Like Maria Said Paz: 2024-11-03

Saturday, November 09, 2024

Paul Rudnick, please start using THREADS

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "MAGA Confused." and "Manly Barron" went up Thursday.

Paul Rudnick. I'm afraid I'm not going to be noting him anymore. He's done nothing wrong. I love his Tweets. But we are stepping away from Twitter. That will either be a long piece at THIRD or C.I. will explain that in Monday's snapshot. This goes beyond what made some give up their Tesla (I didn't own one). We're done with Musk.

I'm fine with that. I am not fine that I might not be able to highlight Paul anymore. I thought I was doing something wrong when I was trying to find him on Threads. I wasn't. He's on Instagram, that's where the link in my first paragraph goes. But he's not reposting Tweets there the way I was hoping he would on a Threads account.

On some of the worst days of this year, Paul kept me laughing. I don't think I've met him. C.I. knows him, of course, she knows everyone. I might have met him at a party something but I don't think I did. I read SOCIAL DISEASE when it came out (C.I. gifted her immediate circle of friends with it -- she also included an interview he did with the copies she gave out -- I think it was ROLLING STONE -- knowing that some of us -- like me -- would think, "Oh, yea. I'll get to this book" and then set it aside. The interview, which was hilarious -- he talked about the word "moist" and laughed at Patti Davis and her co-writer -- was quick to read and made me go ahead and read the book immediately.

So don't think I have anything against Paul. I've included his Tweets in my posts -- usually every one of them -- for over a year now. I would love to continue to do so but no more Twitter. Of anyone.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, November 8, 2024. As the election gets analyzed, are we not supposed to notice that Black women aren't getting a seat at the table?

A lot of opinions flying around. A lot of nonsense going down.

When I was in high school, there was a boy a class ahead of me. Seemed nice enough. But then people began picking on him because he was gay. And he was gay. Not someone who reads gay but isn't. Not a Jon Cryer mistaken for gay but actually gay. And his daily life suddenly became miserable. And if you looked at what was going on, it was obvious -- or it was obvious to me -- that a guy named David, a quarterback, had started and was leading the attack on Charles. And if you paid attention, it should have been obvious that David might not read gay because he didn't fit someone's stereotype but he was gay and had been screwing around with Charles. Fear or whatever drew him deeper into the clost and he now attacked Charles constantly.

I went to David and told him it needed to stop. And to stop now.

He justified picking on Charles as just having fun -- it wasn't fun for Charles.

I told him I knew they'd been having sex and that he could end the abuse of Charles or I could end him.

He didn't think he could be taken down -- call him Trump-like in his stupidity.

But it only took a week and half and I destroyed him.

And I'd do it again.

I have said repeatedly here than I am not a nice person.

I didn't destroy him by outing him. I destroyed him by destroying everything he thought he had -- standing, sex appeal, wealth, go down the list.

And he tried to kill himself-- well he staged a drama I don't think you inject some medicine for cows into yourself if you're really determined to kill yourself.

I didn't -- and don't -- feel bad.

And his attempt to garner sympathy only made him a bigger joke -- and led to others mocking him in the halls with "MOO!" whenever they'd see him.

He was supposed to be all that. Good looking. Sone of a banker blah blah blah.

And he didn't realize that he wasn't untouchable.

Now I bring that up to note, obviously, that Trump's not untouchable and it can be an interesting four years.

But I also bring it up because that's really the first political cause for me. One that required leaving my own bubble and seeing others in need that didn't look like me or weren't like me in some way. Our only bond was that he was hurting and I felt for him.

If you want to count the work I do for autism, that predates that but I had a member of the family who was autistic.

Before Charles, I never knew anyone who was gay. Never even thought about it.

But seeing this nice kid crying every day as he couldn't get down the hall without facing the mockery David had created -- to hide his own sexuality -- that was probably my adult realization of a number of things.

I have a good life today because I have had an enthusiastic following and a good number of those are gay men.

I say all of that to explain that I'm not walking out on them. I'm not silencing myself while they get attacked.

Right now, a large number of us are figuring out where we stand going forward.

The LGBTQ+ community has my support and I will loudly defend them.

Others? Some of you are probably going to be on your own -- because you brought it on yourselves. If some beggar media type gets tossed in jail, I don't know that I care. If you trashed Kamala, I don't know that I care about you.

But that's what I'm going to be figuring out. For me.

And that's what the rest of us are going to have to figure out.

I posted Chris Hayes' video last night or this morning. I like Chris. I don't have a problem with what he said. And I get that people want to feel hopeful.

But I also get "For me."

I can be decided for me. And others can and should decide for themselves.

But MSNBC really isn't recognizing that. Chris would be a great person to do some roundtables with Black women.

When Tabitha does a new video (TABITHA SPEAKS), I'm right there. And I love what she says. And she'll figure out for herself what she wants to do going forward. She doesn't need a White man telling her what to do. To be clear, that's not a reference to Chris Hayes -- whose biggest 'crime' would be trying to give us all hope. And that's why I would argue Chris could do these needed roundtable.

I don't want to talk about Howard Dean -- we hate each other and he tried to throw me under the bus in the first Barack Obama administration. So let's not really focus on his garbage other than to note that in 2008 he stood back while sexism was targeted non-stop at Hillary Clinton. And he was the DNC chair. So right there, grasp that no one needs to hear Howard The Scream Dean.

But there are a number of others that we could talk about. They're making idiotic and stupid analysis and trying to impose it on us.

Let's deal wit the Jill Stein freaks.

They offer the poplar vote that Jill got nationwide and insist that it wouldn't have made a difference to Kamala. But we don't elect by the popular vote. Our president depends upon who won the electoral college. They also want to lie that Jill didn't steal any votes from Kamala.

Despite the many lies Jill told, she always knew that she wasn't going to win. Even she isn't stupid enough to think she would have won.

Her role was not to garner votes and I'll try to come back to a sub-set there but I want to make this point very clear.

Jill got support from Donald Trump and his MAGA attorneys because she was supposed to suppress turnout. No one thought she'd garner votes.

But what she could do was suppress votes.

And that's what she did.

She attacked Kamala from the left. She ripped into her daily.

She and Beggar Media did everything to attack Kamala. (Beggar media, if you're a drive-by, is DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES, etc. Useless liars who turn their tricks without ever satisfying a customer which is why they get the cash upfront. Gaza Freaks refers not to people defending Palestinians nor to the Palestinians themselves. It refers to the useless idiots who do nothing to actually help the people of Gaza or to end a genocide. If you wanted to end a genocide, you wouldn't have worked so hard to elect Donald Trump.)

Let's do a quick walk through. Will use racist Amy Goodman's DEMOCRACY NOW!

For the sake of this argument, we can make you a man or a woman but we can't make you a Black woman because Black women didn't fall for it.

People in every other grouping did.

So you're Zac and you're 21 and in college and you tuned it to DEMOCRACY NOW! maybe once a week, maybe five days a week. And you don't know Goody Whore's history of how she subverted past elections and how she lied and you don't know all the stunts she's pulled before -- including getting rich by bankrupting PACIFICA RADIO thanks to closet case Leslie Cagan (I believe Leslie's out as a lesbian, I'm referring to her being a Communist yet, at a PACIFICA board meeting refusing to admit that -- this was a PACIFICA board meeting -- not a McCarthy hearing). You think she's smart and caring.

So already, you're an idiot.

But you're watching her show and, from August 1st until October 30th, all you hear is guests and Amy telling you how bad Kamala is. They usually talk up Jill Stein during this and, of course, Amy did that awful soft ball lying interview with Jill.

That was Jill's purpose and role in the 2024 election.

To be held up as something wonderful -- she's not, her own sons didn't vote for her and didn't want her to run -- as opposed to the awful Kamala.

That was to depress turnout -- intentionally.

And it was intentional on the part of Beggar Media from the start but they really dug in as it went along and Ava and I may cover that at THIRD.

So Zac wants to do the right thing, he wants to be a social justice warrior and make the world better. He knows he's not voting for Trump. He'd thought about voting for Kamala.

But day after day, DEMOCRACY NOW! (and THE PROGRESSIVE and IN THESE TIMES and THE NATION) are telling him how awful Kamala is?

Well he can't vote for that.

And this impacted Rosa. She's got an office job that requires she work nine to five. She's got three kids she's raising as a single mother -- so forget PTO. That's gone just on her kids' doctors visits and illnesses. Vote before work -- during early voting or regular voting? She has to drop the kids off. After work? She's got to get to day care or risk paying a penalty for each minute after six o'clock that she's late.

Rosa really wants to keep Trump out of the White House. But the radio programs and the online sites of various pathetic magazines tell her over and over that Kamala's awful.

So you really think Rosa is going to out of her way to try to vote?

No.

This was Jill Stein's role. And that's why these outlets never offered you the truth about Jill. How she makes money every time a bomb drops on Gaza -- due to her stock portfolio. How she's never accomplished anything. How she is selective in her public outrage over what Arab is being bombed. Her defense of Putin and other War Criminals.

They give her a pass on that and pretend like she's smart -- smart people don't lose every race for office they run for. They pretend like she cares -- people who care don't raise over six million dollars for a 2016 recount only to not spend it on that. They don't then say that they'll be donating the millions unused to a charity and then, years later, are still unable to tell you where that money went.

She's a whore and she's a grifter.

And she was protected by Amy Goodman and others because her role was never to win or even to win some votes. She was supposed to be the saint to Kamala's whore because dualities is all most Americans have been trained to handle -- the either/or.

Naomi Wolf is a joke. But it's a real shame she couldn't have waited a few more years to become a joke. Unlike non-feminist Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf -- were her brain functioning -- could have done a blistering take down of the tropes used throughout as the left -- Beggar Media -- worked to destroy Kamala. Naomi Klein is a politically active woman. Too many people mistake that for feminism. It is not feminism and Naomi may have held a laughable chair but she never did anything for feminism. And, in fact, there are interviews she hopes no one ever sees or remembers from before she became a brand where she was knocking feminism and feminists in that post-90s manner.

That was Jill's role, to destroy enthusiasm for Kamala's campaign in order to depress turnout.

And that's why you saw the never ending efforts to kill joy over Kamala's run.

Tabitha has spoken about the attempts to kill joy over and over on her YOUTUBE program.

You won't see her on DEMOCRACY NOW! or platformed elsewhere because no one wants to acknowledge the effort to kill Kamala's campaign on the part of the left.

But we can't move forward without an honest discussion of what went down.

And that's why Black women need to be front and center right now.

Everyone else fell for the propaganda to one degree or another.

If you're Anglo White or Anglo Latina and you didn't, great job. But you were few and far between.

Black women didn't fall for it.

Black women are also a huge constituency for the Democratic Party.

Which is why is is so laughable and horrifying to watch these White men like James Carville and Howard Dean and others go around with their stupidity thinking we need to hear from them.

James Carville. "It's the economy, stupid." Famous for that as he backed Bill Clinton with the neoliberal campaign that was nothing more than a War On The Poor.

So James is back and saying this was an economy election. And it was to a large degree. He then wants to lie and attack various groups -- the Identity Politics rant that Roland Martin and others have rightly called out.

What did you do, James? I know what I did. I realized that the economy was going to be a loser for the Democrats and advocated at the start of 2023 for some form of stimulus. And I was laughed at and had my head patted by various figures in the DNC party structure.

The economy is better. Joe Biden deserves credit for saving the economy (that's not the only thing he deserves credit for). But people weren't feeling it.

A number were remembering that trifle of a stimulus check they got under Trump. Nancy Pelosi is still whining about Trump's signature on it.

And that has no bearing on anything. She destroyed her own reputation on that issue. There was no stimulus for those we called "heroes" during the pandemic. Her House couldn't deliver.

And the prevailing opinion was that Trump wanted to do a second stimulus and Nancy opposed it.

James, you didn't do s**t on any of that and it got back to me that you were mocking me for suggesting this tiny stimulus check.

A check would have been appreciated. A check could have made an impact on American's lives.

But James thought it was nonsense as did other fools.

So don't come to me now and whine about the economy stupid when, STUPID, you were among those who did nothing to mitigate the issue.

Perceptions are not changed overnight. That's why you need to be smart in your demands at any time.

I didn't write here about it because I didn't want to give ammunition to the GOP.

Dems seemed to think that they could educate people on the economy.

You can't educate someone with statements that are contrary to what they experienced.

Yes, Joe saved the economy and those of us who know about the economy realize that.

Most people don't know economics.

And so James' nonsense this week is bulls**t and he just needs to honestly die. Die and take his lies with him.

He's outlived his purpose and he is no use.

People like him are also trying to blame trans people for the election. I think we addressed Allred's nonsense in yesterday's snapshot.

LGBTQ NATION has a good article and maybe I'll try to write about it Saturday.

But, notice no links here, we are suffering. And I've told everyone in the community -- whether they're writing for one of our newsletters or at their own site -- take time for you.

We need to heal.

And so it's not really me throwing all my time away right now. It's me trying to heal.

And that's what so many of us are trying to do right now.

You ignored us during the general election and you ignore us now. If you continue to do so, you're going to have a huge problem because we are the base -- the real base -- the ones who show up election after election.

And we're busy. We're all Rosa. We all have eight million other things that have to be done -- HAVE TO BE DONE -- every day. But we get out and vote every time.

And our thanks for that? You destroy the first Black woman to run for president on a major party.

And you want to act like it didn't happen, you want to gaslight us.

No.

I'm here to speak for me and the community. And we'll chart our way forward as best we can based on what we're able to do.

And that's true for others. Tabitha, Olay, Danielle, so many others. They need to heal and they need to know where they stand in this party and how this party, in 2024, could do what they did to Kamala.

Some of your causes really aren't that important to us.

The nonsense of an official, for example. That's something you worry about after you elect Kamala. You say, hey, we support ____ and want her to remain.

Instead, you nut jobs came up daily with one reason after another not to vote for Kamala, one reason or another to attack her in public.

You didn't want to address her housing plan, you didn't want to address her Medicare plan and a number of you White bitches wrote articles attacking her over Black women's health issues.

She had never spoken of it!

She had never done this or that!

White bitches, heel.

All you did was yet again sport your racism.

ESSENCE had the interview with Kamala addressing that topic. But you're too White to read ESSENCE and that didn't surprise me which is why we reproduced that part of the interview in a snapshot here.

But, hey, in all your Whiteness why should you be required to actually do some work before you penned your columns claiming she never addressed a topic that she had just spoken to ESSENCE about.

You live in a really White world. And that's how you ignore reality.

And you're doing it again with all these White idiots -- include Bernie Sanders on that list, Roland is right -- who keep having conversations with everyone but Black women.

Black don't crack. We've all heard that. Let me expand on it: Black don't crack cameras either.

So what's your excuse for still denying Black women a seat at the table while pretending to explore what went wrong in this election?

There are outlets that deserve praise and we've linked to them throughout the last months. MOTHER JONES gets a B. They played into some of the nonsense but not all of it. Higher grades would go to THE NEW REPUBLIC and RAW STORY. And my apologies to AMERICAN PROSPECT. I didn't know they were still around. Someone with TAP contacted me when I was first calling out THE NATION -- called me, we're friends -- and that's when I found out TAP was still around. After that we did highlight them. My apologies that we didn't highlight them more. I would also give COMMON DREAMS an A. They started out running with the pack. They were the only ones we called out who actually course corrected. I don't expect perfection, I do expect fairness. So praise for COMMON DREAMS.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "MAGA Confused." and "Manly Barron" went up last night. The following sites updated:

Thursday, November 07, 2024

Roland Martin has some strong points

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "MAGA Confused."

Paul Rudnick.

Trump, Jeff Bezos and Musk prove one thing: no one feels more attacked and sorry for themselves than rich white men. They consider ex-wives to be the worst form of discrimination, and paying taxes to be their Jim Crow laws. They're the real minority and demand affirmative action
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) November 7, 2024

Now listen to Roland Martin.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, November 7, 2024. In the aftermath of Trump being re-elected, some Karens e-mail to explain the real horror is that Black people are expressing their outrage. Keep it all about you, Karens, keep it all about you, every day, every year.

Olayemi Olurin is an important voice. There are a lot of drive-bys to the public account. None are echoed by the private e-mail account for community members. And that probably goes to the fact that community members aren't drive-bys. Community members have been for years now. They get it. It's these drive-bys who happened by that don't get it.

Olay didn't say anything wrong above.

After "Like Natalie Cole said . . . (Ava and C.I.)" went up yesterday, the following posted:

Lawrence: Kamala Harris echoed Frederick Douglass ...

Trump Election Disaster CRITICAL UPDATES and MORE ...

No one in LGBTQ Has More To Lose And to Fear Than ...

What Now? My initial thoughts on the 2024 Election...

2024 Election Debrief: What happened?

Donald Trump Won & America Will Regret It

A Post Election Message From Kimberly Atkins Stohr

VP Kamala Harris delivers remarks after 2024 presi...

The Urgency Of Opposing Trumpism, Racism, Fascism,...

Amerrica Got What It Wanted And America Is Going T...

Programming Changes For My Platforms!!

What Trump’s Victory Means

Reacting to Donald Trump Winning (I am so sorry)

Trump vs Harris: Understanding America's Racist Po...

IHIP News: Trump Wins, America Loses

Numbers Don’t Lie, People Do… Early Election Demog...

Mourning in AMERICA! | The Danielle Moodie Show

Dr. Phil Admits Endorsing Trump Because Kamala Den...

And the drive-bys whining are insisting this and that. What it boils down to is 'a war on White people.' Whine on you butt-hurt losers. There are at least two Whie people in the above. IHIP is two Whire women, Lawrence O'Donnell is a White man.

Yes, there are a large number of Black people in what was posted yesterday.

If you're so shocked by what's in that videos, stop complaining to me. I don't live in your token world. I've never pretended to and I've never wanted to amplify that. But mainly, grasp that if what the people saying in the above videos leaves you butt hurt, the people speaking are not your problem. They were never your problem.

Your problem was a garbage media which shelted you from reality. Again, I'm talking about the left media. The beggar media. Panhandle Media. If the people that went up yesterday and this morning shocked you, what they were saying, that's an indictment of DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, THE PROGRESSIVE, etc.

About half of the butt hurt whiners boring the public account are also whining about what mean things are being said about White people in the videos.

I am responsible for what I say. The attacks you're needing to feel better about yourself aren't coming from me.

If Tabitha, for example, said something in her video that hurt you? Grow the hell up. When an election did not go Marcia's way and it hurt her deeply, she would ask me if she was going too far? I'd tell her that it was her site, that she was right to feel what she was feeling and she should write what was real to her. I didn't get at first that she was asking to see if I was going to critique her or disagree with her? When I got that, I told her no. And I meant it. What she was feeling? People needed to hear. And what Tabitha or anyone else in a video that goes up here says, people need to hear.

The butt-hurt are all pissy.

And that's what happenes when you're stupid and uninformed.

I don't know why you're coming to me thinking I'm going to feel sorry for you.

I get it, your media failed you. I was looking at comments yesterday attacking Juan Gonzalez for noting the very real racism and sexism at play in this election and I thought how very sad. Maybe if Juan had been on more on DEMOCRACY NOW! or if Amy didn't fix her coverage the way she did, you idiots wouldn't be so shocked at reality today.

Tabitha of TABITHA SPEAKS wasn't invited on DEMOCRACY NOW!. THE PROGRESSIVE, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, et al? They didn't interview her.

But Tabitha represented many people across the country.

Today's butt-hurt are shocked by her sentiments. You're only shocked because you're media failed you. There were real issues at stake here -- stream Olay's video at the top -- and there were real people who would be left at risk.

But they weren't given seats at the media table -- again, I'm focused on panhandle media, not corporate media. So, butt-hurt, you didn't hear their arguments until now.

One of you, at least, is being educated finally. A White woman who voted for Jill Stein is dismayed by the videos that posted here yesterday and says she would not vote for Jill now. Good. I'm glad you see the damage that was done. I wish you'd seen it before hand. When it could have made a difference.

I get that your media failed you -- the e-mailer notes that she checked out DEMOCRACY NOW! several times a week and was always visiting THE PROGRESSIVE's website.

You were misled. I get it. I also get that, if you voted, you're an adult and you need to take some responsibility for the decisions and choices you make.

In August, September and October (she early voted), you should have noticed what was going on. You should have noticed that THE PROGRESSIVE -- a rag that found a way to sell and promote every Democratic Party presidential nominee in the past -- was now slamming Kamala and had nothing -- not one column -- praising her. You should have noticed that.

Your stupidity was on full display.

Ava and I spoke for months -- July, August, September, October on through November 4th -- to groups and groups of people. Black women got it immediately. We didn't have to bring it up anytime we spoke to Black women. They were already noting the bias. But so did others. So did Latinas, so did White women, so did some White men.

And we weren't just speaking and then dropping the subject. We wrote about it at THIRD and I wrote about it here -- over and over. I called out COMMON DREAMS. To their credit, they did do a course correction. I didn't see that from any other outlet.

The media -- big and small -- runs in packs. So one outlet does it and the others ape the earlier one. So my hope, when calling out COMMON DREAMS and the others, was that they'd take a look at it and address it. COMMON DREAMS is the only one that did

I love COUNTERPUNCH. I've not noted them once since Kamala got in the race.

Why? Because I expected them to do what they do and I knew it wouldn't please me nor would it help voting. I didn't attack for what they did. They were being true to themselves and we'll go back to noting them -- maybe even this Friday.

But the others? THE NATION wasn't doing what it usually does, THE PROGRESSIVE wasn't doing what it usually does, IN THESE . . .

Some of the drive-bys have read one or two things here and think that I'm objecting to criticques and analsysis. No, I'm objecting to left wing outlets working to elect Donald Trump.

THE NATION only survives on big dollar donations and we don't give it to that rag so that they can attack a Black woman or so that they can elect a fascist.

A whiner -- who was one of the writers of THE NATION's editorial against Kamala Harris -- AGAINST -- says that young people need to be heard and blah blah blah.

I'd loved your e-mail. It confirmed everything I suspected about you and made me feel good about the fact that I'd already started the black balling of you and your cohorts. I hope that editorial feels good as you try to get a real job in media. Better stick to beggar media because I've made your name trash in corporate media already.

I have no problem with young writers and we go out of our way to celebrate them here. But you're not a writer, you're an intern and you used THE NATION to trash Kamala. The abolitionist magazine with is long and glorious history (that Katrina has destroyed) to attack Kamala.

You smug little entitled bastards who will turn around and insist upon reparations -- as long it doesn't come out of your pockets -- used an abolitionist magazine to attack a Black woman and promote a racist.

I don't think you've realized how far from grace you've strayed.

The women and men that so shocked you in videos yesterday? They shocked you because you were hearing for the first time what you should have been hearing all along.

But in your media bubble, you couldn't grasp reality.

As beggar media worked day after day to suppress the vote for Kamala, to lie that there was no enthusiasm for her, you sat there and took it.

I don't have sympathy for you. Your choices have harmed the country. And this wasn't a child watching SESAME STREET. You were grown adults who should have been able to see the double standard imposed upon Kamala.

Yesterday, Linda Sewer was on DEMOCRACY NOW! to air more of her stupidity and to do everything but take responsibility. Linda Sewer (and that's the name she's earned) is going around doing speaking gigs with convicted pedophile Scott Ritter.

Grasp that.

Grasp that DEMOCRACY NOW! was not interested in people who were enthusiastic about Kamala Harris. But Linda Sewer, garbage queen, is the guest Amy Goodman wants to bring on.

Let me quote from Betty:

Gaza Freaks. They're not helping the Palestinians but how they try to pretend to speak for them. Like the Mayor of Homophobe Michigan that DEMOCRACY NOW! had on Monday. He couldn't endorse Kamala. He wouldn't. But don't worry, he speaks for the Palestinians!

But . . .

REUTERS reports, "Palestinians, locked in war with Israel for more than a year, expressed fear at Donald Trump's return to the White House, while the leaders of the militant group Hamas and the Palestinian Authority urged him to act for peace."

We warned you. We told you the Gaza Freaks were missing reality. We told you they were harming the Palestinians.

But so many of you refused to listen or were too busy listening to con artist Jill Stein.

What do you know, the Gaza Freaks who appointed themselves the American speakers for Palestinians in Gaza, didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

Big surprise. They never do. It's the same repugnant crowd that never accomplishes anything as they skip from issue to issue based on where the media attention is.

And this is the garbage that Amy Goodman and others platformed.

Olay's an immigrant. You didn't get them on your beggar platforms.

But they're hugely impacted by this vote. Somehow, for all the claims of going to where the silences are, Amy Goodman couldn't be bothered.

She could and did promote Jill Stein. Constantly. She could and did platform attacks on Kamala and we were supposed to be grateful when she brought on the White woman Naomi Klein -- an American despite being born in Canada years after her father fled the US military -- to say 'hold your nose and vote for Kamala.'

Naomi, shut the f**k up. No one needs a deserter's child telling them how to vote in their own country. But we especially don't need your nonsense 'hold your nose' endorsement.

It didn't build enthusiasm and it was stupid beyond belief.

You claim to care about the climate crisis. But, hey, you claimed about Iraq once upon a time too. You left that issue -- woah, you DESERTED that issue. Guess it runs in the family.

This is the woman, please remember, who wrote a column about Barack Obama's 2008 win where she put thoughts into Black people's heads. She could have crossed the street and asked them what they thought. But instead, as though they were animals in a zoo, she observed them from a distance, unable to hear them, but then wrote a column about what they were thinking.

Do you not get how racist that is?

Go read Betty's "Open letter to Naomi Klein."

Across the country, many, many people were excited by Kamala's campaign. But we weren't allowed to be by beggar media. We weren't represented by beggar media. But White Naomi Klein from Canada got a seat at the table, didn't she? Her racist past ignored. Her half-assed endorsement -- hold your nose -- treated as positive Kamala coverage.

It wasn't.

Yesterday, on DEMOCRACY NOW!, they brought on Ralph Nader who wanted to tell the Democrats what they did wrong in his feeble mind.

Over a million and half Iraqis are dead because of Ralph. And those may be the lucky ones. Imagaine being wounded and disabled or birth defects as a result of that war. And he's responsible for that.

But there he was telling us that Kamala did this and she did that. And Amy Goodman never stopped him for one moment -- remember, in 2000 she promoted his campaign non-stop -- to ask him what about the dangers of a Trump presidency or how do you sleep at night knowing how many Iraqis are dead and injured because of you?

Because that is reality. And he won't own it. Just like Naomi Klein will write a racist piece of garbage where she imposes her White thoughts on Black men's brains because she's such a racist that she won't even speak to them -- why bother, she's White Naomi, she knows best, she even knows about what Black men she's not speaking to think. The power of her Whiteness.

And that's what we saw over and over in Beggar Media for the last three months.

That's not reflected by what we saw on the ground. But then beggar media doesn't want to reflect or inform. It wants only to impose. And they'd decided that they didn't want Kamala in the White House.

Go back and read the whines Beggar media produced -- the ones about Kamala not doing this or doing that or needing to do this or needing to do that.

That was never about Kamala. That was about impotent activists wanting to make demands. And when they couldn't get their way, they were fine with tanking the election. They'd rather do that, they'd rather put Donald back into the White House, then help the American people.

Instead of writing your butt-hurt e-mails to me, you need to wake the hell up and to take accountability for what you did. Yes, panhandle media misled you but you're an adult and you're responsible.

Or, be like Ralph Nader, and two decades after Iraq was destroyed because of his actions, pretend otherwise. Lie to yourself like he does.

The Palestinians are screwed. Immigrants are screwed. Black people are screwed. LGBTQ+ people are screwed. Women of all races and sexualities are screwed.

And that's because Beggar Media worked to tank Kamala's campaign and so many of you bought into it. We didn't buy into it here which is why no community member has e-mailed anything as stupid as you butt-hurt drive bys.

Kat's "A few thoughts on Colin Allred's loss" went up last night and she notes Mike's coverage of

Mike's in no mood to comment now on Allred. He told Kat she could cover it and he asked me to cover it. Mike believed in Collin and gave of his own time He went to Texas and spent weeks there going all over the state to campaign for Colin.

And then he left.

He left because Allred attacked transgender people.

As we noted here, Ted Cruz's attacks on transgender kids was actually helping Colin, it's what allowed him to rise in the polls. Ted was getting outrage from Republicans over those commercials. They felt kids was offsides. And Colin stood firm and he rose in the polls. He had a real shot at winning.

Then he attacked trans kids because that was his 'weakness' according to experts.

They never know what they're talking about.

Mike, going door to door in West Texas at the time immediately saw the effect as voters began moving away from Allred because he was suddenly just like any other craven politicians who'd say one thing at one time and something else at the other.

Mike spoke to me about it -- I just listened -- and decided to leave Texas because Allred was going to lose now and because he wasn't going to give his time for a little transphobe.

Mike could have written that. Still hasn't. He bit his tongue for the most part and just moved over to Georgia and Florida.

But that's when Allred lost the race.

And it only got worse for him. Now that Cruz had pushed Allred into this position, they could really attack him and Allred was a weak ass who couldn't respond.

If he hadn't embraced transphobia, he could have been attacking Cruz and Governor Gregg Asshole for their new ads. He could have taped his own commercial stating, "Cruz keeps asking me if I know the difference between girls and boys. But I'm not the one showing girls in commercials and claiming that they were born boys when they weren't. Does Ted know the difference between girls and boys?"

Mike could have trashed Colin. But he didn't do that. He even posted an interview or two that Allred did after Mike had left Texas.

Kamala didn't go back on any position she'd held since becoming the nominee. But beggar media didn't care. They just trashed her nonstop.

That's your problem. They should have been building enthusiasm. Not only did they not do that, they couldn't even treat her fairly.

These voices that have so upset drive-bys? They're voices you should have been hearing all along.

The fact that you didn't is not my problem.

Friday's snapshot wound down with:

I'm tired and I know you're tired. We've all done everything we could. Or we think we have.

None of us like having to justify ourselves. Having to explain ourselves.

Dana Bash tried to pull that trick on Kamala, remember. 'Trump says you're not Black.' Whether it's your race, your gender, your sexuality, your religion, your ethnicity, whatever. We are a nation of people with various possibilities and traits. And we don't often fit the straight, White, hateful model that Donald Trump represents.

But we do usually have friends and lovers and spouses that care about us but may not grasp how much is at stake this election. It can really be tiring to feel that you are always having to explain yourself to other people or to justify yourself. But if you know even one undecided voter or one voter planning on staying at home and sitting this election out, there's one more thing you can do and that's share your own story with that person. Share what Trump back in the White House means for you, how your life will suffer. Try to enlarge just one person's understanding of how much damage Trump can cause to someone they know.

The fact that you didn't hear our stories before the election is not on us. You need to take that up with the media you consume. And your discomfort over certain videos? If that's the most uncomfortable you feel over the next four years, consider yourself lucky. A lot of people are not going to be as fortunate.

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

Elon Musk's fraud

Paul Rudnick.

This is petty but still: Trump will never get the A-List status he craves. Beyonce and Taylor Swift won't be at his inauguration, no one's naming anything after him, and he and his grifter family are still banished from NYC. At the end of the day, all he's got is Giuliani
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) November 7, 2024

Exactly.

BLOOMBERG NEWS reports:

Voters who signed up for Elon Musk’s million-dollar voter giveaway are suing the Tesla Inc. chief and his America PAC, claiming entrants were misled about how winners were picked.

A day after surviving a legal challenge in Pennsylvania, Musk’s daily sweepstakes was hit Tuesday with fresh claims in federal courts in Texas and Michigan.

Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona alleged she never would have signed the America PAC petition and handed over personal identifying information if she knew the winners weren’t picked at random and she had no chance of taking home $1 million. In reality, the winners weren’t picked at random, but were carefully selected to be spokespeople for the pro-Donald Trump political action committee.

Musk and the PAC “defrauded” McAferty and others by seeking their political support on the billionaire’s social media platform X, encouraging people to sign a petition calling for free speech and the right to bear arms with the chance to “randomly” win $1 million, according to the proposed class-action complaint she filed in Austin.

It was fraudulent. That's the reality. Miles Klee (ROLLING STONE) adds:

McAferty's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Musk resides in the district, and America PAC is registered there) contends that the stated terms of the $1 million giveaway violates Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act - again because the winners were not picked "randomly."

"Had Plaintiff been aware that she had no chance of receiving $1,000,000, she would not have signed or supported the America PAC petition and would not have provided her [personal, private information] to Defendants," the filing reads. "Her signature/support, as well as her [personal, private information] were given as valuable consideration for a chance to receive the $1,000,00." Those who signed the petition to be eligible for the drawing had to enter their full name, phone number, email address, and physical address.

The suit also notes that the Super PAC's petition "places no limitations on America PAC's use of or sale of the personal data it collects, nor does it provide any additional information about the planned use of data." It alleges fraud and breach of contract for the group's failure to disclose that it awarded its seven-figure cash prizes according to internal criteria. As Musk's lawyer put it in the Philadelphia hearing, the Super PAC considered voters' "suitability" as a spokesperson, as well as their personal stories.

"Like Natalie Cole said . . . (Ava and C.I.):"

The results appear to be in so, being good sports, let's say congratulations to our next president . . . JD Vance. Yes, Miss Sassy is the new president. You can't be as grossly overweight as Donald Trump and as old as he is without the health issue coming in to play and then there's the senility.

It's very likely we may see him removed from office due to the senility at which point JD would have the title of president but, make no mistake, JD is the new president.

Donald didn't do any work the first time. He didn't like briefings. He was lazy when he was four years younger.

So congratulations to JD, our youngest president ever.

Let's say thank you to two people. Thank you to Joe Biden for stepping aside. As bad as the results have turned out to be, they would have been even worse if Joe had been on the ticket. After the debate, the media was not going to change their narrative. Thank you to Kamala Harris who ran a strong campaign and did so in a very short manner of time.

Our sympathies for the nation.

It would be great if some last minute development exposed voter fraud on the part of MAGA but that's probably not going to happen.

So we're all screwed.

And let's be clear about who screwed us.

No, we're not talking about MAGA or other elements of the right wing. Certainly, FOX "NEWS" lies and they are a danger. But they're actually far less of a danger then the cheap whores like Glenn Greenwald, Megyn Kelly, et al.

But again, we're not talking about them.

No, we're putting the blame where it rightly goes: The left media.

Now stop your nonsense if you're a right winger and thinking we mean THE WASHINGTON POST, CNN, THE NEW YORK TIMES, et al.

That's not the left media.

The left media is the beggar media who always asking for a hand out, for a donation, pretending they're serving the left.

We're talking about IN THESE TIMES, we're talking about DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE and oh so many more.

We had the votes to win. Where were they?

The grifter Jill Stein got some.

Cornel West got some. Claudia De la Cruz got some.

If you're unfamiliar with those last two, unlike Jill Stein, they were real candidates.

You didn't hear about them because our supposed left media didn't want you to.

It was Jill wall to wall.

They pimped her like crazy.

No surprise, she got less votes than she did in 2016. Because she's a con artist and a grifter. She's opposed to the genocide . . . except for her stock in Lockheed Martin. The American Friends Service Committee notes:

The world’s largest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, which Israel has been using extensively to bomb Gaza. Israel also uses the company’s C-130 Hercules transport planes to support the ground invasion of Gaza.

Lockheed Martin manufactures AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel’s Apache helicopters. One of the main weapon types used in aerial attacks on Gaza, these missiles have been used extensively in 2023. Some 2,000 Hellfire missiles were delivered to Israel sometime between Oct. 7 and Nov. 14.

Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky manufactures the CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopter, used to transport Israeli soldiers into and out of Gaza. On Jan. 8, Sikorsky was awarded $18.3 million from U.S. taxpayers' money for continued work on the CH-53K aircraft it has provided to Israel.

On Dec. 28, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $10.5 million contract for continued support for Israel's fleet of F-35 warplanes.

On Dec. 11, the Israeli Air Force used a Lockheed Martin C-130-J Super Hercules aircraft to drop approximately seven tons of equipment to Israeli soldiers engaging in ground attacks in Khan Younis, located in the southern Gaza Strip. This was the "first operational airdrop" that Israel has carried out since the 2006 Lebanon War.

On Nov. 9, an Israeli missile hit journalists sitting near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The missile was reportedly a Lockheed Martin–made Hellfire R9X missile, a version of the Hellfire that was developed by the CIA for carrying out assassinations. Instead of exploding, the missile shreds its target using blades, allowing for a direct hit without collateral damage. The target in this case was not a military one.

The Israeli military also uses Lockheed Martin’s M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). Used to fire Elbit Systems’ high-precision AccuLAR-122, the weapon was used by Israel for the first time, since the 2006 war in Lebanon, on Oct. 6, according to the Israeli military.

On an Oct. 17 call with investors, Lockheed Martin CEO, Jim Taiclet, “highlighted the Israel and Ukraine conflicts as potential drivers for increased revenue in the coming years.”

Lockheed Martin is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and has key production sites in Denver, Houston, New Orleans, and San Diego. For more locations, see this map.

For more information on this company (not including these latest developments), see our company profile on the Investigate database.

Josh Fox, at THE NATION last Friday, noted:

Stein says she’s against fracking, but Stein has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the oil and gas industry. Did you know that? Did you know that she actually profits off of the oil and gas industry, that she has had investments in the Keystone XL pipeline and multiple fracking companies?

Did you know that she has investments in Raytheon, that she’s had investments in ExxonMobil? Did you know that she has investments in Home Depot—one of the most rapacious companies in the world, guilty of horrific deforestation throughout the world?

How is it that the Green Party candidate hasn’t divested her own personal fortune from fossil fuels? It’s sheer hypocrisy. And so is the strategy of running for president every four years but never showing up for battles like this.

In 2016, Stein defended these investments by saying they are mutual funds and indexed retirement funds.

But that, plainly speaking, is bunk.

Her claims are a slap in the face to the entire fossil fuel divestment movement. It is easier now than ever to have investments that are fossil free; doing so is a huge plank of the environmental cause. Hundreds of real activists were arrested this summer in New York City calling for Citibank to divest as part of the Summer of Heat campaign. For Stein to ignore all this and still attempt to call herself an activist is beyond hypocrisy, it is political malpractice. Shame on you, Dr. Stein! Shame on you for profiting from fracking and oil drilling.

That some of you voted for that whorish grifter is bad enough but that's not the real damage that was done.

The real damage was in suppressing the vote.

In 2008, when Barack Obama ran for president, the same beggar media did everything they could to build him up. FAIR embarrassed themselves after the Hillary Clinton and Barack debate during that year's Democratic Party primary by slapping one of the moderators for asking about Barack's friendship with activist/terrorist Bill Ayers. Ayers -- a nobody, he was arm candy for his wife -- had been underground and, more to the point, when his friendship with Barack came to light, everyone rushed to lie that they knew each other because their kids were friends. No. That was a damn lie. And beggar media knew it was because, although they can't get real jobs, they can do simple math. Bill and Bernardine turned themselves in as Jimmy Carter was finishing his presidency and Ronald Reagan was due to be sworn in. They thought they'd get a better deal under Carter. Their children were already born by that time. ( We're not referring to Chesa but even he was born in 1980.) Barack and Michelle's oldest child was born in 1998. No, the two Ayers boys were not friends and playmates of the Obamas' daughters.

But that's what the beggar media did -- that and a whole lot more.

For a Black man, that's what they did.

And we saw in July, August, September and October what they'd do for a Black woman -- not a damn thing.

While running for the nomination, Barack did many things that went against what he stated he stood for (putting homophobes on stage at campaign rallies, telling Michael R. Gordon of THE NEW YORK TIMES that any US troops he might pull out of Iraq he would send back in based on the security situation, changing his timeline for withdrawal, his advisor Samantha Power telling the BBC that the promise of a withdrawal really wasn't a promise, etc). But that didn't result in beggar media attacking him the way they did Kamala.

Kamala was attacked from day one. Oh, sure, THE PROGRESSIVE or COMMON DREAMS might do a puff piece on . . . Tim Walz. But they considered Tim to be one of their own. Supposedly, that was due to him being a progressive, but speak to Black women and they were wise to the fact that the real difference was that these outlets could get behind a White man but not a Black woman.

Day after day, they could and they did rip her apart.

Naomi Klein thought she was doing a favor going on DEMOCRACY NOW! and declaring that you hold your nose to vote for someone like Kamala.

Huh?

That's how you build enthusiasm? After one guest, in July, was allowed to praise Kamala and be excited about Kamala running, DEMOCRACY NOW! never offered that again until October 31st.

People weren't allowed to be excited about Kamala, no, beggar media wouldn't let them be.

Beggar media wanted to hang Gaza around Kamala's neck.

She wasn't the president. She didn't get to make policy. Most of us knew she wanted a cease-fire and was the first to call on Joe to move towards that. Most of us knew what her family -- including her niece -- thought.

But that didn't matter.

It didn't matter that the Supreme Court was at stake. It didn't matter that reproductive rights were at stake.

Nothing mattered but the Palestinians.

Amy GoodWhoreman brought on, the day before the election, the Mayor of Dearborn.

His city, he insisted, had to think about Palestinians first.

We think a real interview would have required asking this American citizen exactly where on his list of priorities this country landed? We further think inviting on that man, mayor of a city of homophobes, also required asking him: How much is this opposition to Kamala based on her defense of the LGBTQ+ community?

But we're not supposed to ask those question. No, we're just supposed to fetishize an entire population segment despite the fact that this community in question only stopped voting majority GOP due to the Muslim backlash in the US following 9/11. That detail was never passed on to readers and viewers and listeners of beggar media. There are progressive Muslims in Michigan. There are many more homophobic and conservative Muslims in Michigan which is why the first city council in the state to have an all Muslim composition promptly went around destroying LGBTQ+ rights.

But we didn't get told about that, we only got told about these wonderful Disney-like animated creatures who woke up signing and smiling and sniffing the flowers while the birds landed on their shoulders.

How different would reactions have been if the truth had been told?

Again, we didn't get the truth, not from beggar media.

'Ava and C.I.! You just noted THE NATION's piece about Jill!"

We did and that was published only after the groundswell of Katrina vanden Heuvel being called out for her racism. In fact, for a few days there, she shut down all comments to her Twitter feed unless you were pre-approved -- so much for free speech. We were among the ones leaving comments about the racism -- we did that a full week before Josh's piece. We did it when we learned that THE NATION has just published an editorial opposing Kamala Harris -- by their 'interns.'

We don't give money to that rag to hear from their 'interns.' Sorry, but you're learning a trade, you're not in the position to be writing editorials. And what position you'll have in the future is open to debate because we're vengeful bitches.

Norman Solomon knows that. Learned it the hard way this year. That's when the Democrat who was a pledged delegate for Barack in 2008 announced -- COMMON DREAMS carried the crappy column (others did as well) -- that he would be voting for Jill Stein.

He later pulled that back because he learned real quick that those of us who have helped keep beggar media afloat weren't going to do it for racists.

All the lip service in the world to the importance of Black women in US elections. But when a Black woman ran for president, these same outlets wouldn't take a moment to allow joy over this. Kamala is the first Black woman to be presidential candidate for one of the major parties. And, yes, that was historic, and, yes, it did matter to many Black women.

Katrina and Amy are both racists. Sadly, they're not equally blamed because few people even know who Katrina is. Don't worry, Katrina, we plan to increase your public profile. But they knew Amy and they knew her program and they were shocked by the garbage she offered day after day.

Again, they all offered it. All of the beggar media offered insults and put downs of Kamala day after day.

When they weren't being racist, they went with sexist.

This was not our first presidential election to observe and comment on. So it stood out to us that Barack, Joe, John Kerry, whomever didn't have columns (plural) every day telling them what they needed to do. And columns, mind you, written by men.

A reflective left media would have taken several pauses over the three months to ask, "What are we doing? Are we being fair?"

But apparently begging everyone for money takes a huge toll so they don't have time for reflection.

Good news, bums, we plan to help you there, we plan to make sure you have a lot more free time.

By repeatedly trashing Kamala, by refusing to ever feature the people who were excited by her, they worked overtime to defeat enthusiasm for the candidate. Amy Goodman, as we pointed out repeatedly at THIRD, was damn happy to have a Civil Rights pioneer (who was also the widow of another Civil Rights pioneer) on DEMOCRACY NOW! over the years. But when this woman, Myrlie Evers-Williams, endorsed Kamala in September and spoke of how excited she was by Kamala's campaign, Amy couldn't even note the news in a headline.

We weren't the only ones commenting on the racism from leftists. The YOUTUBE program TABITHA SPEAKS did a great segment on it. And Tabitha noted a Latina who was also dismayed by the attacks on Kamala and on those who supported Kamala. In fact, if you were avoiding the White beggars, you'd find many women online lamenting the way Kamala was being treated. And, as we noted for weeks, we heard about it pretty much every time we spoke.

Jill Stein is a con artist. But they could get behind Jill and pretend that she was an answer and an ally. Which is why they didn't report on 'Butchy' Ware -- her little running mate -- being a transphobe and calling for restricting abortion.

These very real issues didn't matter.

Well, Gaza Freaks, we hope you're happy. We hope as the blood continues to be spilled, that the screams of the dead haunt you. That's their blood on your hands. Trump and Netanyahu are good buddies. He's made clear what will happen: A bigger green light for Netanyahu to continue the slaughter.

We can't work with people we can't trust so lots of luck stopping the Trump genocide.

You've already, Gaza Freaks, alienated many people who were on your side. It's only going to get worse for you. Students protesting on campus? Under Trump. Oh, this is the man who wanted to attack non-violent Black Lives Matter protesters.

And Hamas? It's a terrorist organization per the United States government.

We defended the Palestinian people. We never made the mistake that the Gaza Freaks did in defending Hamas. We point that out for a reason: In January, Joe Biden is not the president, Donald Trump is. You do get that, right? You do get that he will probably be exploring what kind of legal consequences he can impose for those openly supporting a terrorist organization.

Might be time to start recalculating your speeches and articles and programs.

What will we be doing?

Probably our usual role: Cleaning up the messes of lazy White people.

We're tempted to walk away. We actually could. We're fortunate in ways that many other Americans aren't. And we've more than put in our time.

But instead, we'll probably stick around online a little bit longer. Probably focus on important issues like climate change, opposing homophobia, fighting for reproductive rights, fighting for real free speech (which includes opposing book bans), fighting for reparations and --

Wait. That last one.

Oh, Katrina vanden Heuvel. We're back to her. She never made a penny herself but her grandfather left her a ton of money -- money she went to court over because she didn't want to pay the estate tax., What a great liberal, right?

That money she has? Her grandfather made it off the backs of Black people. Lena Horne, to name but one, was always clear to us what trash Katrina's grandfather was and how he undercut the pay of Black artists -- he was an agent working on commission -- to get better money for club performances from his favored White artists.

Lena would tell us tales in person and in writing.

Katrina, we're going to be circulating those letters to people who might be thinking about donating to your garbage rag.

But that's not all we'll be doing. We'll spend a lot of time in your state just to make sure everyone knows that your racist grandfather made money off the backs of Black artists and that's how you afford your mansion in Harlem.

Do you get that, Katrina? Do you get how insulting that is to Black people? The money you have is from their work and you use it to live in Harlem. Do you get how bad that looks?

Give us a year or two and see how much worse we make it look as we get the word out on you.

Reparations should start with people like you. You live a rich life thanks to racism. And you can move over to the right wing and they'll embrace you. But do you really think the left's going to embrace you as they realize what and who you really are?

And don't, as you did in 2007, send us an e-mail from you or your assistant, offering us a bribe to shut us up. It didn't work in 2007 when were exposing the sexism at THE NATION under your leadership -- see "The Nation featured 491 male bylines in 2007 -- how many female ones?" -- and it won't work now. And probably after we're done with you, will get to work circulating the #MeToo realities of THE NATION.

Again, we've vengeful bitches.

We're also smart and informed bitches. And we knew all along that enthusiasm was needed for Kamala to win and we registered it when so many left and 'left' outlets pissed on Kamala to avoid praising her, who did hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-her articles and segments. The whole country will now suffer because of your actions, so we believe it's only fair that you suffer as well.

We've got a Friday call, post-election analysis, with other donors you've depended on in the past. How do you think that's going to go?

The following sites updated: