Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills): 5/15/22

Saturday, May 21, 2022

John Mulaney tries for a comeback but he's no longer the kid

From Wednesday, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Amber Under Cross" and "Equal Time For Classy Amber." Amber Heard is a disaster.

Awhile back, I warned that John Mulaney was going to have some problems trying to resart the career.

The drug rehab wasn't the issue.

The issue was he built his act around being a nice guy who had a good marriage with a woman whose only rule was that he not call her a bitch onstage. And they had their dog Petunia. He wasn't sure he wanted kids. His father told him . . .

And people related to that.

Then he got a divorce, hooked up with another woman and had a baby with the other woman.

Now he's trying to come back.

He's not a kid anymore. I watched THE HALL and was shocked that he went onstage like that. No one had the guts to tell him either lose forty pounds or make jokes about it?

He had triple chins.

Now he's got more problems. He's on the road and:

Some attendees who were looking forward to watch John Mulaney’s stand-up show in Ohio on Friday night were taken aback when Dave Chappelle opened the show with an anti-trans and anti-gay joke during a 15-minute surprise performance.

Many fans took to social media to express their anger at being “ambushed” by Chappelle, who has a history of mocking the LGBTQ community. Attendees told BuzzFeed News they were also disappointed with Mulaney for giving Chappelle another platform to malign an ”already-marginalized” community.

“I’m just a little disappointed in [Mulaney],” Morgan, 21, who attended Friday night’s show, told BuzzFeed News. She did not want to provide her last name to protect her privacy.

“It hurts to know that Chappelle’s transphobia wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep him off the show," Morgan said. "I probably wouldn’t have gone or I would’ve at least skipped the openers if I knew Chappelle would be there.”

John's an idiot.

Everythign he built his career on is now gone. The marriage, the good guy (he cheated on her repeatedly), the just a good guy. Now he's overweight when fans just want him to be the same. And now he's letting Dave Chappelle do a surprise opener and he's forgetting all the jokes we embraced from him about how his father thought he was gay, about how he comes off gay, etc, etc.

He's not John Mulaney.

And fans wanted reassurance that he was. Okay, so he's a bit of a creep cheating on his wife that he pretended to love, he was straight with us, right?

And then they go to the concert, see a fat John Mulaney who doesn't look like the old guy and instead of gay friendly jokes, he's got the comedic face of transphobia onstage opening for him.

He has no clue how much he is driving away the fans who wanted to stick with him.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, May 20, 2022. Joe /Biden has billions for Ukraine but nothing for American infants, Bully Boy Bush gets some attention, Julian Assange remains persecuted and much more.

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for the 'crime' of journaism and the most 'offensive' thing anyone can do: Tell the truth. Julian exposed War Crimes the US government carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Amnesty International Tweets:

Amnesty International: 'If the Home Secretary certifies the US request to extradite Julian Assange it will violate the prohibition against torture and set an alarming precedent for publishers and journalists around the world' @amnesty
 #FreeAssangeNOW

amnesty.org.uk

Prolonged solitary confinement is common in US maximum-security jails

‘Publishing information that is in the public interest is a cornerstone of media freedom’

6:08 AM · May 20, 2022

Julian's wife Stella Tweets:

With Gunther Wallraff, legendary german investigative journalist, holding the Gunther Wallraff prize certificate awarded to Julian #Assange. @wikileaks
 #FreeAssangeNOW

12:04 PM · May 19, 2022

Julian and WIKILEAKS are known throughout the world and the whole world watches as Joe Biden persecutes him. The world watches Joe's war on journalism and free speech. The world watches Joe act like one of the despots the US State Dept is forever decrying.

At THE GRAYZONE, Kit Klarenberg explains:

British Home Secretary Priti Patel is due to imminently decide on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is extradited to the US, where he faces life imprisonment for journalistic activities.

The Grayzone can exclusively reveal that Patel appears to be embroiled in a covert “research and influence operation,” directly inspired by MI6 “principles and methods” and guided in part by Richard Dearlove, the foreign spying agency’s former chief.

