Wednesday, April 07, 2021

Don Lemon's sad, sad world

Don Lemon?  Like the other men on CNN, he's a drama queen.  Tears and nonsense is all he has to offer.  Jonathan Turley notes:


The White House is not the only outfit struggling to explain the false statements repeatedly made by President Joe Biden about Georgia’s election law.  Biden’s false claims have been widely refuted, including by the Washington Post.  Yet, CNN’s host Don Lemon mocked those raising the false statements and insisted that Biden merely misspoke. The problem is that he repeated the false claims after they were refuted and White House Press Secretary Jan Psaki has insisted that Biden was speaking truthfully in the Biden version of “alternative facts.”  What was also not explained on CNN was how the Georgia law is “Jim Crow on steroids” if these two objections are untrue and states like New York and Delaware (and Colorado where the MLB is sending the All-Star game) have stricter provisions. CNN ran the slogan “Facts First” throughout the Trump Administration, but it seems that facts are more fluid in 2021.

Lemon lashed out at critics of Biden as “incredibly dishonest and openly partisan” for his statements on the election law. Lemon mocked those raising the issue:

“Get this, Republicans have a new talking point, trying to turn Trump’s big lie onto Joe Biden, saying Joe Biden is lying about what’s in Georgia’s new voting law that restricts ballot access. New GOP talking point: Trying to turn Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ on to Biden for misspeaking about Georgia’s voting law.”

The problem is that Biden and the White House have continued to assert the statements as true.

During an interview on ESPN, Biden repeated his claim that the law is “Jim Crow on steroids” and added: “Imagine passing a law saying you cannot provide water or food for someone standing in line to vote, can’t do that? C’mon! Or you’re going to close a polling place at 5 o’clock when working people just get off?”

 

Don Lemon is a sad joke.  

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Tuesday, April 6, 2021.  Media, media, media . . . 

Let's start with media.  At the end yesterday's snapshot, I noted that Eric London's appearance on THE CONVO COUCH was bad manner at the very least:



We're going to note Eric London's appearance last week on THE CONVO COUCH.




Fiorella and Craig were  smart to have him on and Eric was smart not to pull a Jerry White -- or rather a full Jerry White.  Jerry made an ass out of himself -- a point Ann made at WSWS before WSWS pulled her comment -- on THE JIMMY DORE SHOW -- by having a fit over a previous guest.   See "The WSWS embraces censorship and derangement (Ava and C.I.)" for the'outrageous' comment that WSWS pulled.   Eric didn't have a fit but he wasted everyone's time.


Unlike Eric, I've been on talk shows -- nationally broadcast ones -- and I've never felt the need to say, "Dave, before we get into the new project, let's just have Paull and the band take it down a notch because r just need to go back a moment because the guest in the segment before me said . . ."  No one cares.  It's rude.  it's outrageous.  If you're on a talk show to promote something -- film, music, ideology, whatever -- use your time wisely.  


I get it, Eric, I do.  You and WSWS painted yourself into a corner and don't know how to get out of it.  You launched crazy conspiracy nonsense in the fall of 2020 and never let up.  You used it -- let's be honest -- to try to steep people into voting for Joe Biden.  That's what it was about and that's why your magazine's lousy candidate Joseph Kishore all but closed his presidential campaign over a month before the election.


You need to let it go.  It's done too much harm to WSWS.  People walked away and some are not going back.  "I was wrong" or "What was I thinking" -- two easy phrases to get out of the mess you are currently in.


Two e-mails to the public account insist that if Eric hadn't brought up another topic, people would have thought he agreed with THE CONVO COUCH.  No, they wouldn't.  That topic was not a part of his segment.  If Steve Martin tells a joke or does a bit I don't agree with and I follow him or I don't care for the band that follows and find their music to be offensive due to whomever they're ripping off, I don't have to stop my segment to tell the host just how much I disagree with another segment I was not in.  


It wasn't Eric's place.  He wanted to lecture Fiorella who was actually on the ground in DC, he wanted to tell her what she saw.  I like WSWS but they do that from time to time.  Trina took them on -- and she likes them as well -- when they were falsely reporting on her city (Boston) and doing so with no correspondent in Boston.    If WSWS wants to be known as the outlet that picks fights whenever they are a guest, they'll quickly find that they won't be invited guests anymore.


WSWS went off the nutty cliff with regards to Donald Trump in the fall of 2020.  They have refused to admit that they were wrong.  They have used the DC protest and the riot that followed it to argue that they were right.  No, they were not right.  They're embarrassing themselves.  


They should have apologized for that coverage.  Instead, they now appear on other programs to attack people who observed first hand what went down.  It's nonsense.


Especially the "other programs" aspect.


Does no one get that?

Because if Eric London wants to froth at the mouth over Donald Trump -- who is not in the White House -- he can do so . . . at the WSWS YOUTUE channel.  But that would mean actually creating content and goodness knows that they aren't very good about doing that.


They posted a video 2 days ago, 6 days ago, 1 week ago, 1 month ago . . .


Huh?


They have how many correspondents and they can't even do any videos?  


If they're that worried about what's on YOUTUBE, they should get off their lazy ass and post content to their YOUTUBE channel.


I tend to post videos here without streaming them and the reason is because I don't want to be Eric London.  A writer I enjoy, three weeks ago, repeated a falsehood that had been fact checked and found to be false.  I posted the video and didn't feel the need to comment.  The video was about more than that one falsehood.  


I usually post Glenn Greenwald but I won't be posting his latest interview because there are just too many falsehoods.  There's the claim that he was tough on Barack.  When, Glenn, when?  When you and Jane were going around trying to get him the nomination?  Was that when you were hard on him?  When he failed to end the Iraq War?  Help me out on when you started being hard on Barack -- or even skeptical of him?


I've told you for years he's a sexist.  Listen to his comments about Sady Doyle in that interview and you'll see what I'm talking about.  


I'm not going to post that video.  


I like Glenn and he's an important voice but he's a real struggle with honesty when it comes to him.  His blog that he self-describes?  It was a pro-war blog, specifically pro-Iraq War.  He tends to erase that -- and did in the interview with ZERO BOOKS -- the one I'm talking about above.


Fiorella and Craig's work on the DC incident is well known as is their stance.  If it made Eric that uncomfortable, he shouldn't have gone on the show.  Just like I won't be posting ZERO BOOKS' interview with Glenn because I made the mistake of listening and there's just too much in there that I know to be false.  


As for Noam Chomsky, I don't lie whores and Noam's a whore.  Glenn talks about poor Noam.  Not poor Noam.  Others have been doing "Noam Chomsky admits he was wrong" type reports about Noam admitting he made a mistake in urging people to vote for Joe Biden.  I'm not four years old.  I have a good memory.  Every four years, Noam endorses a Democrat and then, after the election, oops, I was wrong.  I'm sick of it.  He's a whore.  His endorsements go against his body of published work over and over again.  I'm sick of it and I'm sick of him.


Jimmy Dore.




Ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance, we called it out.  I forgot to return to it to make a point.  Jimmy addressed the appearance yesterday.


Did he talk about The Clinton Foundation?  I don't know, I'm asking because I haven't streamed it.


But Kamala should not have appeared at that event.


I have not attacked Kamala, I've not made this a site for Kamala hatred.  I know her.  Not very fond of her but I try to be fair.


I can't be fair on this.


The Clinton Foundation has had serious problems with transparency.  


After she's out of office, if she wants to appear there, fine.  But presently she is the Vice President of the United States and she needs to take that role seriously.  That includes not allowing yourself to be whored by Bill and Hillary Clinton to prop up their troubled foundation.


Bill left office in disgrace.


That is reality. 


The Supreme Court stripped him of his ability to practice law.  Al Gore blamed his 2000 loss in part on Bill and Bill's scandals.  


There's no need for a sitting Vice President to be whoring for Bill Clinton.


It was cheap, it was tacky and it was embarrassing.  It should never happen again.


Peter Grier, reporting for THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR in 2016, 


The problem is donors have been asking for stuff. Emails disclosed due to a lawsuit by the conservative group Judicial Watch reveal a number of instances where people who gave money to the foundation used foundation contacts to funnel various requests to Clinton’s State Department staff.

For instance, a wealthy West Coast sports executive asked a Clinton Foundation official for help in getting a visa for a British client, a soccer star denied entry to the US due to criminal charges. The Crown Prince of Bahrain asked a foundation official for help getting a meeting with Clinton.

“Good friend of ours,” noted foundation official Douglas Band when forwarding the request.

At least 85 people from private interests who had donated to the Clinton Foundation met with Clinton while she was secretary of State, according to an Associated Press review of her calendars. 


Kamala needs to be above reproach.  Rubbing shoulders with Bill at a Clinton Foundation event doesn't allow her to appear that way.  


It was bad optics, it was bad in every way possible.


We'll talk about  the garbage CNN is offering next time.


ADDED: We'll talk about it now -- 1:41 EST 4/6/21 because a number of you are asking for it including KeShawn who pointed out that Iraq is just a mention in the snapshot without talking about it.


From the CNN article:


Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a frequent critic of Biden administration nominees for supporting the Iraq War and other "forever wars," himself wrote in support of the Iraq War prior to becoming a senator in newly uncovered blog posts.

"The question should not be, When do we get to leave? But instead, How are we going to win?" Hawley wrote in one blog post from 2005 about Iraq.
Regardless of whether former President Donald Trump runs again in 2024, Hawley has positioned himself as a potential presidential candidate with a pro-Trump platform that has included largely voting against President Joe Biden's picks. Hawley has attacked Biden's team for being "pro-endless wars," citing past support for the Iraq War, and calling Biden's team "warmongers."


[. . .]
Phillip Letsou, a spokesman for Hawley, said Hawley's views had changed and pointed to his support in the Senate for withdrawing from Afghanistan and opposition to sending additional troops to the Middle East.
"Senator Hawley's views have definitely changed since his school days. If the twenty-year failed experiment in 'neo-conservative' globalism in the Middle East doesn't convince you that nation building doesn't work, nothing will," Letsou told CNN in an email.
It does not appear that Hawley campaigned on opposing Middle East wars prior to his election to the Senate, according to a KFile review of campaign events and interviews.



It's cute the way CNN goes after some and not others.  It's cute the way they lie to.  Hawley was 22 or 23 when the war started.    Pieces that written in 2005, when he was 24 or 25, are big news to CNN.  That would be the same CNN that let Joe Biden slide repeatedly over his Iraq War claims -- including his claim to regret his vote -- he doesn't, listen and he'll tell you his regret is that he trusted Bully Boy Bush would get the numbers right, etc.  Bully Boy Bush tricked him!!!! Wah!! Wah!!!  

Now Joe wasn't a college student when the Iraq War -- that he voted for and supported -- started.  He was a grown man who had already been in the Senate for decades.  He was on year thirty in the Senate when he voted for the Iraq War.

So there's that.

It's also nonsense because I've yet to see CNN do the opposite -- point out an anti-war critic who changed their mind.  The Iraq War is still going on and you can ask Senator Mike Gravel about how one member of Congress can make an impact -- if they choose to do so.


Third, we're talking about CNN which allows Christiane Amanpour to advocate for war on a regular basis.  

Fourth, huh????????

Unlike CNN, I was opposed to the Iraq War.  I started speaking against it one month before it started.  So I don't have any apologizing to do.  CNN ignores its own past which allows it to pretend it doesn't owe any apologies.

But we were not all on the same page in the US.

The country turned against the Iraq War in 2006.  So Josh's experience tracks with that of the majority of Americans.  Does CNN not get that?  How stupid are they?

It's hard to believe that this isn't a slam at a member of Congress for being opposed to forever wars.  Especially when you consider how little CNN noted the 18th anniversary of the Iraq War just last month.

I don't know if Hawley's for real, I don't know if he isn't.  But Josh's actions are not the indictment CNN seems to believe they are.  If he rethought his position, he did so while the rest of the country was doing so.  (Which is why I don't get why Glenn Greenwald can't cop to what he did in terms of supporting the war at the start.) CNN did a very poor job.  It reads like advocacy -- bad advocacy on the part of some idiots who can't take the time to first do the work required -- not like journalism.

 

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