Sunday, June 30, 2019

Truest statement of the week

Gabbard was arguably an afterthought going into Wednesday's debate.

-- Rebecca Morin, "First night of Democratic debate: Who were the winners and losers" (USA TODAY).

Truest statement of the week II

The disgraceful promotion of Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy is all the proof one needs that the black misleadership class is a grave danger to their community and to the nation. Biden was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 precisely because of his right wing credentials. But he no longer has Obama’s imprimatur to protect him and his racist history is now out in the open for all to see.
He was always a lesser light in the Senate and was no better as vice president. Even in 2008 he opined that Obama was “clean and articulate” -- a remark which ought to have disqualified him from vice presidential consideration with a black candidate. But Obama’s goal was to make clear his own rightward trajectory. Choosing a senator who was anything but progressive and a staunch zionist gave great comfort to the Democratic party donor class.
The unwavering support from the Congressional Black Caucus should be an embarrassment, but these are shameless people after all. One wouldn’t know that Biden thanked Dixiecrat Senator James Eastland for assisting him in bringing anti-busing legislation to a vote. These facts are inconvenient for people whose presence in office is meant to squelch any effort at black self-determination.

-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: Biden and the Shame of the Black Misleaders" (BLACK AGENDA REPORTS).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Monday night here on the west coast -- already Tuesday morning on the east.


Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

Rebecca Morin gets a truest.
As does Margaret Kimberley.

Where does the money go?
Ava and C.I. tackle GRAND HOTEL and the Democratic debates.

A parody feature.  Been awhile since we've done one.
Here's ten we love.
Bruce A. Dixon and Justin Raimondo passed away last week.
A castle from the past emerges.
What we listened to while writing.
Press release from Senator Patty Murray's office.
Green coverage.
Press release from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office.



Editorial: More money to the Iraqi government?

Iraq needs money.

Iraq needs money?



In other news, Adel Abdul-Mahdi is demanding more money from the international community.  AP reports:

Iraq‘s prime minister says his country’s sacrifices fighting the Islamic State group mean it deserves greater support in its reconstruction efforts from the international community.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi made his comments Saturday during a meeting with a visiting U.N. Security Council members’ delegation, the first such visit to Iraq.

Iraq has one of the most corrupt governments in the world and has since at least the 2003 invasion.  It regularly ranks at the bottom of Transparency International's most transparent countries list.  He wants more money?  How does he intend to ensure that the money goes towards reconstruction when easily half of the reconstruction money has disappeared every year due to government corruption.  So how is Adel Abdul-Mahdi, an ineffective ruler at best, going to ensure that the money goes towards reconstruction?

Carla Sertin (OIL & GAS) reports today:

Iraq's oil ministry announced that the country exported 110.7mn barrels of oil in May 2019, according to the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company. It made $7.3bn in revenue from oil exports that month.
Oil ministry spokesperson Assem Jihad said that oilfields in central and southern Iraq produced 96% of the total amount exported, accounting for the same proportion of revenue.

$7.3 billion was made in the month of May for oil revenues.  The government of Iraq raked in $7.3 billion.  In one month.

And it wants more money from the international community?

Where does this money go?

It never goes to the less than 40 million Iraqi people.

Where does it go?

TV: Emerging truths

Telling the truth can be hard.  We were fearful of watching GRAND HOTEL, ABC's new summer series from Eva Longoria.  Yes, we'd like to see Eva succeed as a producer and MOTHER UP! and TELENOVA haven't brought success yet.  But more to the point, in a landscape where Latinos are near invisible on TV, we need her to succeed.


The ONE DAY AT A TIME reboot, for example, wins a loyal audience and wins critical applause but NETFLIX axes it.  Not only do they take an axe to the program, they also refuse to allow any other streaming service to pick it up.  Last week, fortunately, came news that the CBS' POP TV was picking up the show for another season.  That takes some of the pressure off.

Last week saw two Democratic Party presidential debates and the pressure relaxed for some of the 20 participants but it increased for others.  On Wednesday, US House Rep and Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard, former US House Rep Beto O'Rourke, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Cory Booker, US House Rep Tim Ryan, former US House Rep John Delaney, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Governor Jay Inslee and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro took the stage.  On Thursday, the participants were former US Senator and Vice President Joe Biden,  Senator Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Kamala Harris, US House Rep Eric Swalwell, Andrew Yang, Senator Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper and South Ben Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

And how did it go?

