Like Maria Said Paz

Friday, October 30, 2020

Miles Taylor, the lying Breck girl

Breck girl Miles Taylor has been caught lying. He wrote an anonymous attack piece on Donald Trump which THE NEW YORK TIMES published and he billed himself as a high ranking official when he really wasn't. He's now exposed himself as anonymous and some observers are pointing out how he lied on CNN. Anderson Cooper asked him point blank if he was anonymous. He lied to CNN viewers. He's tried to justify it but no one seems too bothered -- at least no one at CNN. Jonathan Turley points out:

As Taylor was holding forth on good character and making huge amounts of money from his book, others were being investigated as the possible source including longtime national security aide Victoria Coates, who was reassigned to the Department of Energy. On Twitter, Taylor acknowledged that he might owe Coates an apology. Not the viewers however.

CNN however distinguishes between lies that undermine Trump and those other lies. It will keep Taylor as a contributor. That leaves the network with a rogue’s gallery of accused liars. CNN hired former intelligence chief James Clapper after he lied under oath. It hired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe after he alleged lied to federal investigators. Now it has retained Taylor who not only lied but lied to CNN and its viewers. The only common denominator is that they may be liars but they are anti-Trump liars. It is like a media version of being a “made man,” where you earn your bones by showing a willingness to do anything to protect a narrative — whether it is true or not.

It is worth noting Anderson Cooper has repeatedly denounced Trump and his aides for lying and CNN maintains that “facts matter.” Indeed, it was Copper who stated in one prior show: “What kind of person hires someone who promises never to lie to us, as Kayleigh McEnany did on her first day on the job, and then breaks that promise repeatedly?”

33-years-old and a professional liar several times over. What a proud moment for Breck girl Miles Taylor. Let's all be Joni Mitchell about him and start ''dreaming of all the pleasure I'm going to have, watching your hairline recede, my vain darling." Joni wrote that part of "Just Like This Train" about the incredibly vain James Taylor (who, yes, is the subject of that other big song about vanity). But it applies to Breck girl Miles Taylor as well. Shiny, straight, thin hair like that is among the first types men lose. Little Miley will probably be bald in ten years. What will he do when 'boyish' is gone? Have to get a new job? Have to find men into special fetishes? Who knows?

What we do know is that CNN has no problem paying liars and putting them on TV as experts.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, October 29, 2020. Let's talk about that 'truthful' press.

Starting in the US where the final days of the presidential election loom. Joe Biden is the Democratic Party's presidential nominee -- making the party's theme song "Old Man . . . Senile"? He knows he's running for something -- the presidency or maybe the Senate, he's not sure which. And he knows he's running against Donald Trump . . . or maybe George? He's so confused in public that he's even stood on stage at an event and mixed up his own sister and his own wife. Hopefully, should he ever be put in charge of the launch codes, he'll have it more together than he does currently. A caretaker presidency? Is that what the party's proposing?

At any rate, his lousy memory may give him that "plausible deniability" that his brother Jim Biden believes will protect him. Brooke Singman (FOX NEWS) reports:

Joe Biden and his presidential campaign are staying mum after Hunter Biden’s former business associate went public to say he met twice in the past with the former vice president -- despite past statements from Biden on the campaign trail that he had no involvement with or discussions about his family's overseas business ventures.

That associate, Tony Bobulinski, gave an interview on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Tuesday and detailed his alleged meetings with the former vice president—one of which took place on May 2, 2017, according to text messages first reported by Fox News last week.

Those messages indicated that the meeting did, in fact, take place. Bobulinski claimed Tuesday that it was Hunter Biden and Jim Biden, the brother of the former vice president, who had pushed the meeting.

“They were sort of wining and dining me and presenting the strength of the Biden family to get me engaged,” he said.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on the meeting Biden allegedly had with Bobulinski. Biden himself has not yet directly addressed Bobulinski's claims on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

The media is a pack of whores and liars and that's nothing new. Why, oh why, a drive-by e-mail to the public account wonders, why can't I be nice about the press like the great Meryl Streep?

Unlike Meryl, the press has nothing on me. She's got that genteel reputation that they've built for her that's a complete falsehood. She benefits from their lies so she lies for them. I'm not accusing her of anything criminal, to be clear, but the press has long made a point to hush-up her sexual affairs. Pets of the press know to not to bite the hands that feed them.

