4/02/2022

would you be sammy jo's daddy?

'dynasty' - this is last week's episode.  finally got time to watch it.


1st do you remember the episode of 'will & grace' when karen finds jack's dad (john marshall, played by perry king)?


sam was attracted to a shallow influencer and spent a lot of time (for a change) at his hotel.  


he was feeling he needed to find some 1 to settle down with, he told michael and kirby.  michael took credit for it since he's recently been looking for a woman to marry.  while he was talking, fallon's horse trainer came by to thank him for the nice suite.  he also told sam he'd like to have dinner with him.

sammy jo played like he was busy (he wasn't interested) but was nice to the man - henceforth called ht in this post.  


after ht left, kirby and michael told sammy jo he should have taken up with him.  kirby and michael wondered what was wrong with him?  did sam think he was too old.


the influncer couldn't do anything without capturing it in video or in a selfie and it got real old for sam.


fallon wants a baby.  yesterday.  she knows her cycle so she's after liam to make a baby now!!! they end up at 1 of the faimly's other homes when they can't get privacy anywhere.  there fallon gets into a fight and accues the caretaker of stealing.  he quits, she fires him.  turns out she was wrong about him stealing and blake has rehired him.


crystal - fake crystal wants to kill her so she can replace her.  fake crystal is also very interested in adam - even black raises an eyebrow.  beto (crystal's brother) doesn't seem to catch on.  that story bores me and that's all i'm writing about this post.


i didn't see alexis once this episode.


my favorite character is dominique and she and jeff (her son) were at loggerheads.


they had been enjoying being business partners and having breaksfast together.  but dominique had a chance to really expand the business but jeff wouldn't go along because it would be violating their contract with fallon.


she got angry and wanted to buy him out.  in the end, they made up.  and jeff found a way to honor the contract and to grab the new opportunity.


back to sammy jo.


he's turned the older man down repeatedly.  and they've even had a nice conversation.  


he tells that to michael without revealing who the guy was.


then ht shows up and sammy jo is ready to give it a try.


wait!


ht tells sam he's misunderstood.  he doesn't want to date him.


he's sam's father!!!!!

on that cliffhanger, i've been waiting and waiting for thi sweek's episode.  according to wikipedia, there was 1 last night.  but?


in my queue (dvr), the most recent episode is season five, episode five 'a little fun wouldn't hurt' from 7 days ago - that's the 1 i'm writing about above.  i go to 'the cw' on my tv and there is a new episdoe.  i have no idea why it's not in my dvr queue.  


i'm going to go watch it now.



let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Friday, April 1, 2022.    Lies and censorship are tools of war.


Starting with a video.



FACEBOOK is censoring that video.  WSWS reports:


Facebook’s censorship of the video “No Third World War! Against the Ukraine war, NATO aggression and German rearmament!” by the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) has provoked strong condemnation by workers and young people. Under the hashtag #StopCensoringSocialism, supporters have opposed this act of political censorship. Under conditions where the threat of a nuclear world war between NATO and Russia is extremely great, they are speaking out against the silencing of anti-war voices.

 A video statement by SGP Chairman Christoph Vandreier—which explains the political motives behind the deletion of the original video and highlights its importance in the fight against war—received more than 1,200 views and dozens of “likes” on Tiktok within a few hours. The video was also widely distributed on Instagram. “This censorship is not only directed against us, but against the mass opposition to a world war,” says Vandreier. The socialist anti-war perspective of the SGP “is to be banned and censored in the midst of deafening war propaganda for a third world war.”

Through the World Socialist Web Site and the SGP’s Twitter and other social media accounts, we received protest statements and solidarity messages, some of which we report here. We call on all readers to post their own statements under #StopCensoringSocialism and #DefendSGP and to stand up against censorship and the threat of a third world war.


So much has to be censored and so much has to be disappeared for governments to get their way.  If you can't fool the people, you can't launch endless wars -- wars that steal from the pubic treasury and ensure that the needs of the people will not be met.  Andre Damon (WSWS) observes:


With the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia over Ukraine now in its second month, the social consequences of the conflict are coming into sharper focus.

All over the world, governments are massively increasing military spending. The German government has tripled its military budget with the aim of making the German army the largest in Europe. France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia are all implementing or planning major increases in expenditures on war.

However, nowhere is this process clearer than in the United States, the center of world imperialism. On Monday, the White House announced the largest US military budget in American history, focused overwhelmingly on preparations to fight a war with Russia and China.

The budget proposes spending $813 billion on the US military, up from $782 billion in 2022. When the costs of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the cost of debt from previous defense spending is added in, the figure rises to over $1 trillion. And that is not to mention the hundreds of billions spent on federal, state, and local police forces and the United States’ intelligence apparatus.

The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Writing in Newsweek, Lindsay Koshgarian of the Institute for Policy Studies noted, “The U.S. alone already spends 12 times more on its military than Russia. When combined with Europe’s biggest military spenders, the U.S. and its allies on the continent outspend Russia by at least 15 to 1.”


We can't have Medicare For All in the US.  We can't have debt fogiveness.  We can't even address homelessness.  Grasp that what passes for the evening news fails to address the homeless crisis.  Every broadcast should deal with that reality but instead they ignore it and condone it.  Their silence makes it seem normal.  There is no excuse for the United States to have a homelss population and yet, rather than address that, hundreds of billions of dollars are going each year to war and war making.  