While the Home Secretary may not be fully apprised of the dark forces swirling around her, and the purposes for which she is being exploited, there is incontrovertible evidence that her ministerial agenda and Home Office policies are being directly influenced as a result of her links to the shady group.

“Dark Ullen” to be “conducted on the same broad principles and methods as an [MI6] research and influence operation”

This May 15, the Grayzone exposed a shadowy intelligence cabal’s plot to sabotage Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, remove her from office, and replace her with Boris Johnson in order to secure a ‘hard’ withdrawal from the EU. The cabal pursued a variety of undemocratic, if not outright criminal methods to achieve its aims.

A vast tranche containing leaked email messages between members of the cabal provided the sourcing for that exposé. Further communications reviewed and verified by The Grayzone point to more recent, shockingly diabolical schemes.

These include plots to smear environmental activists as communist agents of Chinese influence, paint Ukrainian refugees as potential Russian double agents seeking to carry out terror attacks on British soil, and “displace” Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng.

The spectral group’s apparent leader and puppet master is Gwythian Prins, a member of the Chief of Defence Staff’s Strategy Advisory Panel, and former NATO and Ministry of Defence advisor. On January 21st, Prins wrote to former MI6 director Richard Dearlove – a key member of the cabal – outlining the terms of ‘Dark Ullen’, the codeword title of “our China project.”

Joe Biden is persecuting Julian Assange.

But Joe does everything but hump Bully Bou Bush. Oh, he's not Joey's friend and roll dog, no, not at all. Not when Joe needs their votes. When it's an election year, Joe puts a barrier -- a vaignal condom? -- between himself and Bully Boy Bush. When it's an election year, Joe lies that he only supporte dthe Iraq War because he was misled by that mean and crafty Bully Boy Bush.

Why, if it weren't for that Bully Boy Bush and his empty words and promises, Joe never, ever would have supported the Iraq War. Pinkie promise.

But after making those statements and then before making them again when he was runnng for office in 2020, what does Joe do? Apparently, everything but swallow.

Joe's a liar and always has been. He claims he made a 'mistake' on Iraq and it was all because of that evil Bully Boy Bush but in 2019, he did everything but dry hump BB onstage in front of everyone. That's not how I respond to people who lie to me. That's not how normal people respond. But Joe's not normal. Normal people don't assault Tara Reade and then pretend as though the world is crazy to ask -- after the assaults noted in her divorce papers from years ago, after her mother is on tape -- video -- calling into Larry King's CNN show in the 90s, after . . .

Joe's a damn liar. And he's senile to boot.

Alex Findjs (WSWS) notes:

The Biden administration has ordered the redeployment of 450 US soldiers to Somalia at the request of the Pentagon. Government officials state the decision is aimed at countering the advances of the Islamist group al-Shabab, which controls much of the countryside in southern and central Somalia.

Biden’s decision is a reversal of a Trump administration order to remove 700 US soldiers from the country and deploy them to neighboring countries in January 2021. Trump portrayed the action as part of his campaign promise to roll back US involvement in “forever wars,” though US troops continued to conduct military activities inside of Somalia from their new bases in neighboring Kenya and Djibouti.

The stated goal of the redeployment is to target a dozen leaders of al-Shabab, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US government, and to “maximize the safety and effectiveness of our forces and enable them to provide more efficient support to our partners,” according to Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council in an interview with the New York Times.

Al-Shabab has been engaged in military confrontations with the central Somali government for over 15 years and has been the target of repeated US military operations and airstrikes. Having consolidated control over large parts of the country, the organization is believed to have 5,000 to 10,000 armed fighters and close ties to Al Qaeda.

Several deadly bombings have been linked to the group, including a truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu in 2017 that killed at least 587 people.

Capitalizing on the violent tactics and Islamist ideology of al-Shabab and other groups, the United States has used the threat of terrorism to justify military involvement in the impoverished East African country for 30 years.

Joe is not on a mission of peace. He has no mission, he can't remember what he's doing from one day to the next, he's a got a bittersweet presidency.

Joe is sending billions of US dollars to prop up the racist and Nazi regime in Ukraine (the same one he and Barack installed in 2014) but he can't help Americans suffering from inflation or from the formula shortage.

One day after President Biden invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA) in response to the US baby formula shortage, the Senate approved a bill by unanimous consent Thursday that falls far short of addressing the devastating crisis facing families with infant children across the country. Kevin Reed (WSWS) reports:

The Access to Baby Formula Act, which was first approved by the House on Wednesday, purports to ensure that families receiving government assistance benefits can continue to purchase baby formula during the shortage. The bill allows the Agriculture Department to waive the requirement that those using the federal program Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) must purchase only one brand of baby formula.

The $28 million bill also provides emergency funding to increase the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspection staff, increase resources for personnel working on formula issues, stop fraudulent baby formula from entering the US marketplace and improve data collection on the formula market.

However, the bill does nothing to fundamentally address the nightmare facing parents looking to buy formula for their infants when none can be found on store shelves. Stocks of formula have been down by 43 percent since the beginning of May. The crisis, which has been developing for months, was allowed by the Biden administration and Congress to reach catastrophic proportions before the latest measures were taken.

In commenting on the vote, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat from New York) was focused on the fact that the Democrats and Republicans agreed on a face-saving bill that will not address the immediate crisis that is facing millions of families. Schumer said, “It's rare that we have unanimity in the Senate on important measures, and I wish we had more. But this is one of these important issues and I'm glad we're acting with one voice.”

Hey, Chuck, are you going to breast feed all of the American children that need formula but don't have it? Then sit your tired ass down already. As WSWS previously noted, ""The severe shortage of baby formula across the United States continues to affect millions of families. Nationwide, there is a 43 percent deficit of infant formula, with some states and metropolitan areas seeing more than 50 percent of normal supply missing from grocery store shelves.

When the money's gone? We are arrving at that point, apparently No money for the American people under Joe Biden.

No money for the American people and their children in need. But Joe's sending more money to Ukraine -- forty billion more.

WSWS has a two-part series on the roots of modern day Ukraine.

[PART ONE] [PART TWO]

From part wo:

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose actions and legacy are celebrated by the state-sponsored Ukrainian Canadian Congress, is the political-ideological fount of the fascist forces that are playing such a prominent and reactionary role in contemporary Ukraine.

In 1940, the OUN split into two groups over how best to collaborate with Nazi Germany to secure a Ukrainian national state. In pursuit of that collaboration and their rival visions of a fascist state, both factions would commit horrific crimes. Both supported the Nazis’ war of annihilation against the Soviet Union that claimed the lives of over 27 million Soviet citizens and participated in the Holocaust of European Jewry.

The OUN (Melnyk) sought to work within Nazi Germany’s occupation regime and promoted the formation of the Galicia Division of the Waffen SS. It was to this organization that the grandfather of Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland belonged.

The OUN (Bandera), many of whose members were likewise provided refuge in post-World War II Canada, also systematically embedded its forces in the Nazi military machine and its repressive apparatus in German-occupied Poland and later in the Soviet Union. But the OUN (B) took a more “radical stance,” going beyond the remit its Nazi patrons and allies had given it. After entering Lvov in June 1941, as part of the Nazi force that invaded the USSR, they declared the creation of an “independent” Ukrainian state—one they stressed would be an integral part of the Nazi-led “New Europe.” Frictions ensued. But both sides strove to maintain their alliance, and up until the war’s end the Bandera-led OUN (B) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army or UPA collaborated with the Nazis and the Wehrmacht in fighting the Red Army and Soviet partisans, terrorizing the population and exterminating Ukraine’s Jews. It also killed tens of thousands of Poles in pursuit of an ethnically “pure” Ukraine.

Contemporary apologists for the OUN insist that they were forced into an impossible situation during World War II and can at most be accused of opportunistically embracing Nazi support and its anti-Semitism. These claims are without any historical foundation. The OUN was a fascist organization from its inception, that long sought Nazi support and whose role in the mass extermination of Ukraine’s Jews was politically prepared and prefigured by its actions in the decade prior to the war’s outbreak in 1939.

The OUN was founded in 1929 through the merger of several far-right organizations, among them the League for the Liberation of Ukraine, which had arisen out of the Union of the Ukrainian Fascists, and the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO). Comprised of veterans of the Ukrainian nationalist forces that had fought the Bolsheviks during the Civil War that followed the 1917 October Revolution, the UVO supplied much of the OUN’s initial leadership.

Socially, the OUN was comprised of frustrated and embittered petty bourgeois, as well as dispossessed landlords and other notables. Politically, it was animated by pathological hatred for the October Revolution and the Soviet Union. Ideologically, it was part of the broader fascist, militarist and anti-egalitarian current that developed in the aftermath of the unprecedented violence and dislocation of World War I and in direct reaction against the Russian Revolution and the socialist strivings of the European working class.

But the OUN and its supporters were especially angered and aggrieved. From their perspective, the socialist revolution in Russia and the Ukraine had cheated them out of their birthright—a Ukrainian state where they would rule the roost—as well, in many cases, of their property and other privileges. Moreover, those they perceived as their ethnic rivals had been strengthened. There now was a Polish Republic, including on territory the Ukrainian nationalists coveted and which was repressing its Ukrainian minority. And as a result of the Russian Revolution, Ukraine’s Jews, long the target of pogroms and the Czarist government’s Black Hundred agitation, enjoyed unprecedented freedom.

Like the White Russian emigres, the Ukrainian far right helped fashion and promote the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism, which held the Jews responsible for the revolution, for them the incarnation of the anti-Christ. An explicitly fascist form of anti-Semitism, the Judeo-Bolshevism canard would be invoked by the Nazis and their Ukrainian allies in the OUN in inciting genocide.

Dropping back to yesterday's snapshot:

AFP reports, "Donald Trump is not in the White House. You do not know if he will run again (he seems to want to but Donald loves to f*k with people's heads), you do not know if he could get the GOP nomination if he tried to run, you do not know who the Democrats will run in 2024, "

Freud said the criminal had a compulsion to confess. I'd like to think the incident was more than a mere slip of the tongue. I'd love to believe the millions of Iraqis he killed haunt Bully Boy /bush's sleep, that they wreck every waking moment.

That's what should happen. Hes responsible for an illegal war, he's responsible for suffering, he's responsib le for a genocide.

Shame on those who are too weak and too stupid to hold him accountable. I'm referring to the ones who in 2015 would have called him out but now, because they share his hatred for Donald Trump, they're BB's best buddy.

They''re shameful.

The following sites updaed:

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Lonely If You Are

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Joe Biden Likes Some White Supremacists" went up Wednesday.

And I'm just doing a video this post..

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, May 19, 2022. People are losing their grip on both integrity and sanity.

I am so tired of the Trump obsession some people have. Yesterday, a 72-year-old woman I've known for some time made the mistak eof unloading. I'd never heard so much stupidit in my life. Trump is evil, Trump is this, Trump is destroying the country, Trump is destroying her marriage, on and on it went and I just stood there blankly waiting for the moment when she'd stop to draw a breath, you don't know much of anything except what you should know if you're that opposed to Donald, which is that he's not in the White House.

These idiots destroyed four years of activism with their obsession of Trump.

There were real issue s to focus on. And the left has successfuly fought against sitting presidents. We did it with Ronald Reagan, for example.

It's llike everyone's becoming a stupid and powerless moron.

If Doanld Trump upsets you that much and you are convinced that he's going to win in 2024, how about you stop a moment, take a breath and enjoy the present.

I'm not saying it's perfect -- it's not an dJoe Biden isn't. But I do not know why what might happen two years from now is a justification for you to be crying and so angry that you're shaking.

More to the point, that you can't appreciate the good marriage that you have.

She wanted to talk to me because she wants a divorce and wants to know how to break it to him.

After listening to her reasons -- so-called reasons -- I otld her, "Tell him you've gone nuts. I'm sure he'll understand."

Her husband, an actor I've known for years and years, much longer than I've known her, has gone Trump!!!

The horror.

How so, I asked?

He says Joe Biden isn't doing a good job.

Well Joe's not doing a good job.

He's saying if Joe tries to run again and Donald runs again that Donald will win.

That could be a possibility.

She insists that when she told him he had to vote for Joe in 2024, he told her if Joe ran, he wouldn't vote for president.

"And that is as good as supporting Trump!"

The crazy is way too much and it's way out of control.

The woman married up. Yes, in terms of looks but also in terms of humanity. Long before she married him, her husband an dI had a brief fling (which is not a secret to anyone). At a different point in life, I might have tried for more than a fling. When he met her -- long after our fling -- I was happy for him and happy for her. He doesn't cheat on her, he doesn't abuse her, he doesn't ignore her, he doesn't treat her as an after thought.

But because he won't promise to vote, in two years, for a man he sees as ineffective at best, she's going to divorce him. (She's supposed to have spoken with him last night. If she didn't, yes, he does read this site, and yes, he will know.)

People need to get a damn grip, this is beyond stupid and beyond crazy. At one point, I pointed out that as bad as she thinks Donald is, we have had worse in our history and we did have worse recently with Bully Boy b/ush.

No, she insisted, he's a saint because he called out Trump.

Oh, I'm sure that makes all the dead Iraqis rise from their graves with a smile on their face. Sure he's responsible for their deaths and he lied the world into war but, hey, he insulted Donald Trump, slate clean, we're all good now.

What a load of b.s. The crazy one is not her husband. The woman is deranged and she really does need help before she destroys her life and her marriage.

It reminds me of when Bully Boy Bush was in office and Matthew Rothschild and THE PROGRESSIVE were featuring one loony article after another about how Bully Boy Bush was using FEMA and we were all about to be locked up and . . .

BB was committing War Crimes out in the open and you felt the need to go off on ssome theory/hypothesis that you had? Reality was right in your face but you had to invent garbage instead?

And yet now these same toxic warriors ar etreating him as wonderful and a friend because he said mean things about Donald Trump.

As Aretha sang (and wrote), of integrity, "Put the word in your vocabulary."

That's what should happen. Hes responsible for an illegal war, he's responsible for suffering, he's responsib le for a genocide.

They''re shameful.

They're adult-children with the emphasis on children. They are not anyone to trust. They have no center and they have no ethics and they will turn on you as quickly as they have decided to embrace Bully Boy Bush.

They need help, professional help and they should not be given platforms to adavne their crazy to others. They should be told, "You really need to seek some professional help."

A woman is destroyin gher marriage because Trump might run in 2024 and, if he does and Joe Biden runs, her husband says he's not voting in the presidential election.

How f**ked up is that woman?

And she's crazy if she thinks that if this turns out to be a mistake she can just go back. Her husband is more than a catch, he's a prize and she'll see just how quickly other women rush in. And if I were her husband, I'd never take her back. I'd say, you were willing to throw away decades of happiness just because I wouldn't vote for a man in 2024 who may or may not run.

Talk about devaluing everything you've had with someone.

On the lack of integrity, Margaret Kimberley (BlACK AGENDA REPORT) writes:

Twice in the month of April Barack Obama spoke about “disinformation.” First at the University of Chicago and then at Stanford University he claimed that democracy is at risk because of social media. Democracy is certainly at risk but not because of anyone’s tweets. His words were really meant to frighten Americans into accepting censorship should anyone dare to present a narrative that differs from the state’s. Of course, that isn’t what Obama said. He spoke of Trump’s claims of election fraud and racist posts and all sorts of things that liberals would support. But neither Trump nor anyone else on the right was his target. The left are his targets and the need to silence the public about Ukraine was the reason for his renewed efforts to address an issue concocted by the democratic establishment.

Less than one week after the Stanford speech the Department of Homeland Security announced the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board. (They needed Obama to lay the groundwork with his disinformation tour.) Of course only conservatives and those who are truly on the left saw the danger in what some called a Ministry of Truth, as described in George Orwell’s 1984.

While republicans deemed lesser lights and the butt of liberal jokes such as Representative Lauren Boebert spoke out against the very problematic entity, liberals said nothing at all.

Bernie Sanders, House members known as “the Squad” and others thought of as progressives or leftists were silent. While democrats go along with and defend every Biden administration policy, republican members of congress held a press conference to share their concerns. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other republicans are seeking to defund the Board. “The President’s Ministry of Truth is just an un-American abuse of power, which is a scheme conjured up by Washington Democrats to grant themselves the authority to control free speech.” Of course abuses of power are very American but McCarthy’s assessment of what Biden and the democrats want to do is correct.

Fortunately there was enough pushback that the Biden administration felt the need to create a Fact Sheet in order to quell doubts about the dubious endeavor. “The working group does not have any operational authority or capability.” In other words, it is unneeded. Or rather it is needed to discredit anyone who dares to oppose state narratives, especially now when the Ukraine crisis needs a constant supply of public buy-in.

Yet the question must be asked about liberals’ silence. There was a time when they would be the first to oppose governmental overreach, including any efforts to control public discourse or to even give an appearance of limiting what was deemed acceptable to speak and to write.

But liberals are joined at the hip with the democratic party and that means they are the worst purveyors of misinformation and the group most interested in censorship. The Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post represents the democratic wing of the duopoly, and presented the Propaganda or Not hit list after the 2016 Donald Trump political earthquake. The fear that Trump might actually do what working people wanted was the cause of their fear and the need to label him and anyone who rejected the establishment agenda as a Russian bot, Putin puppet, or useful idiot.

Now Ukraine is the focus of their fervor. The Biden administration needs to misdirect attention from its instigation of the crisis. They want the public to accept every claim without question and believe that Vladimir Putin is evil, that the Ukrainian military can defeat the bigger, better equipped, and better staffed Russian army, and keep silent when $40 billion is spent on the effort. They don’t want the public to question why their needs are deemed to be too expensive while Ukraine is turned into a forever war and cash cow for the military industrial complex. Biden is forced to create a stupid expression such as, “Putin’s price hikes” to explain sanctions that can’t hurt Russia but also hurt Americans too.

There are very real issues at stake right now. Those without common sense and/or integrity can pretend otherwise but don't pretend you're dealing with reality because you are not.

ANd you're harming yourself and others.

Let's wind down with this from Ms.:

MORE THAN A MAGAZINE, A MOVEMENT

Dear Common Ills,

The leaked draft version of the Supreme Court’s majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has sent shock waves across the U.S. Although we await the final decision, we now know that the Court is poised to overrule the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade—representing the biggest blow to women's constitutional rights in history.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, abortion access will be endangered nationwide: anti-abortion groups have already announced their intention to pass a federal law to ban abortions across the country.

We have very little time to raise our voices in protest before a final decision is issued.

We know that women who have had abortions have spoken out many times during the last 49 years, and millions of women and men have marched in countless rallies and demonstrations for abortion rights. By a margin of 2 to 1, Americans support the tenets of Roe v. Wade.

In January, we launched a petition campaign with the encouragement and support of some of the original signers of Ms. magazine’s 1972 petition in which 53 well-known U.S. women declared that they had undergone abortions—despite laws in most states rendering the procedure illegal.

A recent article in The Washington Post credited the 1972 petition with the “start of a powerful strategy in the U.S. abortion rights movement: ending the secrecy that had kept many women out of the fight.”

Once again we invite all women, whether or not you’ve had an abortion, to sign in order to “help eliminate the stigma” of abortion and to demand the repeal of all laws restricting women’s reproductive freedoms.

We cannot, we must not, lose the right to safe and accessible abortion or access to birth control. Just as in 1972, we will send the signed petition to members of Congress, to the White House, and to the Supreme Court. And we will publish the names in an upcoming Special Issue of Ms. and on Msmagazine.com.

Nearly 7,000 women have already signed our new petition. You can help us by promoting the petition to your friends, family and others across the country to join our fight to save abortion rights.

For equality and a strong feminist future,