Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Harry Styles, Jack Johnson, Tori Amos

HARRY'S HOUSE is a great album -- it's such a great album that, since Sunday night, I've just been listening to Harry Styles.  HARRY'S HOUSE (the new album) FINE LINE (the second album) and HARRY STYLES (the first album).  I love HARRY'S HOUSE the best but I think HARRY STYLES comes right after that.  I listen to all three, like I said.  I love to listen to the first and the third album and stare at the ceiling (I'm laying on the bed) and let the music paint pictures in my head.  I really love the musical sounds and collages he is making.  

Now I need to note Ava and C.I.'s latest "TV: Self-love doesn't help the vain get honest" which notes me:

We really wish that these women who preach all the time and are forever patting themselves on the back could do a real self-inventory and get honest.  

For example, singer-songwriter Tori Amos.  Kat's "Kat's Korner: Jack Johnson finds his way back" addressed a lot of issues including that Tori's put partisanship above her art -- which is just sad.

But here's what sadder about these back patters who don't grasp that they are the problem.  That's Jane and Lily and it's Tori as well.

Let's focus on Tori.  How many times have we suffered through those women-in-rock and women-who-rock pieces?  We remember Tori forever complaining about those pieces.  

But Tori is responsible for those pieces.

She's been recording successfully since the early 90s.  So where are the women, Tori?

And don't bring up your daughter -- it's pathetic when nepotism is passed off as feminism.

Tour after tour, album after album, Tori keeps surrounding herself with men.  On stage, in the studio.

Maybe if the bitch would stop being such a Queen Bee and work with other women, it wouldn't seem so strange to sheltered journalists that a woman could rock.  Tori could have expanded the landscape long ago.

She's forever praising herself for being a feminist but just as Jane's never made a film that a woman directed, Tori won't go on stage with other women musicians.  
 
It's as though these women who are so entranced with their own reflection don't own an actual working mirror because they never see themselves as the rest of us do.

I did not think about that.  Tori always tours with a group of men and she goes into the studio with a group of men.  And she's one of those that complains when the press rolls out another of their "Women Who Rock''  But maybe if people like self-described feminist Tori Amos would make a point to hire female musicians in their band we wouldn't get those look-surprise-women-can-rock features to begin with.


It is bothersome that Tori refuses to work with women.  It's why I can no longer stand Alanis.  Watching that awful documentary and hearing her go on about male energy and blah blah as an excuse for not hiring women (by the way, Tori and Alanis sneered at Lilith Fair and refused to be part of it but the two of them did a tour together).  I don't think I'll ever look at Alanis the same.  And to listen to her prattle on and justify the way women were used on her tour -- HER TOUR -- and she takes no responsibility really lowed my opinion of her.  

If I found out that the guitarist on Jack Johnson's tour was mistreating female fans on the road, I would be mad.  If I found out that Jack knew and did nothing, I would be mad.  I think I have every right to be mad at Alanis and none of her stupid and worthless excuses make it for me.  She's the one who did the hiring and she's the one who didn't want women in the band.  Once she found out, she had her little whine fest but didn't fire anybody and did it stop it from continuing.

I don't want to hear her pathetic excuses.  I want to hear her apologize to those young girls who were used and abused and who she was fine with being used and abused because she didn't care enough to fire the guy behind it all.

Not me, Alanis, you, YOU, ought to know.

I loved Jack Johnson's album -- "" -- but the point of my review was that a number of artists had gone too partisan and too far from art.  Jack did on the previous album.  Tori's done that for awhile now.  (Dating back to her anti-Ed Snowden song).  Jack managed to come back to art and deliver an amazing album with MEET THE MOONLIGHT.  So maybe Tori can swim back to us?

I hope so.

But I don't need to suffer through another vanity album on her part.

She's done more than enough of those.  You can go with SCARLET'S WALK or the one after (THE BEEKEEPER) but that's the last time she tried to speak to her base and deliver actual music.  

I don't want another chordal trashpiece like ABNORMALLY ADDICTED TO SIN.  I don't want another of her 'spiritual' albums.  I don't want her reimagining her songs (previously released) as classical pieces.

If she's an elderly woman now who can't get down, then stop pretending your making music for your base.

We indulged her over and over and enough is enough.  20 years since she tried to speak to us and eight or nine albums later?  It's not a one way street.  

 

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

 

Wednesday, June 29, 2022.  Glenn Greenwald sports his sexism and puts on his sub collar as he rushes to defend his dom Clarence Thomas, Iraq continues to suffer with no leadership, Alec Baldwin interviews Woody Allen and much more.


Let's start with some stupidity.



Glenn Greenwald.  You know I try to bite my tongue because he has been under attack.


But Glenn is a sexist and I say that over and over and people come along in drive-by e-mails insisting that's not the case.  He's a sexist pig.


Everything Hillary Clinton said about Clarence Thomas is no doubt true of herself -- she's one of the great projectionists.  That however does not make Clarence Thomas a nice person.


Glenn is supposedly concerned about something more than the elites.  I don't give two s**ts what Clarence's peers on the Court say about how nice he is.  The reality is that he's an abuser and a piece of garbage.  Ask Anita Hill and the other women who ready to testify before the Senate however then-Senator Joe Biden would not allow their testimony.


Glenn and his buddies all kicked Felicia Somnez because their buddy -- though they never reveal their circle jerk -- remember it was the circle jerk that brought Glenn to prominence as a blogger back in the day -- got suspended.  For making a joke.  Making a sexist joke in an office environment already reeling from sexism and doing so after he had already received multiple warnings this year alone.  Instead of defending the person who was fighting an institution, they made it about Pig Davey -- noted liar who got fired for lying earlier.  It was only after trash like Jeff Bezos -- who has no concept of importance of a functioning press -- bought THE WASHINGTON POST that Pig David was allowed back to the paper.  And Pig David has no self-respect so he tucked his tail between his legs and went running back.  Felicia is not the only woman at THE POST who has complained to HR about David this year.


But Glenn and the Michael Traceys and the Jimmy Dores and all the rest didn't care.


To them sexism in the work place is something they're all for.  Witness Jimmy's behavior towards Ana when they were on THE YOUNG TURKS together and witness his rage at Ana in the years since versus the way he talks about Cenk.  He just calls out Cenk.  He wants to obliterate Ana.


It's going to be funny if Jimmy does try to run for president.  (No party is electing him.  No one apparently would vote for him so he has to be 'drafted' in what they're calling a new political party but most parties have chapters and hold primaries.)


Glenn dismisses what happened to Anita Hill and other women.  He also dismisses Clarence's known record at the EEOC which further goes to the harm Little Clary did to women in the workplace.


No, Glenn rushes to insist, Clary Thomas is a good guy.


What a load of garbage and what a knee jerk response from a sexist pig.


These little boys need to take a look at themselves.  


They're trying to raise awareness on Julian Assange and all they're doing is pissing off people.  A friend at THE NEW YORK TIMES has a bet with me.  He's convinced I'm going to blow their pathetic defense out of the water.  He's referring to the fact that there is a good reason that the press -- corporate -- is not rushing to defend Julian.


We covered it here years and years ago.  And they just lied -- that includes John Pilger.  They lied because a truth was uncomfortable.  


The press does have a reason to ignore him.  And it's not a novel reason that they've just invented.  It's a longstanding reason.  I've tabled that until after Julian's free.  I've bit my tongue on it for several years now.  A friend at THE TIMES is convinced that I'm going to explode with it at any minute.  He's been convinced of that for over two years.  

I don't think I am -- I could be wrong.  But I don't think I am.  If I were going to, I'd probably refer to the court record on this right now.  

To be clear, the person I'm dictating this too just said some are going to think I'm referring to the two women who brought complaints against Julian.  I am not referring to those women or to their complaint.  I'm referring to something else that came up in the case and is a matter of public record and sworn testimony.  


Anyway,  Glenn lying for Clarence like this?


Glenn's a pig and shouldn't be fathering a daughter if he's not willing to address his sexism.  He's aging poorly -- the skin is falling off his face as though his face is a boiled chicken -- so I'm not sure how old he is.   55.  I was just told he was 55..  He looks 60 at least.  He needs to grow the hell up.


He's also wrong about Hillary in this case.  He wants you to know -- because he has a penis so he is the norm, right?  He wants you to know that Hillary couldn't have known much about Clarence at all.  


Really, you're so eager to trash her that you're going to make that stupid comment?


Hillary knows everything about the people around her.  She always has.  Not to help them, not to assist them.  But like The Terminator, she scans the room.  Everyone is a potential competitor for Hillary and that's why she's always made it a point to know as much as she could about everyone around her.  And certainly Clary stood out.  He graduated in 1974.  The first African-American to get a JSD from Yale Law School was Pauli Murray and she did that in 1965 -- not even ten years before Thomas graduated from Yale with his JDS.  


Glenn always does what he calls thinking by reflecting on himself.  He has no idea what Yale was like in the early 1970s and he doesn't have the common sense to grasp that his class of 1994 (not at Yale, of course) wasn't reflective on 1974.  


Our point today was to open with Julian Assange.  US President Joe Biden is persecuting Julian.  Not the head of the Justice Dept.  The decisions are not made on that level and you really do have to be a broken down, failed musician like David Rovics to think otherwise.  Of course, you can also be a coward to scared to call out Joe Biden.


But calling out Joe Biden is the only thing that might get the US to drop the efforts to extradite Julian to the US.  So why aren't people doing it?  


And Glenn goes on FOX NEWS and tosses out Hillary hatred (which is fine, hatred of Hillary is not sexism) and then goes on to offer this ridiculous defense of Clarence Thomas.


Glenn, are you hoping that Clarence gets his way and strips you of the right to marry, strips you of certain legal rights regarding sexual relations?


Are you?


Is that what's going on?


Miles Striker is an Iraq War veteran and we try to be understanding about veterans.  We also call out the loons who deserve to be called out.  Miles is one.


Little Miley came across our radar back in May of last year when Ava and I had to critique the world of fetish porn.  From "Media: Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs:"


He's an Iraq War veteran who makes fetish porn.  He started out in femdom porn (female dominant).  He's done plenty of straight porn.  Sadly, he decided to move over to gay porn.  Even worse, some gay men have embraced him.


They shouldn't have.


Now domination may or may not be your fetish.  If it is, enjoy -- whether as a fantasy or in reality.  And humiliation and shame may be your kink as well.


That's your thing.

 

We have no problem with that.


Where we have a problem is with the garbage he does for the gay community.  Ty brought a particular video to our attention: GAY RIGHTS REVOKED. 

 

This is a POV -- point of view -- video.  He speaks to someone unseen.  


He announces at the beginning, to the f**got (his term), that the US government has revoked gay rights -- something he always knew would happen, he says -- and this was either by the Courts or the Congress -- don't expect to follow his storyline because he never thought it out -- he's a dumb ass -- in real life and in the video.  


And now he is going to burn the brow of this f**got neighbor, someone he burned before.  Back then, Miles had the police knock on his door for the hate crime.  That's over because, as Miles asks, "How can you hate a thing?"  Miles announces that the house is now his house and that he'll be pissing down the throat of the 'thing.'  Won't be screwing him or getting oral sex from him, but he'll piss down the throat of the 'thing' and puts the ash from his cigarette on the tongue of the 'thing' repeatedly.


This performer, Miles Striker, won an award from the porn industry.

 

The LGBTQ community should not be encouraging this, they should be calling him out and they should be joined by many other voices.


Maybe Glenn's one of Miles Striker's biggest fans and has been longing for the day when GAY RIGHTS REVOKED could become true?  I don't know.


I do know that a normal person doesn't go out of their way to defend someone like Clarence Thomas who has put in writing that he wants to overturn marriage equality and to make sodomy illegal again.

That's who Glenn Greenwald wants to defend as a good guy.  

There's nothing to defend there and Glenn comes off like a sub when he does so.  I really would have thought Glenn were the top in that relationship.  But apparently he's a sub (and that's not a bottom for those who don't know -- a sub is more along the lines of the person Striker is speaking to in the video we described above).  


We noted in yesterday's snapshot that a former college student shot two professors in Iraq.  AFP reports:


Two Iraqi university professors were gunned down in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil on Tuesday prompting the arrest of a disgruntled former student, authorities said.
Shootings as a means of settling scores are far from rare in Iraq — its legacy of war and sectarian conflict mean the country’s 40 million people count some 7.6 million firearms, according to figures from the Small Arms Survey.
A Soran University engineering professor was shot dead in his home in the early hours, and the dean of the Salaheddin University law faculty, Kawan Ismail, was killed on campus shortly afterwards, provincial governor Omed Khoshnaw told reporters.
Police believe the shooter did not originally intend to kill the engineering professor, but rather his wife, who is a law professor at the same university and was away from home at the time, Khosnaw said.


On the political front there is . . . no new news.  The political stalemate continues.  AHRAM reports:


“The Iraqi people were waiting for steps to be announced by the strong and popular Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr to form a national and reformist government and not a consensual government,” Jinan Ali, an activist who participated in the Tishreen (October) protests in Iraq in 2019, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

The protests forced changes in the Iraqi elections law and Independent Higher Electoral Commission and obliged the government of former prime minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi to resign in December 2019.

“One of the demands of the Tishreen protests was to put an end to the policy of muhasasa [power sharing by sectarian quota] or what they call ‘consensual government’ that has achieved nothing since the first general elections in 2006,” Ali said.

“This policy has led to chaos and corruption and increased the percentage of Iraqis living under the poverty line,” she added.

Ali is not optimistic that the kind of government the protesters wanted to see will now be formed after the resignation of the Sadrist Bloc, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament after last year’s elections, and the formation of the Save the Nation Alliance with the Siyada (sovereignty) Alliance of Parliamentary Speaker Mohamed Al-Halbousi, a Sunni Muslim, and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.

The Coordination Framework (CF) led by former prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki includes all Iraq’s Shia political parties and movements except the Sadrist Bloc, and the Sunni Al-Azm Alliance and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of late Iraqi president Jalal Talbani wants to form a consensual government with it.


We're ten days away from nine months since the October 10th elections.

Iraq is still facing the pandemic (as we all are around the world).  In addition, they're facing cholera -- and the country's had their first cholera confirmed death this year.  In addition, there are the issues of climate change -- drought especially.  And there's no leadership at the top.

In this climate, MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:


On the morning of 25 June, three men claiming to be from National Security Service forces, stormed a training workshop on gender-based violence in Iraq’s southern city of Basra.

The men, who were wearing civilian clothes and had arrived in a tinted GXR vehicle, told the organisers of the Advocacy Campaigns Against Gender-Based Violence workshop, set up by al-Firdaws Society, that training on such topics is not allowed, both now and in the future.

Fatima Bahadly, founder of al-Firdaws, condemned the attack on the workshop and demanded that the authorities in Basra release a public statement regarding the incident.

“[They need to] clearly explain the circumstances to the media outlets, or we will otherwise go to the judiciary and follow up all the legal means to secure our rights,” Bahadly told Middle East Eye. 

Bahadly, a prominent Iraqi rights activist whose 26-year-old son was found shot dead last year, has received death threats over the years for her work on human rights issues in Iraq and has faced severe social pressure from her own tribe.


In yesterday's snapshot, this appeared:

Two quick notes.  Everyone in the community is depressed regarding ROE.  I don't think there's going to be an edition of THIRD so if that proves to be the case as today unfolds, Ava and I'll post our TV piece late this afternoon (PST).  I believe it's 10:00 am EST that, on INSTAGRAM, Alec Baldwin is going to be interviewing Woody Allen live.  I consider Alec a friend.  I know Woody but we're not friends and weren't when he was with Mia (who was a friend).  I'm sure it'll be an interesting interview and if it makes it up on YOUTUBE we'll gladly repost it.  

The public account got over 60 e-mails insisting I had trashed Woody Allen in the comments above.  As Keesha says, this is a private conversation in a public square.  If you're going to make judgments, try to do a little research.


I don't like Woody as a person.  I never have.  That is up here and at THIRD.  He's a great artist.  We don't connect.  That doesn't make him a bad person.  My comments yesterday was "quick notes" -- I do consider Alec a friend (he's nuts when it comes to Ukraine but, in fairness, he's not as nuts as Jane is -- I am well remember a smarter Jane Fonda than the one we've got today).  Woody and I never got along.  Sometimes people don't.  It doesn't mean that we fought.  It doesn't even mean that we hate each other.  It just means there's never been a connection there.  He is a great artist.  


I have defended him regarding Mia's allegations which I believe are lies and I say that as a former friend of Mia's (I dropped her).  Dylan has doubts about what she's saying.  She should. I believe Woody's innocent -- and that has been the findings in the investigations that have taken place.  Dylan's comments at 7?  You mean when Mia was taping her own daughter nude?  You mean when Mia dropped that tape off at TV news station hoping they would air -- but they didn't want to air kiddie porn?


The HBO documentary was a bunch of lies from a bunch of liars.


Ava and I covered it in "TV: Back into the cesspool" and at the end of that you can see these links:


"The award for best self-created drama goes to Mia Farrow (Ava and C.I.)"


"TV: Another idiot for the idiot box"


"Mia and the meanings for America"


"Mia and her brood drag whatever's left of the name through the mud"


"TV: The gifted?"


"Dylan whines to Maureen Orth who passes it on to Janet Maslin"


"Media: "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!""


"He's a criminal (Ava and C.I.)"


"Saint Maria de Lourdes"


"Natalie Wood: The lies that remain repeated (C.I.)"


"Deep Thoughts From Roh-Roh Farrow"


"MEDIA: Hannah Gadsby is the 21st century's Jimmy Swaggart"


Those are only some of the pieces I've written and co-written regarding this issue.


Here's Alec's interview with Woody Allen.





The following sites updated:


Posted by at

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Sam Gilliam

geezer



That's from Sunday and it's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Geezer Rock." 

 

I want to note a passing:


Sam Gilliam, a Washington artist who helped redefine abstract painting by liberating canvas from its traditional framework and shaking it loose in lavish, paint-spattered folds cascading from ceilings, stairwells and other architectural elements, died June 25 at his home in the District. He was 88.


The cause was kidney disease, said Adriana Elgarresta, public relations director of New York’s Pace Gallery, which represents his work.

Mr. Gilliam was a relatively unknown art teacher in D.C.-area schools when he burst to international attention in 1969 for an exhibition that stunned the art community with its bravado.

Resembling a painter’s giant dropcloths, his flowing, unstructured canvases, known as drapes, appeared in what was then known as the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The extravagantly colored swags of fabric were suspended from the skylight of the Beaux-Arts building’s four-story atrium and prompted then-Washington Star art critic Benjamin Forgey to summarize the impact as “one of those watermarks by which the Washington art community measures its evolution.”

In a matter of months, Mr. Gilliam would become known throughout the country and later around the world as the painter who had knocked painting out of its frame. Over a career that spanned decades and several stylistic changes — not all of them as well received as his drapes — Mr. Gilliam would forever be known as an artistic innovator because of Corcoran show.

 

 

Pace Gallery notes:

 

Suspending stretcherless lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed. As an African-American artist in the nation’s capital at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, this was not merely an aesthetic proposition; it was a way of defining art’s role in a society undergoing dramatic change. Gilliam has subsequently pursued a pioneering course in which experimentation has been the only constant. Inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, his lyrical abstractions continue to take on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials.

In addition to a traveling retrospective organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 2005, Sam Gilliam has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1971); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1982); Whitney Museum of American Art, Philip Morris Branch, New York (1993); J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, Louisville, Kentucky (1996); Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2011); and Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018), among many other institutions. A semi-permanent installation of Gilliam’s paintings will opened at Dia:Beacon in August 2019. His work is included in over fifty public collections, including those of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in Washington, D.C.

 

And this is his "Solar Canopy."

 


 

 

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


Tuesday, June 28, 2022.  Iraq suffers from cholera, heat waves and climate change.  Swap a war on individual rights for cholera and it could be the US!


Within days of the reactionary Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to outlaw abortion, seven states have done so, either through trigger laws that took effect automatically, or through certification of the high court action by state officials which activated such laws.

According to Planned Parenthood, the states where abortion is already illegal and reproductive health clinics have ceased operating include: Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Utah, with a combined population of 52 million.

There are 15 states where the procedure is severely restricted and soon to be entirely illegal: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, with a combined population of 93 million.

In four more states, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan and North Carolina, the legal status of abortion depends on impending court decisions or, in Kansas, a statewide referendum in August. Some 26 million people live in these four states, bringing the total number of people living in states where abortion is banned or under immediate threat to 171 million, just over half the US population.

That leaves 24 states where the status of abortion remains on fairly strong legal foundations: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington.

Geographically, the division of the United States is quite stark. Abortion is likely to remain legal in the northeast and Middle Atlantic states, and along the entire West Coast and portions of the Mountain states, and in a few spots in the Midwest. Across the entire South, most of the Midwest, and some of the Mountain states, it will be savagely proscribed.

While the right to this vital medical procedure and fundamental democratic right is being taken away from women immediately, the response of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole is to view the issue purely as an opportunity to reverse their dismal poll numbers and mobilize support in the upcoming midterm elections on November 8.

Biden made a perfunctory statement Friday in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. White House sources told the press on background that the speech had already been written last month after the draft of the controlling opinion by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to the media. It was only “tweaked” in response to the handing down of the actual ruling.

The administration has convened a series of meetings to discuss what practical response it could carry out to aid women seeking abortions in the affected states, but nothing has happened so far except a joint letter from Attorney General Merrick Garland, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, reminding insurance companies that they must continue providing coverage of contraceptive services under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Some 30 Democratic senators sent a letter to the White House over the weekend, urging Biden to take “bold action” and use “every step available to your Administration, across federal agencies, to help women access abortions and other reproductive health care.” Diplomatically, however, they did not actually spell out a single concrete action that Biden should take.

The “left” wing of the Democratic Party has seized on the abortion issue as a means of voter mobilization in November, and rehabilitating the Biden administration in the eyes of millions who voted for Biden in 2020 to oust the hated Trump, but have seen the Democrats abandon their promises of significant social improvements and reforms. This includes such issues as voting rights, relief for student debt, serious protection against evictions and foreclosures, and a real fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been entirely abandoned.


In fairness, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House -- second in line to the presidency (should Joe become ill or decide to retire before the end of his term, the order of succession is the Vice President and then the Speaker of the House) -- has taken 'action' when cameras were around.  She read a poem and she led a sing along.



These are the type of actions activists use to try to influence law makers.  These are not actions for members of Congress.  They are yet again abdicating their power and their responsibilities.  

If they wanted to, they could codify ROE right now.  They have the power.  They will not have it after the mid-terms so when Senator Elizabeth Warren tells you the answer is to vote in the mid-terms or House Rep AOC argues the same, NO.  That' not how it's going to work.

In fact, that's what led to the overturning of ROE -- the Democratic Party using it as a get-out-the-vote mechanism and refusing to codify it.

They used the Iraq War.  Look at that if you're old enough.  They were going to end it, Nancy Pelosi swore, if they were given just one house of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms.  The American people gave them both houses.  And Congress didn't end the war.  They were surprised by the turn out and used the continuation of the Iraq War as a get out the vote tool in 2008 to grab the presidency.

They never did remove all US troops from Iraq.  We've seen multiple on US military convoys in Iraq this month.  And there was just a fire at a US base in western Iraq.   

They did the same with abortion.  They used it to grab votes but they never defended it.  It's been chipped away and chipped away since the ruling.  They criticized the Hyde Amendment, for example.  That chipped away a significant amount of power and access.  That started in 1976 and the Dems railed against it publicly but they never did a damn thing to end the Hyde Amendment.  

Nada Hassanein and Eli Marcel Cahan (USA TODAY) explained this earlier this month.  It started with refusing to allow  Medicaid to cover abortion and then it refused all federal funds.  This prevented access to millions of women who were working class and/or in poverty.  But these same leaders who want to read you a bad, Zionist poem and then play Kate Smith by singing "God Bless America" (apparently Congress can't stop dry humping this same Court's verdict on prayer) did nothing.  1976.  It was one of the first attacks on ROE and it came from Congress.  Nothing overturned it.  The gender quake of the 1992 elections did not overturn it.  Dems being in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House didn't overturn it.


Last month, POLITICO broke the news of the draft opinion the Court had that would overturn ROE V WADE.  In response to that, Margaret Kimberly (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) noted:

Reaction to the news was swift and predictable. Liberals expressed outrage and marched on federal courthouses and even to the homes of Supreme Court justices. Barack Obama released a long winded 700 word statement declaring himself, and his wife, strongly opposed to the court’s imminent decision. The statement is amusing because it gives the impression that Obama had nothing to do with the current state of affairs.

As a presidential candidate in 2008 Obama promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would have codified abortion rights into federal law. But once in office he never pushed congress to pass it. In typical Obamaesque fashion he would claim to believe that women had the right to choose abortion, but that he didn’t want to demonize the opposition, and he wanted to find consensus on the issue. After his usual routine "on the one hand this, but on the other hand that” on April 29, 2009 he finally said out loud what was clear. "The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority." It wasn’t even his lowest legislative priority. Obama never lifted a finger to get it passed, even during his first two years in office when he had majorities in the House and the Senate.

Knowing full well that Roe v. Wade hinged on having a supportive Supreme Court in place, he dithered on doing what he had the power to do. In 2013 he knew that the democrats might lose control of the senate in the 2014 election. He asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, already 80-years old and a cancer patient, to step down. She declined and he didn’t press the issue. In 2016 conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died and senate republicans refused to even hold hearings to confirm Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland. Obama had the option of making a  recess appointment that would have put Garland on the court but he didn’t do that either. Such a move would have been controversial, and perhaps Garland’s presence would have been short, but it would have made clear that democrats were as committed as they claimed to be on the issue of abortion rights.

Instead they play games with democratic voters. Any unhappiness with the democrats is met with the plea to protect the federal judiciary from conservatives. This ploy is nothing but a cynical effort to keep left leaning democrats in the fold and to discredit anyone who questions the party's continued failures to do what the people want them to do.

Now the liars and hypocrites like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who once claimed abortion was a "fading" issue are sending fundraising appeals to brain washed liberals who will again write checks and declare their devotion like Stockholm Syndrome hostages. Hillary Clinton’s foolish appeals to conservatives included choosing anti-choice senator Tim Kaine as a running mate and at times saying she was "ambivalent " about abortion are now forgotten as the supposed left of the party remain lost.

They are lost because they don’t know the most basic rules of political mobilizations. Instead of harassing SCOTUS justices at home, they should be harassing their democratic representatives. Why march to a courthouse instead of to the office of democratic member of congress and demand that they make abortion legal? In particular, senators have the ability to end the filibuster which would give the senate the ability to pass a Freedom of Choice Act with their small majority margin. Every democratic senator should be quaking in his or her boots for fear that they’ll be turned out of office if they do not act to protect abortion rights.


They do nothing.

Over and over, they do nothing.

Even now when they could still save ROE by voting to make it law, they do nothing.

As Ashford & Simpson once sang, "I want to know, is it still good to ya?"








It's not good for me and it shouldn't be good for you.  They have the power now to act and they're taking your money right now and they're asking you to pledge for them in November right now.  But they're not doing anything.  And the November election is not going to find them with more seats.  That's not the historical pattern and Joe Biden has been a highly disappointing president.  There are valid questions about his sanity and the American people want oversight.  The Dems have provided no oversight -- watch them run like roaches when the light's turned on if anyone mentions the words "Hunter Biden."  

So the Dems will lose control of at least one house, possibly two.

They need to act now or they are just stringing us along as they've done over and over.

Hey, a slogan of "Look how we stepped up!" after codifying ROE could get people to turn out in droves and upset expectations.

But do nothing and still asking for a vote?  We should reject that abuse.  They have abused us enough.


The ruling the Court made is out of step with the American people.  Julia Conley (COMMON DREAMS) explains:

Nine out of 10 Democrats and more than half of independent voters said they oppose the ruling, while only 20% of Republicans opposed it.

"What the court did is clearly outside the mainstream of public opinion, and that is reflected again in the NPR poll," wrote Domenico Montanaro at NPR.

The poll of 941 people, which had a margin of error of +/-4.9 percentage points, found that only 39% of respondents were left feeling confident in the court after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling—a new low for the survey. As Common Dreams reported last week, a separate poll by Gallup taken just before the ruling found that only 25% of Americans had confidence in the court.


Meanwhile, poor Iraq.  We gave them death and destruction and, possibly worst of all, we gave them a version of our do-nothing government.  Which is why nothing gets accomplished and why the Iraqi people continue to suffer.



As I dictate this snapshot, the temperature in Baghdad is 104 degrees Fahrenheit.  And the people are suffering with power cuts.  And the people are also suffering because it's summer which doesn't just mean heat, it also means the annual cholera outbreaks.  This too could be prevented.  There's no reason with all the millions and millions Iraq makes off oil each month that the government of Iraq cannot provide potable water -- water that is safe to drink.  Instead, a state of emergency has been declared.

And because violence breeds violence, we've exported school shootings to Iraq as well.



Two university professors in the northern Iraqi province of Erbil were killed in an armed attack by a former student on Tuesday, the Erbil governor said.

Kawan Ismail, the dean of the college of law at Salahaddin University in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, succumbed to injuries he sustained in a shooting by a dismissed student, Erbil Governor Omed Khoshnaw told a press conference.

The student attacked the dean and shot him and killed another engineering professor, the governor was quoted by the official Iraqi News Agency as saying.


Layal Shakir (RUDAW) adds:                                                                              

Four years earlier, Aras Mahdi Qassim started his first year of law at Soran University before he was expelled for his poor grades. He continuously attempted to transfer his studies to Salahaddin University’s law faculty in Erbil in a request that was repeatedly rejected due to his low marks, Himdad Faisal, dean of Soran University’s Faculty of Law told Rudaw of the student.

Qassim, who has previously clashed with law lecturer Nishtiman Osman over his Erbil transfer request, readied his gun early morning and made his way towards her house determined to commit a crime. 

The woman had filed a lawsuit against Qassim and was in the Soran administration on Tuesday to attend the first court session. Her husband, Idris Izzat, who is also a well-known university academic in Erbil, was alone at home when the student arrived. 


Two quick notes.  Everyone in the community is depressed regarding ROE.  I don't think there's going to be an edition of THIRD so if that proves to be the case as today unfolds, Ava and I'll post our TV piece late this afternoon (PST).  I believe it's 10:00 am EST that, on INSTAGRAM, Alec Baldwin is going to be interviewing Woody Allen live.  I consider Alec a friend.  I know Woody but we're not friends and weren't when he was with Mia (who was a friend).  I'm sure it'll be an interesting interview and if it makes it up on YOUTUBE we'll gladly repost it.  

The following sites updated:


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Monday, June 27, 2022

Nancy Pelosi is pathetic

 

She is disgusting.

 

She was never up to the task of being Speaker of the House.  Moneybags never was an activist and, goodness, does it show.

 

How pathetic.

 

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

 

Monday, June 27, 2022.  When I was talking to Elaine about one of the topics I'd be covering on Monday, I didn't realize it would end up being the entire snapshot.  But we're calling for the immediate impeachment and removal from the court of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and it is the entire snapshot.


On Friday, the Supreme Court ended ROE V WADE (see "Today is a story of betrayal -- one long betrayal").  Now, it is time to begin considering impeaching Clarence Thomas to remove him from the Supreme Court.  


In May, we noted here that if the House of Representatives were serious about the claims that they were making to the press regarding his second wife Virginia Thomas that they should begin impeachment.  They didn't.  Should they become more serious about those charges, they can certainly add that to list of reasons to impeach.


But there are currently two strong reasons to impeach.  


The first is his concurring opinion in DOBBS V JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH ORGANIZATION -- that's the decision overturning ROE.  In that decision, it wasn't enough for him to join the other four justices in overturning ROE.  He had to go further.


He wants to do away with birth control and with LGBTQ rights.  In his concurring opinion, he advocates:  "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell."


GRISWOLD V CONNECTICUT has been settled law since 1965.  The case made legal the purchase and use of contraceptives.  LAWRENCE V TEXAS was settled in 2003 and it outlawed the government's ability to prosecute people for sodomy.  OBERGEFELL V HODGES was decided in 2015 and it what provides us with marriage equality.


Little Clarence, the mental midget who can't speak and only recently learned how to write an opinion, needs to be removed from the Court -- he is a danger to himself and others.  


As Samuel L. Jackson has noted, Clarence is not objecting LOVING V VIRGINIA.  He might have to leave little Ginni The Insurrectionist if he did since LOVING is what allows interracial couples to marry.  


Overturning OBERGEFELL would break up marriages -- couples now married would, upon the ruling, no longer be married.  Some of those couples have children.  This would impact families.


None of that is a concern to Clarence.  For that reason alone, he's demonstrated he's not competent to sit on the Supreme Court.


The Court -- in fact the entire court system -- is built around protecting families.  Clarence's move is an attack on families, is an attack on the institution of marriage and is an argument against child welfare.  Overturning the other two go to how out of touch with the legal reality of today is: the police do not have the time to snare and arrest people for using birth control or for having anal sex nor do the already overburdened courts have room on the docket for these cases.


He is a clear danger to the judicial system.  He would not have been confirmed had he declared that he did not agree with the basic legal principal known as stare decisis.  Now maybe he wasn't against precedents when he was confirmed.  That's possible.  But he's made clear that he's against them now.


That's why you impeach him.


He is not fit to serve on the Court.  


He does not realize the damage that he would do tearing apart families, nullifying legal relationships.


He doesn't realize it but others do and that's why the Congress needs to step forward and impeach and them remove him.


There are certain basics that al members of the court must agree to for it to function.  In his concurring opinion, he made clear that stare decisis is not legal principal he agrees with.


If you are called to serve on a jury and you want to get out of it, the easiest ways is to indicate -- on paper or in a verbal answer -- that you know and agree with the principle of jury nullification.  That's a custom we bring over from the UK and it allows a jury to say that, yes, the person is guilty but I don't believe the crime matters or I don't think the crime is worth being punished for.


Say "jury nullification" and watch them rush to disqualify you.  That's because our system is built on innocent or guilty.


And our system is also built on stare decisis.  


Without stare decisis, you're just making it up as you go along and that's what Clarence Thomas wants to do and that's why he needs to be immediately impeached.  He is not fit to serve on the Court.


Can you imagine all the damage done if the cases he wants overturned in his concurring verdict were overturned?


He's not fit.  


Maybe he was once (we'll get to that) but he's not now.  He is a danger to the Court.  The longer he is allowed to remain on it, the more at risk the American people are.


He has no rational abilities left.  He is willing to break up the families with children if the parents are same-sex.  He is a danger and he needs to be stopped.  The correct remedy is removal from the Court via impeachment.


This would not be packing the Court.  It would not be about punishing a justice for a verdict. The other ones involved in overturning ROE would remain on the Court.  


I disagree with their finding but they didn't write anything as anti-judicial system as Clarence did.  Clarence must be removed.  He goes against everything our judicial system is built upon.  Hell, we're built on precedent and he's denying precedent when he's denying stare decisis.


He never should have written that concurring opinion and, for all I know, the others who overturned ROE feel the same.  But they weren't stupid enough to put it in writing.


When Clarence put it in writing, he was putting the United States on notice.  He needs to be removed from office.


Now let's get to the second reason to impeach him: Anita Hill.


In 1991, Anita raised the issue of sexual harassment.


As the attacks on Felicia Sonmez -- attacks from the left -- recently made clear, elements of this country still struggle with harassment.  "It was just a joke!"  Isn't that what the pig boys -- and some of the gals who pretend to be men -- said?  Just a joke.  


In isolation, you understand.


Not part of a larger pattern in which a woman got harassed daily.


That is what happened.  

 

Anita Hill had it even worse.  


And when she stood up in 1991 to testify against the harassment she experience from her boss Clarence Thomas, the county wasn't ready for it.  Reporters wanted to giggle over Long John Dong or whatever the porn title was.  They said Anita was a spoil sport.  She and her kind were destroying the work environment.

The Senate had additional witnesses that they refused to call.  I'm looking at you Joe Biden.


We are a different time now where some of us -- not Little Jackie Hinkle who thinks you bring a drunk woman on your YOUTUBE show to try to have sex with her -- are mature enough to address harassment.  


Clarence doesn't get a pass.


No one who harasses gets a pass.


Since his hearing, more has been learned about him.  One of the worst attackers on Anita Hill -- David Brock -- has now admitted he was a cheap liar.  And he was part of an organized effort to attack Anita and to get Clarence on the Court.  


We have learned since that Clarence lied or didn't remember correctly during his testimony.  There are whole books on this issue.


Impeachment exists for many reasons -- one of them is to rectify mistakes.  


Had Clarence been honest in his testimony regarding Anita Hill, he would not have been confirmed -- even in 1991, he would not have been confirmed.


Justice was not served by putting an abuser on the Court.


Justice needs to be addressed.  


It is past time that Clarence Thomas was impeached and removed from the Court.


As outlined above, his testimony in his hearing about his own actions regarding Anita Hill were not accurate.  He was part of an effort to attack Anita's character.  He does not believe in precedent and is making it clear that he will work to overturn other decisions which will negatively impact the lives of individuals and families.  He does not see the role of the court in keeping families together and, in fact, his comments in DOBBS are a declaration of war on the institution of the family as well as the rights of individuals.


Ginni Thomas has been much in the news.  When you tie her alleged actions to Clarence written comments, you have a couple bound and determined to destroy the country. And Clarence has the power to.


He needs to be impeached.


Many people have commented in the last few weeks that this or that nominee lied in their confirmation hearings.  Did they?  I have no idea, I can't peer into their hearts.  But if the Congress wants to make clear that nominees better be honest, they can do that be allowing future nominees to see what happens when you show no respect for basic legal principals, you get removed from the Court.


Impeachment is the only check on a lifetime appointment.  


It's time to move immediately to impeach Clarence Thomas and remove him from the Court.


His actions against Anita Hill should have precluded him from being confirmed and serving. 

He needs to be impeached immediately.


Any woman who's spent the last month fearing what would happen when the Court ruled on DOBBS knows how stressful that was.  That same stress should not be passed on to any other groups.  Not to a woman in need of birth control, not to a same sex couple trying to raise a family, not to an 11-year-old child with two Mommys or two Daddys.  


Congress needs to address this and should do so immediately.  


 



Kat's "Kat's Korner: Jack Johnson finds his way back" went up Sunday as did Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Geezer Rock."  In addition, the following sites updated:


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