The homeless population is only going to increase.  But we can't address that reality.  And, in fact, inflation has been pooh-pahhed and dismissed.  We stood alone in calling out the nonsense offered on the Democratic-lite site that the COVID checks were "raises.'  That those tiny checks made for an increase in wages.  And we've watched supposed economists who love to play populist and pretend to be 'progressive' go out of their way over the last six months to normalize the outages that are taking place, to dimsiss them, to minimize them.  At the end of the day, they have revealed themselves to not be on the side of the people -- the ones they depend upon to have a career because corpoarte media is not airing these whores -- but on the side of the elected Democratic power strugture and they are apologist for that structure.  Patrick Martin (WSWS) points out:


The rising cost of living will force the average American household to spend $5,200 more a year just to buy the same goods and services as last year, according to a report released Thursday by Bloomberg Economics. This comes to an average of $433 a month robbed from the pockets of workers and their families, under conditions where 60 percent of the US population cannot afford an unexpected expense of $500.

.  This staggering fact demonstrates the human cost of the rise in the rate of inflation, which hit a 40-year record of 7.9 percent in December. The rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index slipped slightly to 7.5 percent in January and 6.4 percent in February, but it is still well above the forecast of both the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration.

The core inflation rate, not counting food and energy prices, which fluctuate more from month to month, stood at 6 percent in January and 5.4 percent in February, according to figures released by the federal Department of Commerce Thursday. This means that regardless of efforts by the Biden administration to manipulate temporarily the price of gasoline at the pump, the reduction in the living standards of the working class will continue.

Bloomberg Economics—part of the publishing empire of billionaire Michael Bloomberg—pointed out the benefits for capitalist employers of the inflation “tax” on workers. “Accelerated depletion of savings will increase the urgency for those staying on the sidelines to join the labor force, and the resulting increase in labor supply will likely dampen wage growth,” the authors of the report said.


Patrick Martin is a journalist.  That's not an attack.  My point is that Patrick Martin can address reality while whores like Dean Baker can't (this week's latest from dean Baker was more whoring distortions insisted "the economy has bounced back" -- again, Dean Baker's not making a living via the corporate media.  He's a cheap whore who lies for the Democratic Party and hopes they'll keep him afloat for tricking voters.  Robert Reich was always a known whore.  People are just starting to catch on with regards to Dean Baker.



On this week's BLACK AGENDA RADIO, Margaret Kimberley spoke with Gerald Horne who pointed out the following:


But certainly this food crisis has to be taken seriously.  It has to be taken seriously in the first place in the United States of America.  You have millions of people who exist on food stamps, millions of people who are food insecure,  You have prices going through the roof not only because of the eastern European crisis but also because of pre-existing supply chain glitches that has ships lined up as if it's the Long Island Expressway.off the coast of Los Angels' Long Beach trying to deliver goods but apparently unable to do so.  So the hunger question in this country will be exacerbated certainly by this crisis.  That's not to mention what will happen overseas.  Already, in Egypt, you see rumblings with regard to the point that a significant percentage of the bread that is the stuff of life in Cairo comes from the agricultural fields of Ukraine and Russia.  That is problematic as we speak and so therefore it can lead to disruption in Egypt.  And so this crisis?  Obviously, the planners in the State Dept did not think through everything that went in to making a deicison to heighten tensions with Moscow and Russia on the Ukraine border.





But, by all means, continue to depend on Dean Baker because he's billed as our 'friend.'  He's not.  He's a con artist and a whore.  These are life and death matters and clowns are an extravagance that the people just can't afford. 


Reailty can be found with ELETRONIC INTIFADA.



The government of Ukraine had to be white-washed or they wouldn't have been able to do their marketing blitz passed off as news in order to sell war to a people.   


Ajamu Baraka (BAR) explains:


As soon as the Biden Administration took power, the plan to escalate the situation in Ukraine was executed — a plan that included a clear understanding of the nature of forces behind the newly elected presidential front man for the right-wing Ukrainian oligarchs and U.S. forces that engineered his election. The Biden Administration also understood that the most effective military forces in Ukraine were grouped around and/or associated with various ultra-right and neo-Nazi elements. But who cared when the commitment to “full spectrum dominance” and interests of U.S. finance and corporate transnational capital are driving U.S. policy in Ukraine? 

We, the colonized, the working class, the oppressed, must be as cold-blooded and sober in our analysis and actions. Look at how they lied to the public on the existence of ultra-right forces in Ukraine and the nature of that corrupt regime. We will not lie to the people, but we have to separate ourselves from the propaganda when attempting to understand the world.

The U.S. press loudly proclaiming that there was no neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine even though it was common knowledge in the United States and Europe for years that there was always a problem with the extremist nationalist elements in that country.  Because of that, the line taken by the U.S. state and the capitalist press after the U.S. engineered coup in 2014 with the extreme right and neo-Nazi forces at the center of the action, was that while those forces’ presence in the street actions was never disputed, the line was that their political significance in the government was minimal.

That line was taken because the historical record was replete with references to the role of the ultra-right in Ukrainian politics since world-war II. And that not only did Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and literal neo-Nazis end up in the new post-coup government in 2014, but the press, human rights organizations, the governments of Europe, and the U.S. were aware of the nature of those forces

That is what made the new line by the liberal corporate press that there was not an issue with the extreme right in Ukraine so bizarre. Apparently, to buttress their drive to war, the new narrative required that the Ukrainian state be represented as the innocent victim of the mad Vladimir Putin, and the presence of ultra-right forces, including neo-Nazis, as a figment of his imagination.  

Yet, there is always a method to the madness, in this case the real madness of U.S. imperialism.


Also refer to Patrkic Martin's two-part series (Part One | Part Two) at WSWS on the marketing of this war by the Democratic Party for many, many years now.  


To sell lies to the people, you have to censor the truth -- thereby explaining US President Joe Biden's continued persecution of Julian Assange for the 'crime' of journalism.  Also explaining the disappearance of Chris Hedges from YOUTUBE.  At SCHEERPOST, Chris notes:

The entire archive of On Contact, the Emmy-nominated show I hosted for six years for RT America and RT International, has been disappeared from YouTube. Gone is the interview with Nathaniel Philbrick on his book about George Washington. Gone is the discussion with Kai Bird on his biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Gone is my exploration with Professor Sam Slote from Trinity College Dublin of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Gone is the show with Benjamin Moser on his biography of Susan Sontag. Gone is the show with Stephen Kinzer on his book on John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles. Gone are the interviews with the social critics Cornel West, Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Gerald Horne, Wendy Brown, Paul Street, Gabriel Rockwell, Naomi Wolff and Slavoj Zizek. Gone are the interviews with the novelists Russell Banks and Salar Abdoh. Gone is the interview with Kevin Sharp, a former federal judge, on the case of Leonard Peltier. Gone are the interviews with economists David Harvey and Richard Wolff. Gone are the interviews with the combat veterans and West Point graduates Danny Sjursen and Eric Edstrom about our wars in the Middle East. Gone are the discussions with the journalists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Gone are the voices of those who are being persecuted and marginalized, including the human rights attorney Steven Donziger and the political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. None of the shows I did on mass incarceration, where I interviewed those released from our prisons, are any longer on YouTube. Gone are the shows with the cartoonists Joe Sacco and Dwayne Booth. Melted into thin air, leaving not a rack behind.

I received no inquiry or notice from YouTube. I vanished. In totalitarian systems you exist, then you don’t. I suppose this was done in the name of censoring Russian propaganda, although I have a hard time seeing how a detailed discussion of “Ulysses” or the biographies of Susan Sontag and J. Robert Oppenheimer had any connection in the eyes of the most obtuse censors in Silicon Valley with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, there is not one show that dealt with Russia. I was on RT because, as a vocal critic of US imperialism, militarism, the corporate control of the two ruling parties, and especially because I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, I was blacklisted. I was on RT for the same reason the dissident Vaclav Havel, who I knew, was on Voice of America during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. It was that or not be heard. Havel had no more love for the policies of Washington than I have for those of Moscow. 

Are we a more informed and better society because of this wholesale censorship? Is this a world we want to inhabit where those who know everything about us and about whom we know nothing can instantly erase us? If this happens to me, it can happen to you, to any critic anywhere who challenges the dominant narrative. And that is where we are headed as the ruling elites refuse to respond to the disenfranchisement and suffering of the working class, opting not for social and political change or the curbing of the rapacious power and obscene wealth of our oligarchic rulers, but instead imposing iron control over information, as if that will solve the mounting social unrest and vast political and social divides. 


Kevin Reed (WSWS) notes:

 As reported previously by the World Socialist Web Site, the Russian state-funded cable news network RT America was shut down in the US on March 3 and all 120 of its employees were laid off at offices located in New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Miami.

Although the management of the news channel said the network had experienced “unforeseen business-interruption events,” the abrupt shutdown of RT America was no doubt part of the anti-Russian offensive mounted by corporate media outlets and governments aligned with the US and NATO in the proxy war being fought in Ukraine against the regime in Moscow.

Among the RT America programs terminated were several popular left-wing and anti-war TV shows including Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp and On Contact with Chris Hedges. These programs were specifically targeted for censorship because they adopted an anti-war standpoint that was opposed to the narrative developed by the ruling political establishment in the US and Europe.

This campaign to silence voices critical of the role of imperialism in provoking the war in Ukraine has been extended to the removal of video content from YouTube, podcasts from Spotify and other censorship measures by the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter.


There's another way to censor.  Drop coverage.  You know, the way the same US corpoarte media that sold the Iraq War by spewing endless lies now avoids covering the results of their actions.  

The big news out of Iraq today?  TRT reports:


A powerful Iraqi Shia cleric has decided to step back for the next 40 days and give his Iran-backed rivals the chance to form the country's next government.

The surprising decision on Thursday by Muqtada al Sadr comes against the backdrop of a persisting political deadlock in Iraq, five months after general elections.

Sadr's offer came in a tweet, in which he also called on his followers not to interfere "neither positively not negatively" as his rivals form the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iran-backed Shia parties, try to cobble together a cabinet.

This translates into a nod to Sadr's rivals to pursue the cleric's Kurdish and Sunni allies in possible negotiations. There was no immediate response from the Coordination Framework to Sadr's offer.


When they're not lying, they're selling State Dept talking points -- regardless of whether or not they're factual.  No one in their right mind who knew Iraq's recent history would have expected Moqtada al-Sadr to be a 'kingmaker' who was going to pull together a government following the election.  But three failed attempts now since the October 10th election and we're still not seeing the corporate press admit to the fact that they got it wrong.  They got it wrong because they parotted the US State Dept -- the same State Dept that paid (bribed) Moqtada back in August -- but they looked the other way on that too.


The following sites updated:




3/31/2022

the nazis in ukraine



that's the latest from 'eletronic intifada.'  and let's put that with 'rt' via 'dissident voice:'


The Russian military has presented documents showing Ukraine’s interest in using drones to deliver weaponized pathogens developed in US-funded biolabs. Names of US officials involved in the biolabs projects, and the role the current US president’s son played in the program, were also made public during the special briefing on Thursday.

One of the key pieces of evidence was a letter from the Ukrainian company Motor Sich to the  Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar Makina – makers of the Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci UAVs – dated December 15, 2021. The Ukrainians specifically asked if the drones could carry 20 liters of aerosolized payload to a range of 300 kilometers – putting them in range of a dozen major Russian cities and almost all of Belarus.

“We are talking about the development by the Kiev regime of technical means of delivery and use of biological weapons with the possibility of their use against the Russian Federation,” said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces.


you really have to wonder how long the  corporate media and certain personalities think they can get away with their garbage?  

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


 Thursday, March 31, 2022..  Robert Pether remains in an Iraqi jail, Julian Assange remains persecuted, Iraq still can't name a president and Jada Pinkett remains bald.


Kicking off with the assault of Chris Rock, let's note this from Jimmy Dore about how Will Smith's assault is now encouraging others to call for assaulting comedians.



It's amazing.  And, as Elaine pointed out:


I like Jonathan Turley but I think he's missed the boat on one issue.


He rightly documents the attacks on free speech.  So far, however, he has not written of Will Smith attacking Chris Rock at the Oscars.  Maybe he is doing a column on it?

If so, he may be holding the topic for that reason.


But I would argue that all the attacks on free speech, all the self-righteous grand-standing to justify censoring  people.  We see that in the attack, we see that in some of the responses to the attack.


I support free speech.  


What Will Smith did was outrageous.  Some of the reactions to the assault have been even more outrageous.


This is part of the attack on free speech.  It's also something more.


I'm remembering having to learn the name of Nicholas Sandman.  My life was fine without ever knowing his name.  But he was made into a national incident and a monster by the same group that's defening Will and talking how hard it is on Jada Pankitt.  Nicholas didn't do anything to warrant the outrage or the hate heaped on him.  But Will slapped Chris Rock on a national statge -- that Will wasn't supposed to be on -- in front of the whole world and lairs and whores want to pretend like it's okay?


I've read that garbage THE WASHINGTON POST published from the dumb idiot who wanted to argue in favor of Jada and tell you it was race and sexism and Jada was the victim.


You stupid f**king idiot.  You are the reason outlets used to argue that women couldn't cover abortion -- they were women and they could get pregnant so they couldn't be objective was the claim..  We saw that same thing with the idiot in Congress who Tweeted applauding the assualt because she's bald too.


Get over yourselves.  Being bald?  If that's the worst thing in your life, you should be thanking your higher power, personal god, whatever that this is all you're facing. 


And stop applauding Will for 'defending' his wife while claiming to be a feminist.


A woman needs rescued?  That's offensive.  A woman can't handle words?  That's offensive.


You certainly are trapped in your gender roles as you stumble around at the corner of race and gender.  


And you miss the reality of the actual trope that's at play -- because you can't/won't refute the systematic racism of the system you are electing to endorse, embrace and play with it.


A woman needs defending, you argue, so Will was alright to do what he did.



Hmm.  


As you spew your garbage endlessly, do you not realize what you're doing?


Because the way I see it, violence gainst a Black man is again being justified because someone claims a woman's 'honor' has been besmirched.  


Emmett Till wasn't an exception, he's just one of the few that's widely known.  Time and again, Black men were targeted in the US with the claim that they had dishonored a woman in some way.  Women?  We can defend ourselves.  Claiming otherwise is a cute way for men to justify attacking others.  Claiming that we can't defend ourselves -- not even from words -- is sexism.


But that reality is ignored and Chris Rock is attacked.


Chris Rock deserved to be attacked because he's Black?


I'd drop your faux feminism and your academic nonsense and grasp the reality of the situation.  Violence against a Black man is once again being justified and minimized.  


Don't tell me #BlackLivesMatter when you think it is perfectly acceptable for Chris Rock to be assaulted while performing an act he was asked by the Academy to perform on live television.  


Chris Rock has been very nice about this and very kind.  And who's sticking up for him?  (I know Chris Rock and consider him a friend.)  No one.  Whores like Pee-Pee in his mouth Diddy lied -- and I told you he was lying -- to protect Will Smith.  Who's defending Chris.


Chris was the one attacked.


And Jada, ya still bald.


And it's still not the end of the world, and you're still not going to die from it.  


Chris was invited on that stage.  Will was not.   Chris was doing exactly what he was asked to do by the Academy.  And he got assaulted.  There's no excuse for that.  There's no defense for that.  And shame on anyone applauding that attack and not grasping that they are falling into the historical racist construct that says it is okay to assault a Black man to defend a woman's 'honor.'


An attack on free speech is what the persecution of Julian Assange is all about.  US President Joe Biden continues to persecute the journalist for opening the truth up to the world.  Attacking Julian is about intimidating any journalist in the future with knowledge of War Crimes carried out by the US so that the journalist will not report them.


John Jiggins (INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA) reports:

In marked contrast to the war in Ukraine, the Iraqi war was covered by journalists embedded with the invading forces.

Civilian deaths were dismissed as “collateral damage”.  

When WikiLeaks showed us what “collateral damage” looked like from the perspective of Iraqi civilians, releasing a video of a massacre by an Apache helicopter gun crew of Iraqi civilians and two Reuter journalists, Julian Assange called it Collateral Murder.  

This intervention played an important role in ending the illegal UK, U.S. and Australian invasion of a sovereign nation, and because of this, the war criminals he exposed are destroying Julian Assange with the consent of the Australian Government, claiming he is the criminal.

But Assange was a hero for peace. 

For the Apache helicopter crew, the civilians on the ground were dehumanised. Like boys playing a computer game, they exclaimed “light ‘em up!” as they blew apart their victims from their unseen platform a mile in the sky.  

When a good samaritan stopped to help those still living, he and his children were ruthlessly machine-gunned. The crew blamed their father, saying he shouldn’t have brought children to a war zone.


Let's note two reports from 60 MINUTES>





And let's note that this 60 MINUTES in Austrtalia.  In the US, nothing.  In the US, whose president is persecuting Julian Assange?  Silence.  


Julian's 'crime' is journalism.  He is targed by the president of the United States.  And you have to look to 60 MINUTES in aonther country to get coverage.


 Julian remains persecuted.  And the silence goes a long, long way towards explaining why that continues.  


Meg Sherman (DISSIDENT VOICE) observes:


Hard working, principled journalists — who’d be legends and treasures in a long lost era of good press ethics in society — and their sources are paying a high price out of their human rights under the aegis of a craven new age of US imperialism. Most modern states bar the integration of legitimate journalistic activity with the penal code, like those currently being deployed to get Julian Assange. But in the data age, with less developed laws around the link between technology and sources, criminalisation is being embraced, or at least is being seized upon in the moment before laws and regulation are clarified and tightened up to get Assange.

But it stinks. For one evidence cited in attempts to justify his arrest and pursuit under the law are at best dubious, at worst slanderous. Moreover in a zeitgeist defined by Brexit negotiations steeped deep in the rhetoric of protecting parliamentary sovereignty it ought to worry us British courts are willing to yield to the whims of US courts who are willing to put Assange away for life, or kill him, for the crime of doing journalism.

It’s time that the establishment drops pretences and stops using the phrase “no man is above the law” as if the mantra is still meaningful. Either justice is a right or its not. For so many, conspicuously all in the business of exposing corruption, they don’t get it. It’s time to reform society’s treatment of whistleblowers and remove all legal obstructions to their freedoms.


Joe Biden has become a threat to a free press and to the First Amendment.  Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) addresses the damage that Joe's doing with his words:


“I mean what I say when I say it!” Those words were spoken by president elect Joe Biden in December 2020 during a meeting with a group described as “civil rights leaders.” Video of the meeting was leaked and Biden’s insulting and dismissive attitude towards Black people was clear even to those who ignored this tendency he has shown throughout his 50 years of public life.

Biden did us a favor by revealing himself and by telling us to pay attention when he speaks. That advice should be followed no matter how strange his words may seem. Even in his bad tempered confusion, Biden always reveals what he is doing.

He recently made news for all the wrong reasons during his recent trip to Europe where he attended a combination G7 summit and NATO meeting in Brussels followed by a trip to Poland.

At the NATO meeting he rather nonchalantly informed the people of the world that they will all suffer because of the misguided effort to punish Russia with sanctions. “With regard to food shortages, yes we did talk about food shortages and it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It's imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well. And because both Russia and Ukraine have been the bread basket of Europe in terms of wheat for example.” Ukraine won’t have a good harvest in the near future and Russia won’t be able to sell what it grows. That means rising prices for those scarce wheat products that may still be available. Biden’s casual tone is an indication he thinks people and governments all over the world should accept the oncoming disaster he created without complaint.

Not content to disrupt global food supplies he also announced his future plans for Ukraine. He said this to 82nd Airborne troops stationed in Poland. "And you’re going to see when you’re there.  And you — some — some of you have been there.  You’re going to see — you’re going to see women, young people standing — standing the middle of — in front of a damn tank, just saying, 'I’m not leaving.  I’m holding my ground.'  They’re incredible." Why are U.S. troops going to see anything in Ukraine? He tried to clean it up with “you may have already seen it” but he was saying that he intends to have US troops deployed in a country where Russia already has forces. His photo opportunity turned into the announcement of a hot war.

The most remarkable Biden statement that his apologists call a “gaffe ” also took place in Poland. He gave what was supposed to be a conventional speech portraying the U.S. as the beacon of freedom and democracy while Russia is really bad. His remarks should have been fairly standard and unexceptional but as always Biden told us what he was up to. In referring to Vladimir Putin he said, "This man cannot remain in power."

The clarifications and backpedaling were immediate, but no one could unhear Biden’s words. Despite all denials to the contrary, Biden is after regime change against the Russian government and his actions prove it. The very idea that Russia’s government will fall because of sanctions pressure is ludicrous. But once again, Biden gave a heads up in July 2021 .

“When I was with Mr. Putin, who has a real problem. He's sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else. Nothing else. Their economy is, what, the eighth smallest in the world now, largest in the world? He knows he's in real trouble, which makes him even more dangerous, in my view."


As the US government pursues conflict with Russia, the site of the ongoing war that the US started, Iraq, gets worse and worse.  As we noted yesterday, for the third time this year, Iraq held a session of Parliament to elect a president.  nd for the the third time -- this year -- they failed to do so. 


This year.  We're in the third month of this year.


Three times, they have failed.


The parliamentary election was held when?  October 10th.  And they are supposed to move quickly.  They didn't.  That is why they are now almost two months beyond the date set in their own Constitution for naming a president.


They can't name a prime minister until they have a president.


Follwing the results of October 10th, too many corporate outlets in the west tried to spin reality.  Reailty was that the turnout was the lowest ever.  Further reality is that turn out has gone repeatedly ever since Joe Biden (via The Erbil Agreement) overturned the 2010 election results.  The people didn't want Nouri al-Maliki to have a seond term.  The  White House did.  The result was the rise of ISIS, yes.  But it also resulted in an eroison of trust in the ballot box -- something many of us were warning of at that time.


The whorish corporate press wanted to name Moqtada al-Sadr a victor, hurrah!  A kingmaker, they called him.  They didn't bother to note that not only did he not win enough seats to form a government on his own but that his group also got less votes than they did in the previous elections.  


Moqtada was hailed by the western press -- as though he'd never been responsible for the deaths of US troops, as though he'd never attacked Iraq's LGBTQ community, as though he wasn't attempting to curtail the rights of women.  all of that was washed away.


Reality, Moqtada's not a kingmaker.


Reality, Nouri al-Maliki continues to stall and delay him.  What Nouri's not personally carrying out is other people copying Nouri's previous plays.

And Moqtada, hailed by the corporate press backin October, still can't form a government.  We're tend days away from April 10th, ten days away six months since the elections.  And the political stalemate continues.  


None of this is surprising if anyone had paid attention.  We did. I'm not suprised at all and I said over and over that Moqtada was not a kingmaker, that nothing indicated he was, that facts argued he had lost support.  But facts and today's corporate press are at opposite ends.  They're openly hostile to one another.  


The western press that sold the illegal war still can't get the facts right all this time later.


Salam Faraj and Laure al-Khoury (AL-MONITOR) note:


Six months after Iraq's parliamentary vote, the war-scarred country is no closer to electing a president amid a bitter political stalemate that has thrown institutions into limbo.

Wrangling between rival Muslim Shiite blocs in the assembly on Wednesday scuppered the legislature's third attempt to elect a head of state.

Though a largely ceremonial role, the president determines the country's next prime minister who will in turn form a cabinet to be voted in by an absolute majority of lawmakers.

- What is the hold-up? -

A schism running through the so-called "Shiite house" of Iraqi politics lies at the heart of the impasse.

Firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has long claimed the largest bloc in parliament, with 73 seats out of the 329-member legislature.

But his bloc does not have enough members to establish a clear majority -- forcing him to reach out to form an untraditional alliance.

Eschewing the more predictable grouping with other Shiite factions, Sadr has chosen to ally with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Sunni parties to form a coalition dubbed "Saving the Homeland", with 155 seats.

The coalition backs KDP candidate Rebar Ahmed for the presidency -- a post reserved for Kurds, while the post of prime minister by convention goes to a Shiite.

Shirking the tradition of forming a "consensus government" between Shiite parties, Sadr hopes to put forth a "majority government" led by his cousin, Iraq's ambassador to Britain Jaafar al-Sadr.

This has placed his coalition at loggerheads with the Coordination Framework -- a powerful force that includes former premier Nuri al-Maliki's party and the Iran-backed Fatah Alliance, the political arm of the Shiite-led former paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi.

 
The stalemate continues.  So does the imprisonment of an Austrailan citizen.  Robert Pether was imprisoned in IRaq with no access to justice or fairness.  He was locked away and his medical needs were ignored.  He remains impisoned.  THE GUARDIAN notes that the United Nations has called his imprisonment and that of his collegaue Khalid Radwan an "enfoced disappearance."  Erin Pearson (THE AGE) reports:


A United Nations body is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Australian man Robert Pether from an Iraqi jail cell, finding his detention contravenes international law.

A report from the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention this month found the imprisonment of Mr Pether and his colleague Khalid Radwan to be arbitrary and in contravention of international law.

The report found the men were “lured” into returning to Iraq on the pretext of assisting in an investigation and “arbitrarily detained, without any legal basis” ever since.

Mr Pether, an Australian engineer and father of three, was arrested in Iraq alongside an Egyptian colleague in April. They were both later jailed following a dispute between their employer and the Central Bank of Iraq.

The working group said it was of the opinion the men were then forcibly “disappeared” during the first few days of their detention and their capacity to defend themselves was “undermined and compromised” during subsequent court proceedings.


Maybe ahead of next year's Academy Awards, Mila can announce that she once again misspoke about what country she was from and that, this time, it was really Australia and then she can ask for a moment of silence to honor the persecuted Robert Pether and Julian Assange?


The following sites updated:





3/29/2022

the awful will and jada

some 1 e-mailed 'with all that's going on in the world, why are you writing about will smith?'

 presumably, since it's my site, it's because i have an opinion on it.

also assault is an issue.

can you imagine how he treats people on sets? he was out in public, dressed to the 9s, and knew he was on worldwide television when he decided to run up on stage and slap chris rock. i don't think that's an fluke, i think that's how he truly is. i'm not in the industry, c.i. is. she's covered it again because of that reason and because her friends are asking her to. but it is news.

shame on you if you don't think it is.

did he need to slap a woman for you to care?

did he need to stab some 1 for your to care?

 shoot them?


what level of violence is acceptable to you from a grown man.

grown and then some. as c.i. worded it today, will's a few blocks from 'elderly' - he's middle-aged right now.

this is not appropriate behavior.

if this had happened at an auto convention, the car industry would have fired him immediately.

because he's a celebrity, some people want to give him a pass.

i'm not going to.

my work was p.r. and before i took an early retirement, i had already heard all the rumors about will. drugs, sleeps with every 1 - male and female. diva. throws tantrums on sets. throws items on sets. a monster to work with.

will's actions were outrageous and they took place in front of the entire world. his actions were his decision. choosing to act that way on live television was his decision.

what he did was appalling.

jada pinkett is bald. oh damn well. chris rock didn't make her bald with his 1 liner and if he had mocked her cruelly and at length, will still didn't have the right to assault some 1.

i guess we should all be glad that 'mad magazine' is no more. imagine what will would have done if the mad writers and artists who sent up 'independence day' were present. (and how sad that to note a really big will smith movie, i have to drop back to the 90s but that really is the last time he ever carried a film on his own shoulders to the box office.)

if that had been my daughter pulling that stunt at her school, i would've grounded her and she would have made an apology that was a real apolgoy not will smith's garbage on 'instagram.'

and that was only made because the academy is gong to have to take some sort of action.

they'll have to. too many people are outraged. and they should be.

he's a so-so actor whose best box office is long behind him. and yet they choose to welcome him, award him, and he paid them back by spitting on the telecasst and tarnishing the image of the awards themselves and of the industry.

there's also the issue of not wanting to look the other way currently because that will say it's okay.

next year, russell crowe wants to slug (and he'd slug - unlike will smith, russell crowe is a man) jimmy kimmel over some joke, all he has to do is say, 'well it was no big deal when will smith did it.'

this needs to stop. the academy awards have prestige, they are not the source awards. they are not cutting edge. they are formal and people dress formally.

will smith doesn't how to act in public and that's probably the nicest thing i can say about him.

now let me turn to an e-mail i actually liked. lucy e-mailed to say that she read along each week on 'the cleaning lady' but couldn't watch due to her schedule. she finally had a weekend to herself last week and she streamed all the episodes on hulu. she loved the show.

i love it too, lucy. i hope there will be a season 2. (fox hasn't announced that yet.)

it really was a show that you could sink your teeth into and enjoy.

i don't think there was an episode of 'dynasty' last week, by the way.

 


let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Tuesday, March 29, 2022.  We return to the topic of yesterday . . . 


Let's  pick up with Will Smith's assault on Chris Rock.  A few issues were raised in e-mails and I was thinking about following up to answer or include those and P Diddy had to comment to news outlets but then Will released his 'apology' and I knew we'd have to go another day.


First off, P-Diddy, you're trash.  You degraded J-Lo's image when she was with you, you lowered her brand.  And that's not just because of the shootings.  Not just.


If you missed it, PeePee Diddy has interjected himself into the story.  He wants you to know, hand to God, pinkie swear, that he's talked to Chris Rock and he's talked to Wil Smith -- he's the Jimmy Carter of the entertainment world (in his mind), and they're just fine ane . . .


We don't give a crap what you say.  Get it through your head, music man.  This was not your event.  This was an event for the film industry.  We don't need to herar from your trashy ass. You're nobody in the film world.  You're a failed actor who probably showed more than he realized when he tried to act.  Pee Pee Diddy, no one needs to hear from you.  Most of us don't believe you.  But what you think's going on doesn't really matter to the indursty that you are not a part of.  


Supposedly, late yesterday, Will Smith issued an apology.  He didn't. 


And I won't lie like CNN did.  CNN 'quotes' him.  Here's the actual words.


Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.

I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.  
 
I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.
 
I am a work in progress.

Sincerely,

Will


What a load of garbage.  I say that as somoeone his publicist called about the 'apology.'  Point of fact, I am not leading the backlash.  For me, the Academy Awards outrage was the silence over Urkaine and the White people while never a minute of silence for the Arabs around the world -- not in Iraq, not in Syria, not . . . 


That was the focus of the thing I wrote the night of the Awards.  As I explained in yesterday's snapshot, at the after parties, it kept being brought up and those who know I write here had read it and were reading it and were telling me that I missed the big news of the night and . . . .  I'm not leading anything.  Every year I do campaign for friends to to be nominated and to win.  I also do my part to ensure that certain people do not win.  (Yes, I did enjoy Sunday night.)    Will Smith is not an actor of note or merit.  I was opposed to him winning -- and I did not vote for him -- but a few weeks back, when it became obvious he stood a good chance of winning, I didn't swing into action to try to tip the scales against him.  He didn't matter enough to me.  I had other dogs in that fight and stayed focused on preventing them from winning.  (Again, Sunday was a very good night for me.)  


When I was called about the statement being crafted, I said very clearly that he didn't need to bring Jada into it.  I said he needed to take responsiblity for his actions, that he was a middle aged man, and he needed to apologize to Chris and to the industry.


He couldn't do that.  If he were your child and started making excuses for someone he struck at school during his so-called apology, you'd stop him.


And let's get something else clear.


I've had cancer.  Twice.  I've had chemo.  I don't want to hear about poor Jada's 'medical condition.'  She's bald.  Big deal.  It's not life threatening.  It hurts her vanity?  Too damn bad.  Wear a wig.  Or don't tell the world about it.  


She's bald.  Jokes have been made about bald people forever and a day.  As bald jokes go, "Can't wait for GI JANE 2," is not that harsh.  He could have made a Kojak joke.  


Willie's not taking accountability.  And for the member of Congress that applauded this b.s?  Ayanna Soyini Pressley, you are unfit to serve in Congress.  That pains me to say.  But you are unfit. We have noted you here and I have often been impressed with you but you're applauding that violence is disgusting.  Oh, you're bald too so we all have to walk on egg shells1!!! F**k you.  If you were speaking and someone came up onstage and slapped you, I don't think you'd be offering a Tweet of glee.  Your hypocrisy and your inability to see beyond yourself goes to how unfit you really are.  I am very disappointed.


Jada's bald.  Get over it.  




It's not a life threatening condition, stop pretending like it's cancer or MS or any real disease that threatens someone's life. Women have worn wigs forever and a day.  If she choose not to, more power to her.  But don't then whine because someone makes a single sentence joke.


And, for the record, Jada would be damn lucky to star in GI JANE II.  It's not like she's had a film career in years, not as a leading lady.  And, like Will, she's aging out of the roles.  So she'd be damn lucky to star in GI JANES II.


What Will did was offensive.


Most of the e-mails are noting that he'd be expelled from a school for doing what he did.


And that is true.  Equally ture, he's not a child.  He's not 14 or 15.  He's not a young man, even.  He's a middle aged man lliving a few blocks from elderly.


He is responsible for his actions.  He is responsible for the message he sends.


That dopey apology began the minute the Academy announced that they were conducting a formal investigation into the events.  Thats when he decided he couldn't just stay silent (and the plan was to then go on Jimmy Kimmel and crack some jokes).


This was an industry event.  Any other industry that he pulled that crap in, he'd be out of it right now.  They wouldn't be making excuses for him or give a damn that his wife is bald.  


They would note that this was an industry event and he degraded the industry.  He brought his trashy ways into the venue and then stormed the stage to attack an invited persenter.


You need to grasp that, if you haven't already.


Because the industry is film, it's televised around the world.  So the whole world saw.  It lives on forever on YOUTUBE.


He embarrassed the industry.  And we're only more embarrassed because on the night he acted the fool, we gave him an award.


He spat on the event.


Again, my big concern was Iraq.  


But I did listen at the after parties as people made solid points.  What he did was offensive.


This is not some b.s. awards show.  No offense, but it's not The People's Choice Awards or The American Music Awards.  It's the industry itself handing out these awards.  It may seem silly on the outside and on the inside of the industry but it is our awards that we choose to hand out, our night when we honor film.  


Amd over a single semtemce. Will Smith thought he had the right to leap form his seat in the midst of a presentation, storm the stage and assault the presenter.


That is not allowed.  That is outrageous.


(And, as many of you note in your e-mails -- it was a woman who had made jokes about the very 'dramatic' marriage of Will and Jada from the stage and Will didn't go after her). 


Chris Rock's joke was mild.  And I hate that we have to say that.  It doesn't matter what Chris Rock said.  In no world would that be allowed.


At an industry event, Chevy Chase destroyed his career.  It wasn't the Academy Awards.  But he felt the need to show just hostile (with words only) he could be and he made statements that were offensive.  That's why Chevy ended up on TV -- and was lucky to end up on TV.  His opportunites dried up throughout the 90s and he was offered garbage.  And the reason was the stunt he pulled at an industry event.


If he'd done that on live television at the Academy Awards, he never would have been able to be cast in COMMUNITY.  


Will Smith embarrassed the industry.


Mila was brought on so that the Academy could put on their best and most caring face for the public.  Ah, look at them, they care, they really, really care.


Awards, as always, frequently went out to undeserving winners because the Academy liked the 'look' of awarding a film about uplift or whatever.


And there in the middle of this celebration -- and carefully crafted p.r. -- Will elected to act the fool.


He didn't just disgrace himself, he disgraced the industry.


And he woke up today and, guess what, Jada's still bald.


Chris Rock didn't make her bald.


Again, she doesn't have cancer, she's not dealing with a life threatening condition.  She is losing her hair.  It happens and you can go natural, you can wear scarves, hats, wigs , whatever.



Because of Will's actions there are now safety concerns.  I was noting the jokes that Helen and Judi would show up next year with armies of bodyguards.  And they were jokes.  At the after parties.  But now?  

People are really worried.  


What if they're presenting an award next year and some Will Smith doesn't like the joke or doesn't like the winner and storms on stage?


This has never happened in the history of the awards.  94 times, statues have been handed out.  Never.


This is not minor.  This was not some one outside the industry streaking across the stage.  This was someone the industry chose to recognize and he responded with violence.


He shouldn't be at any Academy event ever again -- that includes the awards.  That pass shold be pulled from him immediately.


Any efforts to look the other way or not come down hard will encourage others.


This was an industry event.  He dsigraced himself, he disgraced the industry and he brought physical violence onto the stage.  That's outrageous.


I'm not calling for him to lose his award.  If others do, that's fine.  And that is a possibility.  But I am now joining with the many other voices saying that the Academy has to take a very strong stand on this matter and that we never need to see the producer of this show again since he failed to protect Chris Rock.  Where was security  Why wasn't Will imemediately evicted as he should have been?


Calls were made and they were all the wrong calls.  


I don't even know if he deserved to give an acceptance speech to be honest.  Not after that stunt.  They should have played music once he was handed the award and that should have been it.  His actions didn't deserve a reward.


That there are people out there justifying Will's actions and minimizing them goes to what a dangerous precedent could be set.  And that's why the Academy needs to come down hard.


Still in the US (and California) there's news regarding Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, the Iraqi refugee who is fighting to remain in the US.  Don Thompson (AP) reports):


A U.S. immigration judge in California has halted the deportation of an Iraqi refugee to Iraq for fear that he could be tortured if he were returned there. Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas in November ruled that Omar Abdulsattar Ameen was eligible to be deported because he lied on his immigration papers. The decision came even though a federal judge earlier rejected allegations that he had killed a police officer on behalf of the Islamic State group. On Monday, advocates praised Naselow-Nahas’ decision blocking Ameen’s deportation to Iraq, although she ruled against him on other grounds. U.S. immigration officials declined comment.


Brittnay Johnson (KCRA) adds:


This is a case KCRA 3 Investigates has been following since Ameen was arrested in 2018. The U.S. Government claimed Ameen was a terrorist with ISIS and that he murdered an Iraqi police officer. Not only did it turn out that "Ameen" was not in Iraq at the time the alleged murder happened in 2014, but the judge also found the government's evidence had "substantial deficiencies" and is "ultimately unpersuasive," which led to the decision not to deport Ameen to Iraq.

"It is a big deal," Ilyce Shugall with Immigrant Legal Defense and part of Ameen's defense team, said. "It's a big deal for two reasons; really one, because the judge found that he does need protection from removal to Iraq and made a finding a very clear finding that she believes it is more likely than not that he would be tortured if returned. The second reason it's a big deal is because it's now the third time that a court has found that the government cannot prove that Mr. Ameen was involved in terrorist organizations or terrorist activities."


No, it is not safe in Iraq.  The judge recongizes what the Academy Awards did not.  Tomorrow, Baghdad is supposed to be the location of the vote for a president.  Twice that has failed.  



The following sites updated: