of individuals’ civil liberties, federal forces should only
be authorized when state, local, or federal civilian law enforcement
personnel are unable, fail, or refuse to protect their rights;
Any armed forces employed must operate under the Standing Rules for
the Use of Force and cannot violate the writ of habeas corpus, federal
law, or where applicable, federal or state law;
The President must consult with Congress to the maximum extent
practicable before exercising this authority, as well as transmit to the
Federal Register the legal authorities.
“As many of us wrote previously, ‘it is antithetical to what those in
uniform have sworn to protect and defend, and a serious threat to our
democratic system’ to weaponize the military to advance the president’s
political interests,” wrote the senators.