On Wednesday night, the clear winner was Tulsi Gabbard.  She did so well that GOOGLE reported she was the second most searched candidate of the night.

She did so well, in fact, that the media worked really hard to ignore her and to tear apart her support.  Those GOOGLE search results?

The media insisted that this was the result of, indication of, Russian trolls.

The same media, of the same search results, insisted that they proved Julian Castro was Wednesday night's big winner -- after all, he was the number one most searched candidate on GOOGLE.

No smears of "Russian trolls" were offered of Julian because he's a centrists, a corporatist and an all round disappointing person and candidate.  That's why the media loves him -- they love seeing their own corruption and whoring reflected back at them in a candidate.

Julian was awful onstage -- he was bitchy, he was incoherent and he was one of the shortest candidates on stage, standing there with his glassy eyes, receding hairline and baby teeth.

The media pimped him as a winner for nearly 24 hours before they finally had to give it up because no one was buying the hype and, more to the point, every post-debate appearance in that news cycle found Julian coming off even more disappointing.

Julian was quickly forgotten -- which was fine with the media.  He had served his purpose, he had denied Tulsi credit for her actual victory.

Tulsi they attacked.  She was an "isolationist," for example.  She is no such thing but to a war hungry media, calling for sensible wars only turned Tulsi into John Lennon and Yoko Ono staging multiple bed-ins.

The biggest loser Wednesday night wasn't Julian -- though he came close.  The biggest loser was US House Rep Tim Ryan who insisted that the Taliban had attacked the United States on 9/11.  The moderators (Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd) were no help there so it was left to Tulsi to explain that al Qaeda attacked the US on September 11th.  Tulsi had to do remedial for Ryan who apparently has been living in an alternative universe.














RYAN: Well, I — I understand…


RYAN: I understand that. The Taliban…




Of the Wednesday night debate, Patrick Martin (WSWS) observed, "On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, T'he greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history.' This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders."

Tulsi was declared the winner in the instant poll at THE DRUDGE REPORT.

Thursday night, the clear winner was Marianne Williamson.  This confused and upset the corporate media so they tried backing a few others as winners before finally settling on Kamala Harris who schooled Joe Biden on both immigration and how some of his own actions and statements came off racist.

The clear loser?

Joe Biden.  How bad was the media darling?

Friday, Julie Bosman and Katie Glueck offered "A Day After Bruising Debate, Biden Pushes Back Against Criticism on Civil Rights" at THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Marianne?  Even while attacking and ridiculing her, THE NEW YORKER's THE CUT had to admit:

Much transpired at the second night of the Democratic debates: Former vice-president Joe Biden repeatedly showed everyone every tooth in his mouth while refusing to apologize for anything he’s ever done; California senator Kamala Harris impressed everyone; the spiritual adviser and author Marianne Williamson stood silently, presumably meditating and growing ever more powerful, until around the 45-minute mark, at which point she began sporadically pontificating about the nature of love, peace, and healing in a dulcet, husky tone.

Marianne, when she had the floor, was centered and using her time well.  In what passed for a debate/discussion on immigration, it was all platitudes and nonsense until she spoke -- at which point she raised the issue of the reason for the waves of immigration from Central America -- US policies and actions.

Despite being the one to raise it, as Marcia pointed out, Bernie Sanders gave credit to Joe Biden -- of all people -- for raising the issue.

It was not Bernie's night.

He seemed off his game, he seemed angry and short tempered.

In fairness to Bernie, he's never been a soundbyte politician and the debate format was one minute answers and, if a follow up was allowed, thirty seconds for any follow up.

Marianne used her time to talk about where the US could be.  Joe Biden spent his time promising to take America back to 2009.  It was a glorious time for Joe, he had just become the Vice President of the United States and he was only 66 and appeared to have a future in front of him.

Now he's no longer a vice president, he's 76 and his best years are behind him.  He studies the rear view mirror so much because there's nothing on the road ahead for him.

The US needs to move forward and Joe came off out of touch.

Though his campaign schedule has been filled with wooing Big Money, he's had very few of-the-people events.  The campaign thought keeping him out of site could help lower the chances of gaffes.  The hope was that, with media backing, he could coast to the nomination.

Thursday night made clear that was not a possibility.

In fact, one of the best moments may have gone to Eric Swalwell:

And I’ve seen the anxiety across America where the manufacturing floors go from 1,000 to 100 to one. So, we have to modernize our schools, value the teachers who prepare our kids, wipe the student debt from any teacher that goes into a community that needs it. Invest in America’s communities, especially where places where the best exports are people who move away to get skills. But, Jose, I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said, it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans. That candidate was then Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to the pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago.
He’s still right today. If we’re going to solve the issues of automation (PH), pass the torch. If we’re going to solve the issues of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we’re going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we’re going to end gun violence for families who are fearful of sending their kids to school, pass the torch.

Pass the torch, Joe, pass the torch.

Sadly, Eric was one of the few men that really impressed.

Over two nights, 14 men stood on the stage.  Only six women were present.

But every one of those women -- Tulsi, Marianne, Elizabeth, Kirsten, Amy and Kamala -- used their limited time wisely and came off presidential.

Andrew Yang?  Why the hell was he even on the stage?  He'd later whine that his mike was muted by NBC but even when he did speak, he said nothing of real value.  John Hickenlooper came off like a crazed psycho -- sweaty face and all.  His remarks came off like he was threatening to take the Democratic Party hostage if it didn't move back to the center-right ASAP.

To get on that stage, everyone had to work.  But it was fairly clear that the women had to work harder to make it onto that stage and maybe that's why they came off prepared and ready.

Eva Longoria's been working to offer quality programming with a Latino emphasis for some time.  With GRAND HOTEL, she may have found the hit that ABC and the country needs.  It's a soap opera set in Miami, revolving around a family owned hotel.

Eva plays the dead matriarch in flashbacks and we'd honestly be thrilled if it turned out that her character, Beatriz Mendoza, wasn't really dead; though, as it is, the family may be too big.  Demian Bichir plays the patriarch Santiago Mendoza, Roselyn Sanchez plays his second wife Gigi Mendoza, Denyse Tontz is especially effective as Santiago and Beatriz' daughter Alicia, Feliz Ramirez as Santiago and Gigi's daughter Carolina, Justina Adorno as Carolina's twin Yoli and Bryan Craig as Santiago and and Beatriz' son Javi.  That's a big family to have on every episode.  And, honestly, of the four children, only Javi and Alicia are interesting enough.

There are also characters who are not part of the family.  Wendy Raquel Robinson is Mrs. P and in charge of the hotel staff and Chris Warren plays her son Jason who works as a waiter.  Also working as a waiter is Danny, played by Lincoln Younes, who is at the hotel to try to find out what happened to his sister Sky.  There's housekeeper Ingrid (Anne Winters) who is pregnant by hotel manager Mateo (Shalim Ortiz) who doesn't want the child so she's now passing it off as Javi's child.  There's also El Rey, a big time rapper who becomes the hotel's artist in resident.  He's played by Jencarlos Canela and thank goodness for him.

Puffed pec after puffed pec on this show is smooth -- naturally or waxed, we don't know.  The only one with any significant hair on his chest would be Jencarlos' El Rey.  Javi might seem like less of a man-boy if, for example, Bryan Craig stopped trimming his chest hair.

While we wait for the boys to grow up, the women do the heavy lifting on the show.  Just like the women did the heavy lifting on the debates.  The hard truth is, women do the heavy lifting on TV and off.  Maybe they could start to receive some of the well deserved recognition they are owed.

From The Diary Of Dan Rather

Wednesday, June 26

Dearest Diary, I watched the Democratic special tonight and it was awful.  When, oh, when will they learn that they need real moderators, people with talent, people like me!!!!  It all reeked of desperation -- especially using Scott Baio as a moderator.  Putting him behind a pair of glasses did not suddenly make him intelligent or provide him gravitas.

And that moment where there were sound problems amply demonstrated just how out of his element Mr. Baio was.  He couldn't improvise, he couldn't handle himself and they had to quickly cut to a commercial.  Not in my day, young man, not in my day.

Bad enough that Scott was a moderator, what was NBC thinking with regards to the presentation?  Letting U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren go on stage with 19 bodyguards?  And they all kept yapping.  It was all so confusing.  As Roger Mudd used to say, "We tell them what is news!  We tell them!"

Thursday, June 27

Dearest Diary, for some reason, NBC aired another Democratic special tonight.  I guess it's their new summer series.  I'd love to return to the safety of CBS but after they removed me from my public, I swore to never watch them again.  Yes, it has been hard to walk away from my daily viewings of THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL but sacrifice is what life is all about.

What the special was all about was, again, more nonsense.  Former Vice President Joe Biden was on stage.  I'm not sure if the other 19 were his bodyguards.  I'm starting to think the premise of this NBC show is to take a candidate and surround them with 19 upstarts who make jokes, jabs and resort to other kinds of tom foolery. Maybe this is a reality show?  I honestly haven't been able to follow those since MTV's REAL WORLD and that delightful scamp Puck.

Watching tonight, I was struck by the reality that someone out there was doing worse than me.  On stage, there was my former co-worker Connie Chung.  I won't say "co-host."  CBS may have rammed her down my throat -- I should consider a retroactive harassment suit -- but I fixed her wagon.  On the stage, she was going after the Vice President about immigration and Civil Rights.

Oh, Connie, give it a rest.

And while I may no longer be able to afford Saltines and the other finer things of life, at least I have not been reduced to appearing on reality TV.  As Charles Kuralt used to say, "Have a little respect!  And at least two wives at all times."

Friday, June 28th

Dearest diary, there was no new installment on NBC of the reality show.  I've been raking my mind, but I think what aired Wednesday night and Thursday night was THE VOICE.  There certainly were a lot of voices on stage.  Too many for my taste.

Just as well if the show has been cancelled.  It doesn't appear anyone paid attention.  Flipping through the daily papers I still subscribe to -- the ones that still publish -- all I see is Theranos.  Theranos all the time.

Now, darn it, I love a good yarn as well as anyone.  I'm still trying to sort out, for example, how they did all that stunt work in RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN -- and don't tell me that young Kim Richards has Tia's powers, no sir.  But there comes a time when you must put away childhood things.  Wasn't this all settled and ended earlier when AVENGERS: ENDGAME killed off Theranos and rescued the Infinity Stones?  As  Brian Williams always says, "If there's time for fluff then it's time for me to start lying on air.  Oh, and what happens in the butt stays in the butt!"

Iraq Twitter exchange

10 Great Beatles Covers

The film YESTERDAY opened Friday, featuring the songs of the Beatles.  With that in mind, we're picking ten of our favorite Beatles covers.

1) Tina Turner's "Help."

2) Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out."

3) Rod Stewart's "In My Life."

4) Tina Turner (with Ike) doing "Let It Be."

5) Roberta Flack's "If I Fell."

6) Diana Ross & The Supremes' "A World Without Love."

7) Aretha Franklin's "The Long And Winding Road."

8) Rickie Lee Jones' "For No One."

9) Goldie Hawn's "A Hard Day's Night."

10) Fiona Apple's "Across The Universe."

Two great losses

Last week saw the passing of two important voices in the public debate: Bruce A. Dixon and Justin Raimondo.

Dixon was someone we frequently noted for our "Truest statement of the week" feature.  He was part of BLACK AGENDA REPORT and he was a member of the Green Party.  He was a voice calling out corruption, war and prejudice.  He made a huge difference.

Justin Raimondo was a Libertarian and a consistent anti-war voice.  He co-founded ANTIWAR.COM.  He also made a huge difference.

Some people liked one of the two, some liked both, some hated both.  Centrists especially hated Bruce and Justin.

But we loved them and we appreciate the space they carved out in the public square and the costs they so often paid for demanding the discourse be expanded.

The two will be greatly missed. They will not be replaced.  And, truth be told, so few are rushing to do the work they did.  The brave and courageous internet of the '00s has been stifled and co-opted.

 We are left with people who don't want to make waves, who want to fit in and are desperate to be on MSNBC -- this decade's version of AIR AMERICA RADIO.

We live in a world that grows worse with each passing year.

The so-called left has become especially intolerant.  They use their perches at MSNBC and elsewhere to preach hatred of others while working overtime to defend and advance the monetary desires of corporations.  The world needs trail blazers, not timid conformists eager for more corporate welfare.

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