The press is a damn liar. That's the bulk of the press and it's nothing new. We could go over the Iraq War -- and how Meryl's praise of the press (when she was promoting a film about the press) ignored that history -- and how they collectively and intentionally lied. They refused to offer dissenting voices and they ran a crackdown on descent that even included trashing Sheryl Crow. A critic trashed Sheryl on orders of the editor. The critic wrote that Christian A should have been nominated because her album was superior. Whatever the merits of that album (considered one of Christian's worst) it would not have been nominated for a Grammy that year because it came out after -- after -- the eligibility period. I met that critic who wanted to interview me for something else. I had already said no but I did speak to the critic because I wanted to know why the hell they wrote those lies. I already knew because a columnist at the same publication had already told me (I'm friends with the columnist, we've highlighted him here many times). But I wanted to see if the critic had the guts to get honest. The critic got honest. The Grammy piece was intended to be a hit job on Sheryl to discredit her because she was opposed to the Iraq War. Need another example? Jane Fonda's return to comedy with MONSTER-IN-LAW -- I have the e-mails on that, the e-mails where three different papers planned how they would knock the film -- planned this before it was released and before anyone had seen it -- because Jane might become "a powerful voice against the Iraq War the way she was with Vietnam."

Take Tom Cruise. Sumner Redstone was doing poorly with stockholders and it was about to get worse. To save his own ass, he went after Tom Cruise trying to blame him and destroy him. As noted when this was going down, I don't like Tom. I was wary of Nicole when she was married to Tom. (I like Nicole now.) I am friends with Paula Wagner but that's not why I defended Tom. I defended him because a corporation wanted him trashed and the whorish press was yet again doing big business' bidding. They did the same thing with Marilyn Monroe.

I'm glad FOX is no more as a film studio.

Marilyn Monroe killed herself because her career was over. I dictate that right now and I know confusion abounds. Younger people are going, "Huh? Her career wasn't over." Because they know reality. But reality was hidden by the press until the mid 80s. They ran with the lie that her career was over. She'd been fired from SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE. Getting older and no career prospects, she took her own life!

Except she was signed for other films and FOX had rehired her for SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE. She was the lamb they slaughtered -- with the help of the press -- when FOX was in deep trouble (the CLEOPTATRA overfuns).

The press lies all the time. A friend is gay and is always just about to come out, always just about to. The current excuse he offers it the pandemic. Who knows, when films are being shown again, who will have a career and who won't? So he's going to wait.

In the meantime? He's yet again portrayed as a ladies' man. This is a man who started taking viagra in his twenties and was telling the press that (until I asked him if he realized what he was confessing to). This is a man whom everyone pretty much knows is gay. But the press continues the lie. They're part of it.

They lie about the little things, they lie about the big things. Even when they're given direct orders, they know what the policies are.

Jonathan Chait's the latest example of a liar. Ruth's "Jonathan Chait is a liar" notes that Jonathan's lying about the Hunter Biden e-mails. He tells you that TIME reported on the e-mails and told you that the e-mails THE NEW YORK POST published a report about were first shopped in Ukraine. No. No, TIME didn't say that.

We went over that a week ago when TIME published that bad report. Third paragraph of that awful 'report:'

The two people who said they were approached with Hunter Biden’s alleged emails last year did not know whether any of them were real and they declined to identify who was behind the offers, the first of which came in late May 2019 and the second in mid-September 2019. The two people said they could not confirm whether any of the material presented to them was the same as that which has been recently published in the U.S.

Chait lying yesterday:

There have been several fishy aspects to the accusations, however. For one, incriminating information supposedly located on a Hunter Biden laptop left in a Delaware computer shop had in fact been circulating in Ukraine well before it was reportedly turned over to Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer. Over the weekend, Time reported that the Hunter Biden emails and photos were being shopped in Kiev last fall by somebody who “wanted to sell it to Republican allies of President Trump.”

TIME reported no such thing, you just saw what they reported. Jonathan Chait is a liar. He was an Iraq War cheerleader so he's also a disgusting piece of trash. A functioning society would have flushed him down the drain but NEW YORK MAGAZINE employs him. That tells you all you need to know about the press in the United States. There is no accountability and, as long as you whore, they will pay you.

The editorial board of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL argues, "Joe Biden is asking voters to elect him on the strength of his character, honesty and judgment. Which is why Mr. Biden owes a response to new allegations about his son Hunter's business deals." Yes, it's a conservative editorial board. That doesn't mean the issues raised don't need to be addressed. We could note the comments of the Senate Committee but its chair is a Republican so some will dismiss those comments. But what the editorial board is stating should not be controversial in the least.

Elsewhere in the world of madness, Katie Bo Williams (DEFENSE ONE) writes of Bully Boy Bush's talk of training Iraqi forces in 2004 and how it would mean this and that:

It’s the same buoyant progress report that dozens of American generals have delivered for 16 years. Now, there is constant and ongoing pressure from President Donald Trump — and the American public — to “end the forever wars” by bringing troops home from places like Afghanistan and Iraq. As Trump is directing the United States drawdown its military presence in Iraq — and reportedly weighing closing its sprawling embassy in Baghdad if Iraq doesn’t do more to stop security threats from Iran — it’s not clear what standard Iraqi security forces would need to meet to satisfy the terms laid out by Bush, McKenzie, and a host of presidents and other officials in between.

They have been trained and re-trained. There is no improvement. There will not be because there is no reason to fight or secure. The government does not represent the people. That's why so many military forces flee in battle to this day. The Iraqi government is a false creation that repeatedly has the US and Iran coming together to select whatever coward fled Iraq under Saddam to now be the prime minister. They aren't qualified, they aren't wanted and they aren't leaders.

That's why the security forces are not giving it their all. They have no investment in preserving a government that does not represent them.

Joe Biden overturned election results in 2010 -- nullified them with The Erbil Agreement. And maybe that was a good thing -- maybe it made clear to the Iraqi people that they really did not have a say in their government. Maybe it kept them from becoming deluded about the so-called promise of democracy?

The following sites updated:

Thursday, October 29, 2020

The problematic

Jonathan Turley:

My column this morning in the Hill discussed a call by columnist and professor Norm Ornstein to impeach Amy Coney Barrett if she does not yield to a demand to recuse herself from any election challenge before the Court. A demand for such recusal was filed yesterday in the Supreme Court. Ornstein’s call for impeachment is the latest unhinged response to Barrett nomination and further decouples our national debate from any sense rationality and restraint.

Ornstein declared on Twitter: “If Amy Coney Barrett goes on the Court and immediately votes for PA voter suppression, she should quickly be impeached. Trump asked her openly to act to tilt the scales of the election.”

I have already addressed the recusal calls as entirely baseless. Recusal under these circumstances would create a dangerous precedent for future nominees who are pressured to recuse solely to influence the outcome of pending or expected cases. There is not a single case in history where such a recusal of the justice has occurred under this type of flimsy claim. Barrett has no personal, professional, or financial interest in pending election cases.

We have had only one justice ever impeached in our history. That was Samuel Chase in 1804 and he was acquitted by the Senate in 1805.

The Chase case is a telling point of comparison. Like today, the politics of the time were lethal and hysterical. Chase was a highly partisan Federalist who was tainted by the use of the Alien and Sedition Acts to attack political critics during the Administration of John Adams. The impeachment, supported by Thomas Jefferson, was based on Chase’s presiding on controversial trials for figures like James Callender. Despite the Federalist being in the minority in the Senate, the senators overwhelmingly rejected the case against Chase.

Norm Ornstein is, and always has been, a problematic individual. He is a right-winger who loves war. If you think the 'redemption' of hideous people by idiotic Democrats began with the Trump era, you are so wrong. Pig Boy Al Franken was the one to redeam Norm, his buddy. Al Franken was for the Iraq War, people forget that too. They also forget that in 2004, he was for the Iraq War and in 2005. They forget that he had Meg Ryan on his show and she called for an end to the war then, after she was no longer in the studio, he attacked her viewpoint and attacked her. That's the sort of person who is for Norm Ornstein. Norm has never had a helpful idea in the world.

We really should be a lot smarter and instead of wasting energy 'reforming' people who aren't worth an image rehab, we should be focusing on issues that can improve our lives.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, October 28, 2020. The Biden scandal continues to fester, a 'reporter' writes a column that makes clear all the complaints we've made about her and we look at a feud and how women are not helping other women.

Starting in the United States where the long campaign season should wrap up after next Tuesday when voting should end. Joe Biden is the non-house broken pet of the media and they remain determined to carry him across the line. But there are problems on the horizon. Jeffrey Martin (NEWSWEEK) reports:

In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Tuesday night, Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski said that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did not want tighter controls placed around a holding company that did business with the Chinese government.

Bobulinski has claimed to have information linking the Biden family to shady business deals in China. When some documentation was published by the New York Post in October which purported to provide evidence, many claimed the story was based on uncorroborated sources. Bobulinski said in a Thursday press conference that he had documentation and electronic devices that would implicate the Bidens.

Pseudonyms for major players in the business were allegedly used in the emails including the word "chairman," which Bobulinski claims is how Hunter Biden referred to Joe Biden. Bobulinski said he had asked for tighter financial controls to be placed around Oneida Holdings, a company set up to handle dealings between the Bidens and Chinese energy company CEFC. According to Bobulinski, Hunter Biden replied by saying that his "chairman gave an emphatic no."

And here's the interview in question with US Navy veteran Tony Bobulinski.

Tuesday, Jonathan Turley observed:

In her interview with Joe Biden, CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell did not push Biden to simply confirm that the emails were fake or whether he did in fact meet with Hunter’s associates (despite his prior denials). Instead O’Donnell asked: “Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter’s computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?”

Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:

“From what I’ve read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?”

It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter’s laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.

Recently, Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid wrote said the quiet part out loud by telling the media: “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.”

Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though American intelligence has repeatedly rebutted that claim. It does not even matter that the computer has seized the computer as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies to investigators.

This should worry everyone. Ava and I pointed out:

Tara Reade is not going to go away -- nor should she. Here's the really scary thing: The press isn't going to change either. Should Joe Biden win the election, the press is going to continue to cover for him. If they couldn't investigate him during a campaign for the presidency, they're not going to suddenly start after he's sworn in. In fact, they're far less likely to -- it would require them admitting they'd made a mistake and hadn't done their jobs. As we've seen with regards to the Iraq War, confessing to malpractice isn't in the journalist make up.

Ava and I also note the attacks on Tony and how they echo the attacks on Tara. The press carries these attacks out at the request of the Biden campaign. The Biden campaign won't deal with the charges -- whatever the charges are -- they'll only launch smears and character attacks.

Bruce Golding (NEW YORK POST) reports:

A former Hunter Biden business partner said Tuesday he was warned against going public with information about their business dealings when another ex-partner told him: “You’re just going to bury all of us.”

During an appearance on Fox News, Tony Bobulinski said he spoke with former partner Rob Walker to demand that Walker get US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to retract his claim that The Post’s recent reporting on Hunter Biden’s emails was part of a Russian-orchestrated “smear on Joe Biden.”

Host Tucker Carlson then played a snippet of an audio recording that Bobulinski said was part of the phone conversation.

“If he doesn’t come out, on record, I am providing the facts,” Bobulinski said.

“Ah, Tony, you’re just going to bury all of us, man,” Walker responded.

Bobulinski, a former US Navy lieutenant, said he was outraged by Schiff’s Oct. 16 comments on CNN, where Schiff attacked a series of reports by The Post about Hunter Biden’s emails.

Harriet Alexander (DAILY MAIL) zooms in on this:

After Bobiulinski said goodbye to Joe on May 3, he went to meet Jim at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, he said.

Jim Biden, seven years younger than Joe, spent two hours discussing the family's story, and their careers.

Bobulinski told Carlson: 'I know Joe decided not to run in 2016, but what if he ran in the future - aren't they taking political risk or headline risk?

'And I remember looking at Jim Biden and saying: "how are you guys getting away with this? Aren't you concerned?"

'And he looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said: "plausible deniability".

'He said it directly to me at the cabana at the Peninsula Hotel, after an hour and a half or two-hour meeting, with me asking out of concern how are you guys doing this, aren't you concerned you will put your future presidential campaign at risk, the Chinese, the stuff you guys have been doing already in 2015 and 2016 around the world.

'And I can almost picture his face where he sort of chuckles and says plausible deniability.'

Jim has not responded to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, etc continues to avoid reality. But we don't live in a world where honesty and journalism go hand in hand. Example? We note THE NATIONAL when they've got something worth noting. We are especially careful about noting Mina al-Oraibi. She pretends to be an objective reporter but she's not. And her opinions frequently shape her coverage -- not by accident, by choice. She's not independent nor is she representing her own government (her dual citizenship is in the UK and Iraq). She is a mouthpiece for the US State Dept and, more importantly, for the US security lobby. Tell those truths and a lot of people get their feelings hurt. But we bring it up for those who refuse to see reality because 'reporter' Mina has a column at the US publication FOREIGN POLICY (a pro-war publication). I don't get how you write that column and then go on to pretend you're objective.

Mina needs to be writing clearly labeled columns for THE NATIONAL, not news reports. Her bias has leaked in to far too many of her so-called reports. We've called her out for it and for those who don't grasp why, read her FOREIGN POLICY column.

Let's weigh in on opinion for a moment so that Martha and Shirley don't have to continue to wade through the e-mails. There's some sort of conflict between Jimmy Dore and Ana Kasparian. Apparently, I have to weigh in according to e-mails. Wasn't planning to, certainly don't know all the details but if you want it, don't complain to me after I offer it. Jimmy Dore. An important voice. Do I always agree with him? No. I disagree with his take on Tulsi Gabbard. She was a fake ass. She gave Joe Biden a pass for the Iraq War in the debate and then spent days using her media time to excuse him. So don't tell me she's anti-war. She's nothing of the sort. She also, as Ana noted, refused to vote for Bernie's measure regarding the war. I also strongly disagreed with Jimmy's argument that the Green Party should have given this year's nomination to Jesse Ventura. How is that fair? He refused to campaign -- but did say he'd take it if it was given to him -- while others went out there and campaigned. Why would you do that? Why would you let people campaign and then, at the last minute, give the nomination -- gift it to them -- when they refused to campaign?

Those are the two times I've disagreed with Jimmy in the last 12 or so months. Those are both opinions -- meaning he could be wrong or I could be wrong. I'm sure we both feel strongly about the issue. But these are opinions. I do not have any problems with Jimmy over facts. And I think he's a very important voice and that's why we highlight him.

Ana?

I want to like Ana. But she's a reactionary far too often. She's also a woman who does nothing to promote other women -- which is a lesson she honed at THE YOUNG TURKS -- one of the most vile and disgusting places. It is toxic and we've called TYT out for years.

Ana's now doing work with JACOBIN. Her weekend co-host died. Did you notice what happened after? She got a new co-host.

Is there a rule that the co-host has to be a man? I mean Rachel Maddow started out on AIR AMERICA RADIO with Lizz Winstead as her co-host. Two women, imagine that. (Chuck D was a co-host but he was largely a drop-by co-host and he was not on the bulk of the UNFILTERED broadcasts.)

It's not like JACOBIN is top heavy with women -- as either guests or hosts. They do all these solo pieces where a man -- and it's always a man -- looks into the camera and just gives a lecture. So I'm scratching my head over why JACOBIN couldn't get a female co-host. I guess the idea never occurred to Ana who comes from TYT.

A question we should all ask is why that is? Then we should be asking why, in 2020, we're letting our 'progressive' outlets get away with this crap?

Women aren't even half the guests on these shows. We're lucky if a woman is a co-host. Why are we acting like this is okay? Why are we letting 'progressive' outlets lecture us when they do so from a sexist platform?

Katie Halper is only going to be noted from now on if it's a female guest on the video clip. I'm not interested in all this male, male, male nonsense. Sorry to be that way but I'm not. Women have made no leaps and bounds on the internet. The same male gatekeepers got to establish the rules and far too many women have gone along with it. MOTHER JONES is run by two women who have made their 'star' contributors . . . two men. One of whom cheerleaded the Iraq War (the other of whom attacked those who protested the war). Laura Flanders presents as a feminist but her show can't feature an equal number of men and women. I really don't want to hear from Katie or any of them about the sexism they face. I don't deny that they face sexism. I just know that they have a platform that they could be using to make a difference and they refuse to do so.

Ana, Katie, Krystal, Laura, et al? Do you know why some people don't take you seriously? Because you're women. And, guess what, my heart doesn't break for you.

You decide who you will bring on to your shows. By making women half your guests, you would be saying, "Women matter. Women can speak to issues. Women are half the population." You don't do that. And you suffer as a result because your shows feature men over and over and, in doing so, put forth the lie that the male opinion matters more.

That's what you say when you refuse to bring on women in equal numbers.

Now at THIRD right now, Ava and I are focused on ALL SONGS MATTER which is top heavy with men each Friday. But we find that to be the case over and over regardless of what program we're tracking or what magazine. Remember we traced the by-lines for THE NATION to document how awful that was (and turned down bribes -- offering Ava and I space in the magazine to shut up and stop our study mid-year was a bribe). Why are we having to fight with, for example, THE NATION over their refusal to publish an equal number of women to men? If you missed that reality, go read "The Nation featured 491 male bylines in 2007 -- how many female ones?" and if you don't have the time, the answer is 149. They published 491 pieces with a male byline and 149 with a female. And this is when not only was Katrina vanden Heuvel in charge (she still is) but Betsy Reed had a say in all of this as well.

Women are not helping other women. That's the reality. We see it at THE NATION, we see it at MOTHER JONES. We see it on Katie Halper's podcast and on others.

So, no, I'm not on Ana's side -- mainly because she's not on the side of women.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

The media scandals

From Sunday, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Calm Deliberation of Hysterical Stelter"

Now this is Jonathan Turley:

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI. No mainstream reporter bothered to ask the simple question of whether this was his son’s laptop and emails, including emails clearly engaging in an influence peddling scheme and referring to Joe Biden’s knowledge. Instead, media has maintained a consistent and narrow focus. Indeed, in her interview, Leslie Stahl immediately dismissed any “scandal” involving Hunter in an interview with the President on 60 Minutes. It was an open example of what I previously noted in a column: “After all, an allegation is a scandal only if it is damaging. No coverage, no damage, no scandal.”

Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:

“From what I’ve read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?”

It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter’s laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.

This is a real scandal. In fact, it's two real scandals. The first one is Hunter Biden's crooked schemes which may or may not involve Joe. The second scandal is the way the media refuses to do its job and cover these stories. If the story is harmful to Biden, the media looks the other way.

In fact, it's a point Ava and C.I. make in their "Media: NPR doesn't trust its listeners:"

They make a good point -- and it's also a scary point.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, October 27, 2020. Suadad al-Salhi remains targeted in Iraq, Joe Biden continues to campaign on nothing, real issues are ignored by both Joe and the press, and much more.

America's long nightmare will soon be over. The Trump presidency? No, the hysteria over the election as if voting ever changed anything. Emma Goldman was right: "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." The American Empire goes on, regardless of who is in the White House. Donald Trump is crass and that seems to upset a number of neocons and neolibs. He's not the different from Barack Obama -- who made a mockery of the lead water in Flint -- except he's less smooth. They're madmen, the criminals who run the United States. They terrorize the world and a lot of Americans fool themselves otherwise.

As Gloria La Riva observes, the Democrats and the Republicans are two pillars of the Pentagon.

Gloria is the US presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

2020 could have been a change moment. Bernie Sanders isn't an especially smart person, not especially wise and he certainly never demonstrated much of a backbone in his Congressional career but, in 2020, he did run on real issues, on the actual needs of the American people. That's why people responded to his campaign in such large numbers. Had he received the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, you would have had an electrified electorate who would have made demands and held him to what he was promising. Instead, the powers-that-be rigged the election for the worst person running for the nomination: Joe Biden.

Joe promises nothing. He will deliver nothing for the people. He's pro-fracking, he's anti-New Green Deal, he's anti-Medicare For All and he's never held accountable for his actions with regards to Iraq. In fact, the media has acted as though -- has lied -- his actions with Iraq began and ended in 2002 with his vote for the Iraq War. Joe's been able to stand on the debate stage during the primaries, taking credit for Iraq and bragging that Barack put him in charge of Iraq. Barack did put him in charge. For eight years, Joe was in charge. It was eight of the worst years the country has seen since the war began.

It was under Joe, for example, that the US government overturned the votes of the Iraqi people in 2010 and then brokered The Erbil Agreement to give the loser of that election, thug Nouri al-Maliki, a second term as prime minister. It was under Joe that the US looked the other way as Nouri refused to honor the promises he made in The Erbil Agreement to get a second term. This despite, please remember, the November phone call Barack made to Ayad Allawi promising that The Erbil Agreement had the full backing of the US government and would be enforced. Allawi, of course, is the person the Iraqi people voted for. This led to efforts to remove Nouri from office. Moqtada al-Sadr, Masoud Barazani, Ayad Allawi, Ammar al-Hakim and other leaders announced their intent and Moqtada, while the process went on, repeatedly and publicly reminded that all Nouri had to do to stop the effort was to start implementing his side of The Erbil Agreement. He refused, so they followed the removal process outlined in the Constitution, gathering signatures from MPs for the move for a no-confidence vote. They gathered those signatures and submitted them to the then-president of Iraq, Fat Ass Jalal Talabani.

So Nouri was removed?

If you're asking that question, you're admitting the American media failed you. It failed you in real time as this went down and it failed you for the last two years as they cheerleaded Joe and avoided reality.

Per the Constitution, Jalal's only role was to read the names into the record in Parliament. Under pressure from Joe Biden (and with US monies being dangled before him) the corrupt and corpulent Jalal invented 'new rules.' He had, he insisted, the obligation to verify the signatures. Okay . . . but then he added that he had the right to make sure that not only did they sign the paper but that if he had the paper in his hand today and was holding it and giving them the stink eye, the people who signed would still sign. He never revealed numbers but he insisted that a large number of MPs insisted that, yes, they signed but if, he was holding the petition in front of them today, they wouldn't sign it.

Joe's responsible for that. Jalal's responsible for lying. And Jalal got bit on his fat ass by karma. He did that, he betrayed Iraq, and sensing that the Iraqi people were going to be outraged, immediately left the country. He fled to Germany. He lied to the Iraqi people telling them this was life-threatening surgery. It wasn't. He had elective knee surgery (his knees were shot from carrying that fat ass of his around) (seriously, he was most infamous in America for a trip to a bookstore where his fat ass fell to the ground and he had to be helped up -- this after he had the equivalent of lipo on the same trip). Karam didn't like Jalal. That's why it made true on his lies. Meaning? By the end of the year, it gave him a stroke -- in the midst of an argument with Nouri. And he had to be medically transported to Germany. And? He never recovered. He couldn't speak, he could barely move.

All of that got left out in the US press that pretended to cover Iraq. So did the reality that Nouri's second term is responsible for the rise of ISIS. Nouri was a delusional paranoid, as the CIA noted in early 2006. That's why Bully Boy Bush selected him to be the prime minister of Iraq. It was thought that Nouri's intense paranoia would make him easy for the US government to manipulate and control. Joe wanted Nouri to have a second term and did not care about Nouri's make up or, for that matter, his actions. By 2010, it was already known that Nouri was running secret prisons and torture cells in Iraq. But Joe gave him that second term and one of the results was the rise of ISIS and ISIS seizing Mosul.

That's the actual record Joe bragged about in Democratic Party debates. And the bordello that is the American press whored and looked the other way.

They also looked the other way with regards to Jo Jorgensen which is why so many are unaware that -- by any standard -- Jo should have been on stage at the debates this month. She's the presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party and voters in all fifty states can vote for, she has the ballot access. There was no reason to bar her from the debates but no big corporate 'news' outlet wanted to write that article or serve up that video report, did they?

It's not enough that they rally behind Joe, they have to render invisible anyone who might challenge him -- that's a political opponent, that's Tara Reade or anyone else telling uncomfortable truths about Joe.

And the reality is that the man they rally behind promises nothing and swears nothing will change, that a bunch of lying whores rally behind.

Howie Hawkins is the presidential candidate for the US Green Party. At COUNTERPUNCH this morning, he notes:

The result of progressives consistently settling for the Democrats as the lesser evil has created a political dynamic has been moving US politics to the right for decades. The soft-right Democrats ignore progressive demands they pose no threat of taking their votes elsewhere. Instead, they adapt to the hard-right Republicans. Bill Clinton called it “triangulation.” Joe Biden calls it “working across the aisle.”

Meanwhile, the progressives in the Democratic Party are accommodating to Biden’s politics. Bernie Sanders is now for Medicare for All over 55 years old with a public option for the rest. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the Green New Deal slogan from the Greens and diluted the content in the non-binding resolution for a Green New Deal by dropping the essential immediate demand for a ban on fracking and new fossil fuel infrastructure, eliminating the rapid phase-out of nuclear power, removing the deep cuts in military spending to help fund the program, and extending the deadline for zero carbon emissions from 2030 to 2050. The words Green New Deal were not mentioned at the Democratic convention, in the Sanders-Biden Unity Task Force recommendations on climate, or in the Democratic Platform, which is pro fossil fuels and, for the first time in 50 years, pro nuclear.

There will be no Medicare for All or Green New Deal from the Democrats, let alone a retreat from military bloat, wars, and coups abroad. But these progressives counsel people to vote for them everywhere, which tells the Democrats to take them for granted because posed no threat to vote for the Greens anywhere.

I don’t support a safe states strategy. Every state is a battleground for the Green Party. The gas industry is fracking the hell out of battleground states Pennsylvania and Ohio where the ducking Democrats join the retrograde Republicans lending no support to the anti-fracking movement. Greens, not the Democrats, are fighting the expansion of the Enbridge oil pipelines that take Alberta tar sands oil and Bakken fracked oil across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota on to oil refineries. In every state, Greens are taking on Democratic machines in the cities, and real estate industry that finances them, when we fight for affordable housing and against the brutality of police forces that do what the Democrats in the cities designed them to do, which is to keep downscale people, particularly Black people, down and out of upscale communities. They are set up to police the New Jim Crow lines of school district and municipal boundaries that segregate us by race and class.

We should all be concerned about the voter suppression activities of Trump and the Republicans. But Greens know from bitter experience that we should also be concerned about voter suppression in the form of party suppression by the Democrats. The Democrats were able to knock the Greens off the ballot in Montana, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania where the Green petitions had two to three times the required signatures, which was difficult to do in the Covid lockdown. But the Democrats are also legislating party suppression. For example, in New York the Democrats rammed through a law attached to the state budget bill in April while attention was focused on the pandemic that triples the number of votes the Greens need to keep their ballot line. Only Nader for president in 2000 and me in 2014 for governor ever got that many votes as a Green candidate in New York. If we lose the ballot line, we will need 45,000 good signatures – triple the old number – collected in a six-week window to get statewide candidates on the ballot. When the Socialist Party lost its ballot line in 1938 in New York, it never recovered it. There was not an independent left party with a ballot line in New York again until the Green Party, 1999-2002 and 2010-?.

I can understand why people in a close state would vote for Biden to stop Trump. I don’t agree, but I share their desire to get Trump out. But why aren’t the prominent progressives afraid of a repressive Democratic Party that is suppressing the Green Party?

AOC whores lately. Did she ever do anything else? I don't know. But we called out AOC and Jane Fonda whoring yesterday. Here's a discussion of Howie rightly calling out AOC.

AOC's a whore. And Jane needs to shut up about the environment. We're talking about a woman who just produced a glossy paged coffee book about the environment -- so thick headed, she didn't grasp that coated paper isn't biodegradable. What an idiot.

Yesterday, we noted a conversation Tara Reade took part in. She pointed out that despite both Donald Trump and Joe Biden being accused by multiple women each of harassment and assault, the topic was never raised in either debate. So much was ignored in the duopoloy debate.

That's Howie talking about the environment. You know what else the duopoly debate ignored? Poverty. You can say basically any word now on primetime TV. The only word censored today is, in fact, poverty.

That's Howie talking about poverty. I haven't her 'Scranton Joe' talking about poverty. Have you? The duopoly debate certainly didn't address peace. The US government has multiple wars going on across the globe and the Iraq War, for example, turns 18 years old in March. But despite Donald and Joe both wanting to be sworn in as president in January 2021, neither had anything to say about peace or how to end these forever-wars.

You have many alternative to corporate Joe if you're voting. You can vote for Gloria La Riva, Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins, to name but three.

Turning to Iraq and the threat against journalism and specifically against journalist Suadad al-Salhy. Suadad has reported for ALJAZEERA, THE NEW YORK TIMES, ASSOCIATED PRESS and REUTERS. She currently reports for MIDDLE EAST EYE. The Iraqi government is attempting to silence her. RUDAW reports:

The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) is calling for the retraction of an arrest warrant issued for Middle East Eye journalist Suadad al-Salhy.

An Iraqi court ordered the arrest on October 22 over a libel lawsuit which is penalizable under Iraqi law by imprisonment, financial compensation or both. The warrant didn’t include information about the claimant, says the CFWIJ.

Salhy’s arrest warrant came the same day the journalist published an exclusive report claiming that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was behind Iraqi armed factions deciding to halt their attacks on US interests last week.

No announcement of Salhy's arrest has been made.

“The Coalition For Women In Journalism condemns the arrest warrant against Suadad and expresses its solidarity with the journalist,” the organization said in a Friday statement. “CFWIJ calls upon the Iraqi authorities to amend the penal code to remove imprisonment of journalists for publishing and libel and to ensure a safe and free environment for women journalists in Iraq.”

This is the MIDDLE EAST EYE report she wrote that has resulted in her being targeted. Wladimir van Wilgenburg (KURDISTAN 24) explains:

The report was posted to the web on Thursday and hours later, a judge at the Investigative Court in Karada issued a warrant for her arrest, charging her with “defamation.”

So in the view of the judge, Salhy had defamed Khamenei by stating that he was behind the militias’ declaration of a ceasefire.

The charge of defamation appears under article 443-1 of Iraq’s Penal Code and is punishable by a fine and a year in prison.

Kurdish officials have complained that despite Iraq’s liberal 2005 constitution, many laws from the deposed Baathist regime remain in effect.

Just why that article should have produced a charge of defamation—within mere hours of its publication—is not clear. It is quite possible that what really upset the judge in Karada (and any others who might have been involved) was Salhy’s earlier article, in which she reported, in detail, that Iran and its proxies in Iraq had retreated in the face of very serious US threats.

It is also unclear what authority the judge had to issue such a warrant or what investigation preceded its issuance, coming as it did, so soon after the article’s publication.

According to the website of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, under which the Karada court operates, a court of investigation consists of one judge and one attorney, and it responds to complaints from local police stations.

For now, no further steps have been taken against Salhy, and both the CPJ and RSF have called on Iraqi authorities to refrain from executing the arrest warrant and to drop the charge against her altogether.

None of the reporters who have worked with her, including Ned Parker, have bothered to note what's going on right now. I would've thought they would rush to support her and raise awareness about what's going on right now. Scott Horton (ANTIWAR RADIO) interviewed her in February (see below) and he still hasn't even Tweeted about her being targeted.

Meanwhile, protests continue in Iraq and we'll note two video reports.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated: