Wednesday, July 26, 2023

That disgusting Glenneth

Glenneth Greenwald.  Watching him is physically repulsive, we all grasp that, right?  Also: Do his hands ever not move?  Jazz hands really are not necessary for an interview.  So Glenneth insists/sneers that people on the left are saying Joe Biden is the lesser of two evils and that Cornel West should only campaign in swing-states.  Campaign in swing states?


Glenneth is such an idiot.  Cornel West is not the Green Party nominee.  Next year, at the party's summer convention, he might become their nominee.  But right now?  Nope.


That's so Glenneth, always eager to yack and never at all inhibited by the only glaring holes in his knowledge base.


What's he doing?

Attacking Joe.  He doesn't care about Joe Biden.  He's on board with RFK Junior at present.  He's a huckster and a con artist.  He's someone who has hidden illegal spying on the American people from the public.  It's true.  He refused to release the rest of the data that Ed Snowden handed him.  Just like he refused to help Reality Winner or any of the other whistle-blowers who got burned while Glenneth was at THE INTERCEPT.  He's a fraud and always has been.  Remember, please, Sibel Edmonds was on to him long ago. 

That's very telling, isn't it?  Sibel Edmonds was silenced by the US government for her whistle blowing activities.  Glenneth got rich off whistle-blowing -- or at least got rich over turning the documents meant for the American people over to Pierre instead.

Who are the fools praising Glenneth as anything other than a prostitute?

The term for him and what he's trying to do with regards to the 2024 election is "rat f**ker."

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, July 25, 2023.  Now is really not a time for vanity campaigns yet we see one politician after another divorced from reality.



NEWSER, "RFK JR.: MEDIA HITS ME WORSE THAN TRUMP."  BUSINESS INSIDER, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is complaining that the media is criticizing him more than it did Donald Trump."  On and on it goes.  It's not rooted in reality.  I think Donald can rightly claim to have been the worst treated in this century of any US political candidate.  But even worse, melomaniac Donald Trump still managed to put some policy into his whines.  'They're attacking me because I'm the smartest, did you see what I just did with ____ it's huge, no one's ever done bigger.'  

Junior?  He's just a common variety narcissist.   He's obsessed with himself and thinks you should vote for him because of his daddy and his uncle.  

Now he doesn't lean on his whole family.  How could he?  The ones breathing call him out.

His campaign has no real issues and finds him whining every damn day. 

There's little he can speak out on because he doesn't want to lose his right-wing base.  

So he just keeps talking about himself over and over and over.

And everyone pretends that this is a normal campaign and he's a natural candidate. 

He'll be 70 next year and decides to learn politics while running a campaign?  No, let's all act like that's natural.

He's censored!

He yells that from outlet to outlet!

And he's so censored, he's having his own little censorship brunch with the likes of Glenneth Greenwald.

At the censorship brunch, will they speak of how Junior censors Roger Waters?  How 'the most censored man' went from praising Waters to turning his back on him publicly when the right-wing wasn't fond of Waters?

And maybe, at that moment, Glenneth can put down his cucumber sandwich for a minute and talk about censorship -- specifically, how Glenneth never released even half the documents Ed Snowden intended to be made public and then Glenneth spent years hiding behind the fact that THE INTERCEPT has them but, turns out, Glenneth's had copies the entire time. 

Who the f**k is Glenneth Greenwald to get to decide what the American people get to know and don't get to know?

Wasn't Ed whistle-blowing for a reason?

Glenneth is the Censorship Drag King.

He's also a stupid moron.  And we do have to go there for a moment.  When you pick godparents for your children, it's not based on who gets X amount of streams.  It's based on who could step in and raise them if something happened to you.  David's dead.  Glenneth, it's time for you to stop being such a minor-star f**ker and do the job you're expected to.

Stop naming X and Y godparents when they don't live in the country the kids are being raised in, when they don't even live in the same city together.  You're insane and  short changing your children.  As usual.  But, hey, you put up a Tweet!  Don't you and Bri-Bri look cute together!  

David's dead and Glenneth's pairing the kids with godparents who don't live in Brazil -- where the kids live -- and who don't live together in the US and who don't have any parental experience.  

Back in September, right here, we suggested that he get his lazy ass to the hospital and keep it there.  We noted that David was probably going to die.  Glenneth was too focused on creating his bad talk show to be at his husband's side and give him the attention he needed as his life came to a close.

Now Glenneth is the sole parent of their children and he still can't get his act together.  

Picking a godparent for your children is not a selfie -- in fact, it's the most selfless thing you need to do.  All the more so when the number of parents that they have dropped from two down to one.


Changing topics, the following are headlines from yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!;

Climate scientists have confirmed the first half of July marked the hottest two weeks in recorded human history — and there are no signs that the summer of climate extremes is set to end any time soon. In Greece, evacuations are underway from the fire-scorched island of Corfu. This follows the largest mass evacuation in Greek history as some 30,000 people fled what survivors described as “hellish” wildfires in Rhodes in recent days. European holiday-goers who spent nights on the floors of airports and emergency shelters described harrowing scenes.

Helen Pickering: “Smoke had been traveling over our pool for quite some time at the Princess Sun Hotel. And it was just getting worse and worse, and we started to hear the helicopters. And then, basically, you could see the fire, eventually, on the mountaintop. Panic, everyone dashing about, fleeing for buses.”

At least 82 wildfires are blazing across Greece during this summer’s unprecedented heat wave, displacing thousands of people and burning down homes.

In Italy, record-breaking heat was followed Friday by a fierce hail storm in the north, where ice the size of tennis balls fell on the streets of Seregno, just north of Milan, inundating the streets in icy floodwaters.


In India, authorities have ended a rescue mission after a monsoon-triggered landslide in the western state of Maharashtra killed at least 27 people and flattened homes. At least 57 are still missing and presumed dead. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, flash floods and landslides have killed at least 44 people in recent days. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is warning global heating has pushed cases of dengue fever to near record highs.

In Bangladesh, authorities say the mosquito-borne viral infection has already reached epidemic proportions, killing 176 people this year, many of them children.

In Canada, authorities in Nova Scotia say the region was deluged in less than 24 hours with the amount of rain it typically gets in three months. Here in the U.S., the Newell Road wildfire in Washington’s Klickitat County grew to nearly 52,000 acres Sunday, prompting evacuations. Authorities say the fire threatens farms, crops and livestock, as well as solar and wind farms and a natural gas pipeline. If it continues to grow, it could also threaten the Yakama Indian Reservation.


Don't worry though.  Junior wants to be president and he thinks big business and the free market will save the planet without any need for regulations.

Yeah, that hasn't worked.  It's just one more insane idea from his already addled mind. 

None of the leaders are doing anything to save the world.

If you're one of the most at risk countries, like Iraq is, you should be demanding that no new oil deals take place until your government comes up with some real plans -- and, no, 'plant some trees' is not a strategic plan to address climate change.


In Baghdad, the arguments usually start off small, says Marama Habib, a long-time resident of the Iraqi capital.

"In the village, like the one I come from, people do not accept strangers sitting outside their property or on their walls," explains the journalist, who lives in Baghdad's affluent Karada neighborhood but is originally from a small town outside of Karbala; she did not want to give her real name for fear of upsetting her family back home or her neighbors.

"But in the city, everybody does it. It's OK just to sit on the street outside somebody's house. It's normal. But the farmers from the country don't understand this and they come out and start arguing. I've seen people get into fights," she told DW.

Habib offers a further example of the growing rural-urban culture clash in Iraq. Rural families are not accustomed to seeing women wearing Western-style clothes, she says. Habib is religious herself and wears a headscarf but the rest of her wardrobe involves modest garments like long-sleeved shirts and jeans, a common look in Baghdad.

"In the villages, women are more covered," she explains, referring to long tunics and robes that show even less of the female figure. "So the farmers come to Baghdad and they think the women wearing Western clothes are prostitutes," Habib says, laughing a little. "That can also cause problems. I mean, I'm from the countryside originally so I understand where they're coming from. I try to talk to them. But it does cause problems."

These are the kinds of societal problems that Iraq is likely to see more of.

The United Nations says Iraq is one of the five countries in the world worst affected by climate change. Around 92% of Iraqi land is threatened by desertification and temperatures here are increasing seven times faster than the global average. This makes agriculture difficult, if not impossible, and causes farming families to migrate to Iraq's cities in search of work and opportunity.

"Rural towns in Iraq already face a number of issues," says James Munn, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council's Iraq office. Due to long periods of conflict in Iraq, rural areas are already resource starved, he told DW. "So there are fewer jobs, not much working infrastructure, scarcity of water, few schools, few hospitals. That's the backdrop to what's happening now. And then climate change is supercharging all those vulnerabilities further, forcing even more people to leave."

A spokesperson from the UN's International Organization for Migration, or IOM, in Iraq, told DW that between June 2018 and June 2023, it had identified at least 83,000 people displaced "due to climate change and environmental degradation across central and southern Iraq." 

"These movements are largely rural to urban, and over short distances," IOM said. And, the spokesperson confirmed, "host communities in urban areas have cited tensions."

Many of the climate-displaced end up living in shanty towns or informal settlements in and around larger cities.

"New arrivals tend to fall at the margins of a system that local populations are already accustomed to," the IOM spokesperson said. "Then a majority of the displaced population is also employed in low wage jobs in the informal sector — things like daily labor, informal commerce, small businesses or in workshops — while local residents mostly have government jobs."

The newcomers compete with long-term residents for already-stretched infrastructure and may find it difficult to access things like transport, healthcare or education. Even sewage systems and clean drinking water can be hard to come by. Social support networks may be limited and there's more chance of mental illness and substance abuse.



What's the government of Iraq doing to prepare for those shifts?

The rest of the world isn't expected to be as hard hit (immediately) as Iraq.  But it will be hit.  Do you really think the US is ready?  The same US government that has been unable (unwilling) to address the homeless crisis going back to the 1980s?


And you look at the people (mainly losers) who say they want to be president in 2024 and they're not talking about reality.  They're not talking what's really in our immediate future.  


The heat waves simultaneously broiling the southwest United States and southern Europe would have been “virtually impossible” if not for climate change, according to a group of scientists who study the probability of extreme weather events. A third heat wave, in China, could have been expected about once every 250 years if global warming weren’t a factor.  

“The role of climate change is absolutely overwhelming” in producing all three extremes, said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, who contributed to the new research, which was published Tuesday by the World Weather Attribution group. 

The group is a loose consortium of climate scientists who study extreme weather and publish rapid findings about climate change’s role in major events. Their research methods are published and peer-reviewed, but this specific, rapid analysis has not yet undergone a typical academic review process. Previous analyses by this group have held up to scrutiny after their initial release and were ultimately published in major academic journals. 

Global warming has increased the likelihood of extreme temperatures so significantly that heat waves as powerful as the ones setting records in places like Phoenix, Catalonia and in China’s Xinjiang region this July could be expected once every 15 years in the U.S., once every 10 in southern Europe and once every five in China, the research found. 

“This is not a surprise. This is absolutely not a surprise in terms of the temperatures, the weather events that we are seeing,” Otto said at a news conference. “In the past, these events would have been extremely rare.”

The analysis provides another example of how shifts in global average temperatures can create conditions for new, harmful extremes. The scientists warned that the extremes observed this year are expected to worsen as humans continue to emit heat-trapping gasses and rely so heavily on fossil fuels. 



Instead of addressing that reality, con artists like Junior are proclaiming themselves "the most censored" and wasting everyone's time   The planet can't afford him.


It's summer and some can afford summer vacations -- some can afford them because others pay for their vacations.  Did someone just shout "Clarence Thomas"?   At THE NATION, Elie Mystal notes:

 

It’s hard to keep track of the various corruption scandals embroiling the Supreme Court generally and Justice Clarence Thomas in particular. The latest ProPublica report shows that Nazi memorabilia enthusiast and Thomas sugar daddy Harlan Crow has been using his super-yacht as a tax write-off, a trick he can pull off because he does “business” with people like Thomas on his boat. And I’m still processing The Guardian’s revelation that one of Thomas’s aides received payments—through Venmo—from the lawyers arguing against affirmative action. I was pretty sure Thomas had established himself as the most openly corrupt Supreme Court justice in American history on the strength of Crow buying Thomas’s mother’s house, but I guess he’s trying to make his record unbreakable by future generations of corrupt judges.

Of course, according to Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist and second-most-corrupt Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, this is all political. Alito—who took at least one undisclosed vacation with a Republican billionaire—and the gaggle of white-wing pundits who would have you believe that paying tuition for another man’s secret ward is just what “friends” do, argue that reporting on the Supreme Court’s corruption is motivated by “liberal” media outlets who disagree with the court’s rulings.

[. . .]

Meanwhile, does anybody know where Clarence Thomas is right now? I don’t. Has anybody set up a position tracker like they did for Elon Musk’s plane? How many reporters and photographers have been assigned to shadow the Supreme Court justices this summer? We know when random congresspeople come home to their districts and visit their local barbershops for a photo-op over the summer, but John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, can disappear like a fart in the wind for three months, without a full accounting of how he spent his time, and whom he spent that time with.

Where is Clarence right now?  And who's paying for his lodgings and travels this time?



In Ohio, newly released body-camera video shows a police officer unleashing a police dog on an unarmed Black truck driver after a traffic stop south of Columbus on July 4. The footage shows 23-year-old Jadarrius Rose had his hands in the air when a handler directed the dog to attack him. Rose was bitten, dragged by the arm, hospitalized and later released to be booked at the Ross County Jail on felony charges of failure to comply. So far there’s no sign the officer responsible for the attack has faced any disciplinary action.

In California, surveillance video shows a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy brutally beating a 23-year-old transgender man outside a convenience store in February. Emmett Brock was driving home from his job as a teacher when he was followed by Deputy Joseph Benza to a 7-Eleven parking lot, where the officer tackled Brock to the pavement and punched him repeatedly in the head, accusing him of resisting arrest even as Brock cried out for help, struggled to breathe and made no move against the officer. A police report said Brock was pulled over because he had an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror; Brock says he was assaulted because he held up his middle finger when driving past Benza’s patrol car.


No doubt, those are examples of what Ron DeSantis considers good police work -- he probably thinks the attacked picked up 'valuable skills' during the incidents as well.  Gillian Brockell (WASHINGTON POST) reports:


Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis doubled down Friday on controversial new rules passed by his state’s Board of Education that will require educators to teach that enslaved Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis told reporters Friday. “But the reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual.”

Here are some simple, historical facts: Africans already were skilled before they were enslaved. And, in many cases, enslavers sought and purchased people coming from specific African societies based on skills common in those societies. Decades of research — slave ship manifests, plantation ledgers, newspaper articles, letters, journals and archaeological digs — by dozens of scholars supports this, much of it compiled in the 2022 book “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer.




Transatlantic slavery was an economic model proposing that skilled laborers, who were benefiting themselves and their communities, be abducted, transported and forced to use those skills to benefit others. Other skills such as literacy, ministry and music-making were often banned, because they did not benefit — and even threatened — the enslaver.

Hackett Fischer explains how, in the mid-1700s, enslaving colonists in the Lowcountry of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida targeted people from the Windward Coast of West Africa, where rice had been cultivated for thousands of years. In the Lowcountry, enslaved people then built complex systems of canals, levees, floodgates and fields, just as they had in West Africa, providing the region with its first massive cash crop.
In New England, the Puritans targeted Akan-speaking people from the Gold Coast, who had a long military tradition emphasizing discipline and quick thinking. Also, an enslaved man named Onesimus taught Puritan leader Cotton Mather a technique for smallpox for inoculation, which he said was common in his African homeland.


Chesapeake enslavers wanted people like the Kru, specifically for their skill for boatbuilding. Though Europeans were sailing farther distances, slave traders marveled at the superior stability and speed of West African canoes, some of which they said could hold 100 people. These boat designs were ideal for fishing, freight and ferrying up and down the Chesapeake.



The following sites updated:


 

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