Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Super group?

NME reports:

A cohort of Seattle’s pre-2000 grunge icons – including Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and Pearl Jam/Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron – have formed a new supergroup called 3rd Secret, and, without having announced it beforehand, dropped their debut album yesterday (April 11).
A self-titled affair, the 11-track effort sports a broad tonal palette – it leans heavily on classic grunge and alt-rock flavours, but adds diversity with hints of laidback folk and indie-rock, swampy blues and stomping hard-rock.
Tracks like ‘Dead Sea’ and ‘Winter Solstice’ make impressive use of twangy, melancholy acoustics, while the use of an accordion on ‘Right Stuff’ adds a unique sense of theatricality. ‘Diamond In The Cold’, on the other hand, is a crunchy, mosh-primed rock anthem, with songs like ‘I Choose Me’ and ‘Lies Fade Away’ embracing the epochal ‘90s grunge sound that 3rd Secret’s members built their legacies on.

I wish Pat Smear were part of it. But I'm thankful that Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl aren't. Too bad they didn't record a tack with Courtney Love. That would have really helped get the word out on this new band.

I was never a devotee of Courtney Love's. I could appreciate what Hole did but didn't really want to listen to them. When they did the album Billy Corgan helped out on, I liked that and it was the first album by Hole that I could listen to. (Again, they made art before that, I just wasn't into their sound.) Courtney did a strong solo album as well. People seemed to slam her for wanting to be a film star and for the lengths she went to in her attempt to become one. It's a shame (about Ray) (ha ha, Lemonheads joke) because Courtney has more talent in her pinkie toe than Dave and his Foo Fighters have in all their bodies combined.

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

Tuesday, April 12, 2022. The continued persecution of Julian Assange, the Kurdish genocide, tiny man Joe Biden and his war lust, all that and even THE THING ABOUT PAM.

Starting with a reminder, Ruth and Betty have been covering THE THING ABOUT PAM at their sites. Tonight, NBC airs the last episode of the six episode series. As Jim has noted, like all broadcast TV fair of recent years, the second episode saw a drop off in the number of viewers but, unique to THE THING ABOUT PAM, viewership then began improving with each episode. So much so, as Jim notes in his piece posted earlier this morning, episode five (last week) had more viewers than episode one. NBC, like every other broadcast network, has had to settle for programs that bleed viewers each episode. So that is rather significant. The series is based on a true story and, as Ava and I noted, Renee Zellweger is excellent in the lead role.

Turning to Julian Assange. US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian for the 'crime' of journalism. Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

A coalition of progressive leaders from across the globe demanded Monday that the Biden administration immediately drop all charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently jailed in a high-security London prison as he fights U.S. extradition attempts.

In a letter to Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), more than 30 progressive advocates, intellectuals, and former heads of state argued that dropping the Espionage Act charges against Assange would "send a strong message to the world: that freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press constitute an instrument that can controvert the interests of any government, including that of the United States of America."

"The cases where there are reports of serious violations of freedom of expression would also be impacted by the dropping of the 18 charges against Assange," the letter reads. "It would affirm the defense of this fundamental human right and would undoubtedly represent a clear and robust sign that everyone can express their opinion without fear of retaliation; that all the press outlets can give news to all the citizens of the world, with the certainty that the pluralism of thought is guaranteed."

Signed by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Chilean intellectual Carlos Ominami, and 30 others, the letter was sent on the third anniversary of Assange's forced removal from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019.

Assange has since been languishing in Belmarsh prison under conditions that human rights experts have characterized as "torture." Last month, the U.K. Supreme Court denied Assange's request to appeal an earlier decision allowing him to be extradited to the U.S., where he could face up to 175 years in prison.

SCHEER POST adds:

s his extradition to the United States looms large, Julian Assange completed three years of imprisonment in the United Kingdom on Monday, April 11. Held in a high security prison complex in Belmarsh in the outskirts of London, the Wikileaks founder has been in prison since 2019 when he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by the police.

Marking the anniversary, Assange’s supporters held vigils in London and around the world. Last month, on March 14, the UK Supreme Court rejected Assange’s request to appeal against his extradition sanctioned by the High Court in London, making his extradition very likely.

Later this month on April 20, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, which had earlier declined the US extradition request, is expected to issue the order to extradite as per the High Court’s directive. The order is then to be passed on to the UK home office, which will have the final say to sanction the extradition.

Joe Biden could end the persecution at any point. The tiny man in the White House refuses to do o. And history will not look any fonder on Joe than the American people currently do. He has nothing to offer but maybe, like Barack, he can get millions of dollars from NETFLIX to refurbish his image? Do nothing to protect, for example, nature while president but pretend to care once out of office?

What Joe can do, as David North (WSWS) observes, is scream for war:

In a warmongering speech before a major trade union conference last week, President Biden lined up the trade union bureaucracy to back the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. The speech was part of the administration’s efforts to put together a “labor front” with the AFL-CIO unions to suppress the opposition to the demands for massive sacrifice to pay for American imperialism’s preparation for all-out war against Russia.

Biden spoke to a legislative conference of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), a federation of 14 national construction unions. The entire first half of Biden’s speech was devoted exclusively to the war in Ukraine. His remarks left no doubt that, far from their hypocritical claims to be defending “freedom” and “human rights,” the US and NATO are using Ukraine as a launching pad for a regime change operation in Russia and the transformation of the country into a semi-colony of the Western powers.

Biden bragged about the devastation wreaked by sanctions on the Russian economy, citing the fact that its GDP has shrunk by double digits. “Just in one year, our sanctions are likely to wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains,” Biden said. “And because we’ve cut Russia off from importing technologies like semiconductors and encryption security and critical components of quantum technology that they need to compete in the 21st century, we’re going to stifle Russia’s ability and its economy to grow for years to come.”

Biden said the reason for the military setbacks inflicted by Ukraine against Russia are due to arms and training which NATO has flooded into Ukraine for years. “We’ve trained them, and we’ve given them the weapons.” The announcement of each new weapons system sent to the Ukrainian military and the prospect of the destruction of the Russian economy evoked raucous applause from the assembled union officials.

The speech demonstrated the staggering degree of recklessness which prevails in the Biden administration. Washington has deliberately incited the war and is risking a nuclear exchange with the world’s second largest nuclear power.

Biden made it clear that the US was preparing a long, drawn-out war, which would require massive sacrifice from workers in terms of economic and human costs. “This war could continue for a long time, but the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the fight for freedom. And I just want you to know that.”

Significantly, Biden added, “If I got to go to war, I’m going with you guys. I’ll tell you. I mean it.”

Joe's not going anywhere except to a nursing home. He didn't serve in Vietnam but he wants to glorify military service now. And that's not a cue for him to bring up Beau Biden. In fact, probably better not to because it's getting harder and harder for me to hold my tongue about Beau. I honestly thought it would come out in Hunter's book. It didn't. He elected to keep the family secret -- even when it could have benefited him.

Joe is perfectly fine with destroying the world, it's not like he plns to live in it much longer. He's got very few gasps of air left at his age. Those thinking that, in his ifnal years, he's going to have some soft of transformation are kidding themselves. He was in the US Senate for decades. He never served the American people or the world in any noble capacity all that time.

He's a tiny man who was upstaged in 2008 by Barack Obama and so he had to be president to try to show the world tht he as up to it. And he's not. And he never will be.

What is he?

More and more, he looks like a four year, paid advertisement purchased by Donald Trump. As though his only real purpose is to remind people just how awful a government can be when the idiot in charge elects to harm the American people to pursue war that not only could bring us all to the brink of nuclear war but also is destroying the American way of life -- or whatever was elft of it -- with inflation, soaring gas prices and empty shelves at thee grocery store.

No one elected Joe to put their own lives at risk so that he could pursue ssome distant war that the US shouldn't be involved in to begin with.

At WSWS, David North points out how THE NEW YORK TIMES helps Joe bring on war:

Yesterday’s New York Times’ editorial, “Document the War Crimes in Ukraine,” draws belated attention to the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal, which indicted and convicted Nazi leaders. It cites the tribunal’s definition of a war of aggression as an international crime:

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

In 2004, at a debate at Trinity College, I cited the Nuremberg trial as the basis in international law for the indictment of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, British Prime Minister Blair and many others as war criminals for having launched a war of aggression against Iraq.

During the last 30 years of repeated US wars of aggression, the Nuremberg precedent has been ignored by the Times. It now invokes the precedent against Putin, demonstrating again that the media’s attitude to international law is determined solely by US foreign policy interests.

There may well be a case against Putin, but to hold him accountable for a “war of aggression” while ignoring the far more blatant culpability of numerous US presidents and high-ranking officials (i.e., Hilary Clinton) would be a legal travesty.

Turning to Iraq, Doctors Without Borders notes:

Undeterred by the stormy weather, a line of women formed outside the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Al-Amal maternity center, located in the Al-Nahwaran neighborhood of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.

Maram is three months pregnant. She is expecting her third child, but this is the first time that she’s visited this center. “I came here because my relatives told me about [it],” she says. “My sister-in-law came here before, and she recommended it.” Many other women here also heard about the center through word of mouth, and patient numbers have increased in recent months.

Al-Amal offers routine obstetric care, newborn care, family planning, and mental health support. The MSF team also conducts health promotion. Thirty midwives and five midwife supervisors work in the facility, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The team assists between 10 and 15 deliveries daily, but a busy day can see up to 25 births. “Unfortunately, we still can’t cover all the needs,” said Rahma Adla Abdallah, an MSF midwife supervisor. “We help most women who come here, but we have to have admission criteria to maintain the best possible level of care within the limits of our own resources.”

A long road to recovery

In June 2014, Mosul fell to the Islamic State group. In October 2016, a military offensive led by an alliance of the Iraqi security forces and an international coalition was launched to retake the city. The battle of Mosul lasted for more than 250 days and was described as one of the deadliest urban battles since World War II.

Almost five years after the city was officially declared retaken by Iraqi authorities, many medical facilities damaged in the fighting have yet to be fully renovated and are not fit for use. “What has mainly been done is to [temporarily] install containers next to destroyed facilities until they are rebuilt,” said Adla Abdallah. “But the containers are often not properly equipped for receiving patients. Right now, especially [with] COVID-19, the needs are too big for hospitals in Mosul to handle.”

On top of this, there are still shortages of medical supplies, and thousands of families in Mosul and surrounding areas still struggle to access quality affordable health care.

Filling the gaps

In response to the high level of unmet needs after the conflict, MSF opened a specialist maternity unit in Nablus hospital in West Mosul in 2017 to provide safe, high quality, and free health care for pregnant women and newborns. In July 2019, a second MSF team opened the Al-Amal maternity unit within Al-Rafadain primary health care center, also in West Mosul. Last year, MSF teams in both facilities assisted the births of almost 15,000 babies.

“We first opened this maternity unit because there were significant needs in the city when it came to access to health care in general, and even more so in the field of sexual and reproductive health care,” said Loay Khudur, MSF’s assistant project coordinator. “Three years later, many women still need to come here because the city’s health system is far from functional.”

“Women in this community not only need access to physical health care, they also need full mental health support,” said Adla Abdallah. “Gender-based violence is an issue we sometimes witness. Some of our patients have experienced it but they very rarely talk about it.”

Iraq’s Directorate of Health has set up dedicated health services in the city to provide care for survivors of gender-based violence. But stigma continues to prevent many women from seeking this care.

“Most of the time, it’s the people who live with them who bring [the patient] here,” said Adla Abdallah. “The women themselves don’t speak because they feel scared. Gender-based violence is still very taboo and is an additional challenge we face when treating women here.”

Barriers to accessing care

Stigma is not the only barrier women face to accessing care. “The environment is particularly complicated here,” said Bashaer Aziz, an MSF midwife supervisor. “A significant number of women cannot access health care either because they do not have the means to pay for it, or because they face other challenges, such as not having official administrative document due to the recent conflict or being displaced from their homes.”

MSF offers free care in all its facilities. “When patients come to our facility, they are generally very grateful to receive good medical and obstetric care,” said Aziz. “They don’t have other places to go, they cannot afford to pay for services at hospitals or private clinics. Our maternity unit makes a big difference to them.”

“Before this maternity unit existed, nothing was available and we used to deliver at home,” said Mahaya, 50, who traveled more than an hour with her pregnant daughter-in-law to come to the clinic. “A midwife would come, deliver the baby, and that would be it. There wasn’t even a hospital we could go to. This maternity unit is a big improvement in our lives.”

“There is still a long way to go before proper access to both physical and mental healthcare can be guaranteed in Mosul,” said Adla Abdallah. “But I focus on the little wins to keep on going. One day a patient left us a note to thank us for the services we provide, but also for the human approach we take at the maternity unit. Her thanks meant a lot to me.”

Meanwhile, in 2020, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani declared:

Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the worst genocide against the peoples of Kurdistan. The genocide was a series of massacres which aimed to eliminate the Kurdish identity and wipe out the Kurdistani nation.

This was an horrific crime, which the people of Kurdistan cannot forget. Thousands of innocent people were killed while the world watched. The profound pain will continue to live on in our memories. But this anniversary should not merely be a commemoration of our past suffering. We must work together to eradicate the evil and racist ideologies that drove the Anfal genocide.

The Kurdistan Regional Government will continue to strive for a global recognition of Anfal as genocide, and improve the living conditions of the families of the victims. The Iraqi government too should fulfil its moral and constitutional responsibility to compensate victims of this terrible crime and provide reassurances that it will not be repeated in the future.

We bring that up because this Thursday will be the 245h anniversary of the genocide.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Monday, April 11, 2022

Music and antiwar

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Joe Biden's Mythical Mid-Term Voters" went up Sunday and is solid.

I did another music review over the weekend, "Kat's Korner: Dolly Parton still has the touch." Jonah was happy and noted in an e-mail that I kept my promise. I had said I might do one and Jonah's talking about that. But I did not keep my promise. I was thinking I'd grab a Judy Garland album to review I'm trying to review one of her albums a year. There's not a large body of work online when it comes to her recordings -- especially compared to her peers.

I loved Dolly's RUN, ROSE< RUN but it was Toni and Rebecca who got me to review that.

New topic, Paul Haeder has an interesting article at DISSIDENT VOICE:

Ted Rall gets it right here: The Left Must Continue to Avoid the Ukraine Trap

“Find a way to be against the war in Ukraine, please.” That was the subject line of one of my recent hate emails. “If you look through Mr. Rall’s cartoons for the past month, there isn’t a single one condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” an anonymous online commenter chided. “There’s plenty of ones based around whataboutism condemning us for condemning them but not a single one that just comes right out and says what Russia is doing now is wrong.”

The Right — in the U.S. that includes Republicans, Democrats and corporate media — has set a clever trap for the anti-war Left. The rhetoric in this essay’s first paragraph is an example. If the Left were to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Right would portray us as Russia-loving hypocrites who only oppose wars when the United States starts them. If the Left backed Ukraine, they’d be joining an unholy alliance with a government installed in a CIA-backed coup that pointlessly provoked Russia by asking to join NATO and is so tolerant of neo-Nazism that it allows soldiers wearing Nazi insignia in its military and seems to be trying to set some sort of record for building statues to World War II Nazi collaborators and antisemites. Plus, they’d be helping the Right distract people from the murderous sins of American imperialism, which are ongoing.

So, again, the offensive weapons industry, from the grenade to the guzzling B-1 bomber, from the pant zipper to the propelled hand-held rockets, from the Meals Ready to Eat to the Missiles from the Drones’ Mouth, all of those shell casings and depleted uranium bullet heads, all of that, including Burger Kings for Troops to the Experimental Anthrax Vaccines, all of that, and all the paper-mouse pushers, all the middlewomen and middlemen, all the folks in this military everything industrial complex, that is what the Russian Right to Stop Extremists/Murderers/ Nazis in Ukraine is all about. USA/UK/EU can take out wedding parties, but Russia can’t take out Nazi’s.

So, we have Angela Davis (throw away your blackness black panther card) and Chomsky and Sean Penn and every manner of woke and wise idiot calling Putin a dictator, a thug, an authoritarian leader. Oh, the authoritarian BlackRock and Raytheon and Biden Administration and USA Lobbying Network, and on and on, so, again, tenured professors with book contracts and speaking (paid big bucks) engagements, forget about them.

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

Monday, April 11, 2022. Joe Biden continues to perseucte Julian Assange while his own corruption gets futher attention and little media needs to be asked why they are glorifying a man arrested three times for seeking sex with underage girls, convicted for it in court, sent to prison for it.

Starting with the continued persecution of Julian Assange by US President Joe Biden. Joe wants the UK to deport Australian citizen Julian Asange for the 'crime' of journalism. Alan Jones (INDEPENDENT) reports:

The continued imprisonment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a “criminal act”, his wife has said.

Stella Assange was speaking on the third anniversary of her husband being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

He has since been held in Belmarsh prison in the capital while the US seeks his extradition on espionage charges, which he has always denied.

Protests took place yesterday. BBC NEWS reports:

Protests are being held to mark the third anniversary of the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Supporters are escalating demands for his release from Belmarsh prison in London where he has been since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy.

The United States continues with legal moves to extradite him to face trial on espionage charges.

Vigils are being held outside the Ecuadorian embassy, Westminster magistrates' court and Belmarsh prison.

Also yesterday, Katie Halper used her online platform to steer attention to Julian Assange.

Here's the synopsis of the video:

A night of comedy and music in support of Julian Assange, featuring Lee Camp, Margaret Kunstler, Katie Halper, Marianne Williamson, Eleanor Goldfield, John Kiriakou, Jaffer Khan, Medea Benjamin, John F O'Donnell, Luci Murphy, Steve Jones hosted by Randy Credico. Presented by Assange Countdown & NYC Free Assange.

Julian's 'crimes' include informing the public of War Crimes in Iraq.

Joe Biden wants to persecute Julian. He wants to kidnap him and bring him to the United States. Knowing Joe, he probably wants to f**k Julian as well -- or at least sniff him.. Surely he wants to treat Julian as an enemy combatant.

Joe has a non-stop war on the First Amendment. When you have so much to hide, you're no fan of a free press.

Senator Chuck Grassley (Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee) and Senator Ron Johnson speak in the above C-SPAN video about the questionable practices of the Biden family.

Senator Ron Johnson's office issued the following:

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) joined U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the Senate floor for the third time to discuss their investigation into the vast web of financial entanglements of the Biden family. The senators found that the Bidens not only have ties with the Chinese regime, but Russian oligarchs as well. The senators will continue their investigation until the truth about these corrupt business dealings is uncovered and the American people have answers.

Click here for the video

Sen. Johnson’s remarks as prepared, below.

Thank you, Senator Grassley.

What Senator Grassley and I have shown over the course of six speeches are the actual bank records of financial transactions tying President Biden’s son, Hunter, and his brother, James, to businesses that are essentially arms of the communist Chinese regime. But the Biden business ventures include activities in many more countries than just China.

In our September and November 2020 reports we showed a vast web of the Biden family’s foreign financial entanglements that were largely ignored by the media, and falsely labeled Russian disinformation by our Democrat colleagues. As outrageous as the suppression of our reports and the false attacks were, perhaps the most egregious behavior came from 51 former Intelligence Agency officials who lent their names and reputations to an effort designed to convince the American public that Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Without any evidence backing their assertion, they engaged in their own “information operation” by signing a public letter right before the election. Their letter was actual disinformation, coming from what are supposed to be trusted former members of our U.S. intelligence agencies.

They should all be ashamed and held accountable for spreading this disinformation. By signing that disinformation letter, they reinforced false claims that the records on the laptop were not legitimate.

By casting doubt on evidence of the Bidens’ corrupt practices, these former intelligence officials interfered in the 2020 election to a far greater extent than Russia could have ever hoped to achieve. Their willing accomplices in the press amplified this disinformation letter and by doing so were equally guilty of egregious election interference.

In August 2020, I wrote a public letter detailing the history, purpose and goals of my oversight and investigations. In that letter, I laid out the timeline of Joe and Hunter Biden’s involvement in Ukraine. The timeline is very revealing.

February 2014 – The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine.
April 16, 2014 – then-Vice President Joe Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House.
April 21 (Five days later) – Joe Biden visited Ukraine, and the media described him as the “public face of the administration’s handling of Ukraine.”
April 22 (the very next day) – Archer joined the board of Burisma.
April 28 (Six days later) – British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma’s owner, Mykoloa Zlochevsky.
May 13, 2014 (three weeks later) – Hunter Biden joined the board of Bursima.

Because of the findings in our reports and the excellent investigative journalism on the part of John Solomon, we also now know that Hunter was involved with Elena Baturina, the corrupt and now-sanctioned wife of the former Mayor of Moscow during the very same time period.

On February 14, 2014 Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden.

Between April 4 and April 5, 2014, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer sent emails about meeting with Baturina potentially relating to a business deal in Chelsea, New York.

On April 13, 2014, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer discuss the potential business deal involving Baturina. Archer wrote that Baturina “confirmed green light to fund deposit.” Archer continued, “Just spent two hours on the phone with Kiev. I am confident at this point this is a good, if not life changing, deal if the Uk[raine] doesn’t collapse in the meantime.”

It is quite interesting to see how much significant activity involving the Bidens and corrupt actors in Russia and Ukraine occurred within a six-week period only two months after the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. It sure looks like they intended to cash in on the turmoil in Ukraine.

In my August 2020 letter, I listed a number of questions about then-Vice President Biden’s interaction with Hunter Biden’s business partner and other family members’ foreign financial dealings. In making this letter public, my hope was that the press would begin to ask then-presidential candidate Joe Biden these important questions.

It should come to no surprise that the corporate media was completely uninterested and failed to conduct any investigative journalism.

Nearly two years after I wrote this public letter, the mainstream media has still not adequately pressed President Biden for answers to these very legitimate questions:

Why did Joe Biden meet with Devon Archer at the White House on April 16, 2014? What was discussed? Did they discuss anything related to Ukraine, Hunter Biden, or Burisma?
Was Joe Biden aware that Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma six days later?
Does Joe Biden believe Burisma and its owner are corrupt?
When did Joe Biden first become aware that Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma?
When did Joe Biden first become aware of how much money Hunter Biden was being compensated by Burisma?
What does Joe Biden know about Hunter or James Biden’s business dealings in China?
What does Joe Biden know about financial benefits his brothers and sister-in-law have obtained because of their relationship to him?

Investigative reporter John Solomon has added more questions to this list, including:

What, if anything, did Joe Biden know about his son's dealings with Russian oligarch Elena Baturina?
A 2017 series of memos referred to a Chinese business deal that involved Hunter Biden and included a 10% equity for the “big guy.” What did Joe Biden know about this specific deal and who was the “big guy”?
Emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop, now in the possession of the FBI, refer to shared accounts or bills between Joe Biden and Hunter. Did Hunter ever give Joe Biden any money, gift or financial benefit from Hunter’s business dealings?

After a long-overdue analysis, the New York Times and Washington Post have finally admitted that records from Hunter’s laptop are authentic, which means – although they will NEVER admit this – that Senator Grassley and I were right and they were wrong.

It is interesting to read how limited and muted their mea culpas are. My guess is that they learned a lot from their coverage of Nixon’s Watergate scandal cover-up. They learned that when you’ve been caught in a cover-up – and that is what has happened here – you try to limit the damage by telling a little bit of the truth. In the Intelligence world, this strategy is called a “limited hang out.” The Watergate conspirators called it a “modified limited hang out.”

Regardless of what it’s called, what the New York Times and Washington Post are doing is not telling the whole truth. I doubt they ever will. But just in case they decide to pursue the truth with a bit more rigor, they can use this list of relevant questions as a good starting point for what they should be asking President Biden.

For our part, Senator Grassley and I will continue to ask tough questions, review more information and records and transparently provide that information to the American public.

We intend to pursue and uncover the truth.

I will turn the floor over to Senator Grassley for his closing remarks.

CBS NEWS reports:

The issues were discussed on MSNBC's MORNING JOE and I was asked to note it. I know the guest on the segment (Dan Abrams) and I was told the segment included a report by Pete Williams. Fine. I was willing to note it. Then I streamed it. Mika is trash and I've never been able to stand her. Her father is responsible for the deaths of so many and that's before we even touch on don't have sex on the job. I find her depraved and disgusting. I don't need her to editorialize before a conversation can begin and I certainly don't need her insisting nothing to see here before the discussion begins. If there's nothing to see here then find another story to cover, dead. That shouldn't be hard, not even for an idiot like Mike. We're not noting it, sorry. I will note Dan Abrams discussing the various issues on NEWS NATION.

And, in the second segment of the REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT video below, Sabby Sabs addresses situational ethics and hypocrisy with regards to the Biden ethics scandal.

Miranda Devine (NY POST) offers:

It is not just the e-mails and other material on Hunter’s abandoned laptop which point to Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s multimillion-dollar global influence-peddling schemes when he was vice president.

There is also the six-hour interview Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski gave to the FBI last year, along with a trove of documents, e-mails and encrypted messages.

Bobulinski has publicly named Joe Biden as the “Big Guy,” referenced in e-mails, whose 10% equity in a joint venture with Chinese energy company CEFC was held for him by Hunter.

Now the identity of the Big Guy has become a topic for the Delaware probe.

At least one of the witnesses before the grand jury has been asked: who is the Big Guy?

Sources familiar with the investigation say Bobulinski is yet to appear, but if he does not testify before the grand jury, something is very wrong.

Perhaps US attorney David Weiss is saving the best for last.

The pressure on Weiss is immense, as the four-year investigation into the president’s son and his business partners, including his uncle James Biden, Joe’s younger brother, threatens to become an election issue in November.

Alarm bells are starting to ring in Democratic circles as the White House stonewalls in the face of increasing media inquiries. In two absurd statements in recent days, White House spokespeople said the president stands by his pre-election statement that Hunter never received any money from China, and he continues to deny that he knew anything about his son’s overseas business dealings.

The White House position is unsustainable.

When not attempting to coveer for the corruption within his own family, Joe pushes for war with Russia. Already, in grocery stores across America, the supplies are limited. Go in, look around. Notice that, for example, there are huge empty spaces on the chips aisle. Notice how canned goods is missing major

Joe is a failure. And the media doesn't want to call him on it but the America people will in the mid-terms. Inflation, higher gas prices. We're not all Joe's sister. Everyon can get a bribe passed off as payment for work needed for dictating a bunch of lies that make Joe Biden look good. There's no audience for a book about Joe Biden. Michelle Obama -- who does have supporters -- did not sell well with her book. Joe has nothing to insprie. And his sister has enabled and covered for him for decades. No one expects truth or anything interesting in her 'book.' But, hey, she was overpaid and the conglomerate knows Joe recognizes payments (bribes) to his family.

Jim Lobe (RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT) notes:

The evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks devoted more coverage to the war in Ukraine last month than in any other month during all wars, including those in which the U.S. military was directly engaged, since the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, according to the authoritative Tyndall Report. The only exception was the last war in which U.S. forces participated in Europe, the 1999 Kosovo campaign.

Combined, the three networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — devoted 562 minutes to the first full month of the war in Ukraine. That was more time than in the first month of the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989 (240 mins), its intervention in Somalia in 1992 (423 mins), and even the first month of its invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 (306 minutes), according to a commentary published Thursday by Andrew Tyndall, who has monitored and coded the three networks’ nightly news each weekday since 1988.

“Astonishingly, the two peak months of coverage of the [2003] Iraq war each saw less saturated coverage than last month in Ukraine (414 minutes in March of 2003 and 455 minutes in April),” he wrote. “…The only three months of war coverage in the last 35 years that have been more intensive than last month were Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 (1,208 minutes) and his subsequent removal in January and February 1991 (1,177 and 1,033 minutes respectively).”

That was at a time, however, when the network evening news devoted about a third more time to foreign news than it has in recent years when international news coverage has fallen to all-time lows.

Last month’s coverage of Ukraine even eclipsed by a wide margin the three networks’ coverage of the chaotic end of Washington’s 20-year war in Afghanistan last summer. Last August, the month with the most intense coverage, the three networks devoted a total of 345 minutes (or only about 60 percent of last month’s total Ukraine coverage) to the war’s abrupt denouement. Once U.S. forces had fully withdrawn by August 31, network coverage of Afghanistan fell precipitously to a total of just 103 minutes between September 1 and the end of year, despite the desperation of the country’s humanitarian situation that followed (and persists).

While the major cable news networks often receive more public attention, the evening news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC collectively remain the single most important source of international news in the United States.

The push for war certainly received more attention that Iraq did last month. Last month was the 19th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War -- an ongoing war NEHR NEWs AGENCY reports:

According to Iraqi sources, two US military logistics convoys have been targeted in southern and northern Iraq.

A security source said that a logistics convoy belonging to US troops was hit by an explosion in Salah ad-Din, north of Baghdad.

Also, a roadside bomb exploded in the path of US military logistics crossing the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar.

Remember, in 2009, Barack Obama's grandstanding on Iraq, how he knew the US had done everything it could and how it was time to leave and how . . .

13 years later and US troops remain on the ground in Iraq.

Joe Biden care to explain that?

I don't like lairs. I have been kind and I'm tired of it. There's a Twitter wave now in support of Scott Ritter. Poor Scotty. He was banned. In 2002!!!! Well, he was still on cable then. That's your first lie, idiots. Richard Medhurst and others have been making it very clear that they don't care for women or girls.

Scott Ritter lost TV access when his second arrest for attempting to engage in sex with an underage girl became known. Most likely, his political enemies -- Democrats and Republicans -- leaked it to the media. But let's stop the nonsense of his being removed from corporate media because he was telling the truth.

And let's start asking various outlets -- CONVO COUCH, Richard Medhurst, Jackson Hinkle and others -- exactly what are you trying to do?

You're bringing on a man convicted of attempting to engage in sex with an underage girl. A man who sought girls out on the internet for sexual purposes.

His lawyer got him off on the first arrest. The second came with a slap on the wrist. The third happened after Barack was president and it went to trial. Scott cried to the court, real tears, about how he couldn't control it and he was so embarrassed and . . .

Off he went to prison.

And now Richard and others bring him on their shows without any sort of warning?

his conviction. F

He's a sex criminal. Convicted. A convicted felon. He admitted it in court. I know he's walked it back since he got out. I don't care.

And if that's the best you have to foffer, you need to learn how to make an argument. A convicted felon who preys on young girls is not someone you should be promoting.

If you're going to bring him on your show, you need to at least note his conviction.

In 2004 and 2004, we had to make this case. People finally got the point allowing them to avoid being embarrassed by his third arrest.

I can't elieve that I'm again having to take time on this.

Don't pretend you're about equality if you're promoting a man who wants to harm underage girls. Don't pretend that you're about truth when you lie that he was expunged from the airwaves because he was arguing about the Iraq War when he was tossed from corporate airwaves when they learned of his arrest and that it was his second arrest.

I don't know why you insist upon bringing on a predator to begin with. Mayb eyou just don't give a s**t what happens to women and girls? Maybe you should answer that question.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Joe Biden's Mythical Mid-Term Voters" went up earlier this morning and Kat's "Kat's Korner: Dolly Parton still has the touch." The following sites updated:

Saturday, April 09, 2022

Jewel

I like Jewel. I just saw that and thought I'd note it because I don't think I've noted Jewel before. By the way, she has a new album coming out next Friday. My favorite Jewel song is "Hands." I will be listening to the new album, FREEWHEELIN" WOMAN. The first single, which she sings with Train, is "Dancing Slow."

That's the official video and here's the official audio.

After "Hands," my favorite Jewel song is either "Who Will Save Your Soul?" or "Foolish Games" or "My Father's Daughter"(a song she did with Dolly Parton).

Now a favorite moment from AMERICAN DAD.

I love that, Roger's frozen face as Hayley reveals she's deleted one of his episodes of BONES and Steve insists the quality of BONES has fallen.

We had a very long roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin Thursday night. Those who wrote after were doing theme posts on animated TV shows (plus Marcia doing THE BIONIC WOMAN which is one of my favorite 70s shows of all time):

SICKOFITRADLZ

The Bionic Woman

1 day ago

Ann's Mega Dub

The Simpsons

1 day ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

'king of the hill'

1 day ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends

The problems with FAMILY GUY

1 day ago

Mikey Likes It!

THE SIMPSONS

1 day ago

Ruth's Report

Scooby-Doo

1 day ago

Like Maria Said Paz

BOB'S BURGERS

1 day ago

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

Friday, April 8, 2022. We're staying brief to make one key point: NYT owes NYP an apology.

Do we ever learns? Or maybe the better question is: Do they ever learn>

As 2001 drew to a close, the US press began destroying their own reputations. It was one act of professional suicide after another. October 2001, for those who don't know, is when THE NEW YORK TIMES ran their first cover story linking -- falsely linking -- the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US to the government of Iraq.

There was no link.

Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq at the time. He did not allow al Qaeda to operate in Iraq. Had they operated there freely, they would have overthrown him because he was over a secular government and because they were sympathetic to those who were not in power in Saddam's Iraq.

But NYT, THE WASHINGTON POST, the broadcast networks, the cable networks, etc, etc repeated one lie after another to start that illegal war.

It's probably hard if you weren't there when it happened and if you weren't of an age to have grasped it as it happened -- hard to now understand what took place. Back then, the media could talk of nothing but Iraq. That's the same US media that ignores Iraq today that barely noted that the war hit the 19 year mark last month, that acts as though US troops are no longer in Iraq and that the US created (imposed) some wonderful government there.

They lied. They lied over and over.

Liars got rewarded.

Kevin Drum is at MOTHER JONES. No consequences. It's not just big media that rewarded liars, little media has done the same.

But they lied.

Oprah didn't suffer. She brought Judith Miller onto her daily program to lie and when an audience member challenged the lies Judith was spewing, Oprah attacked the audience member.

No one ever took accountability.

And the media suffered. In the aftermath, they wanted to pretend as though there was no reason for so many to distrust them and even now they act that way. Especially now. They don't mention Iraq and they hope everyone else has forgotten.

But that was a sea change for perception of the media.

It appears it was also a behavior shift because the media had not only done nothing to restore trust in their own profession, they have continued to present lies as fact and ignore reality while silencing any questioning.

The rolly polly and disgusting Brian Stelter of CNN was speaking this week about disinformation. No, he wasn't finally taking responsibility for his multitude of journalistic sins. The idiot really thought he had a soap box to stand upon and lecture others from. A conservative student commented with a list of the most recent appalling journalistic sins -- or some of them, there are far too many for one person to ever list unless they're delivering a 24 hour filibuster -- and Brian avoided the question and wanted to instead wanted to talk about Ukraine and how others worked with FOX NEWS there regarding a journalist and -- I'm sorry, we aren't that stupid.

And we're not whining, "Why can't you all work together!"

In fact, the problem has often been that you do work together -- right and left -- such as when you sold the illegal war on Iraq.

Working together is frequently the only work you ever do.

You're certainly not working for the public good.

You 'work' to advances causes and candidates.

You're not telling the truth. You're actively suppressing the truth.

Anne Applebaum, after disgracing herself as THE WASHINGTON POST for years (Bob Somerby long ago dubbed her Annie Apples_ wanted to tell people this week that there was no reason to cover Hunter Biden's laptop and the proof of corruption it contained.

Jonathan Turley explains:

It appears that some media have a new narrative after admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is legitimate after all. According to Atlantic Magazine writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum, the story never did matter because it was just not interesting and “totally irrelevant” to her. Strangely, however, it once did. Applebaum pushed the false narrative as she was slamming others for publishing “Russian disinformation” and using the Hunter Biden story as an example. It only became uninteresting when it turned out to be true. The one convincing assertion, however, is that it was simply not viewed as “relevant.” What was clearly relevant for Twitter and most media outlets was the election of Joe Biden. Otherwise, as captured by Gaston de La Touche, it is a matter of sheer boredom.

Applebaum was at my alma mater, The University of Chicago, for the Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference on Wednesday. The conference appeared largely an echo-chamber, a disappointing lineup for UChicago which is known to value a diversity of opinion. Applebaum slammed Fox and its viewers: “Those who live outside the Fox News bubble and intend to remain there do not, of course, need to learn any of this stuff.” (For the record, I work as a legal analyst at Fox).

What an idiot and what a liar. She's at THE ATLANTIC now so she can probably lie more freely. But the country's not better off because of it.

Hunter Biden's laptop was a news story THE NEW YORK POST can claim credit for having broken in October 2020. I keep waiting for their triumphant column. If i'ts run, I haven't heard of it. To be honest I don't have time to comb through the web for it and depend on friends to keep me up to date.

So when one called last night and was reading from THE POST online, I was really sad. I thought it was Miranda Devine and I thought she was a better writer than what was being read. She is. It was by John Stossel. I loathe John and always have. He can argue he's been mis-portrayed by the media and that may be the case. I loathe him because he's an off-putting ass and that's from his on air personality when he used to be on 20/20.

Is he as big of an idiot as I've always thought?

Yes, he is.

I was going to destroy Mrianda for the column I thought she wrote. But it was John. Writing at THE NEW YORK POST, he wanted you to know how bad it was with the attacks on THE POST.

I'm tired of stupidity.

Ava and I covered the most important point regarding THE NY POST and the laptop and the media's response.

Do not offer that the report was dismissed.

That's not good enough.

If you're on some basic cable show, that might pass for informed.

You're not informed.

And only John could be so stupid to write for THE POST and to leave the most important detail out.

Yes, as we all know, the report was censored -- TWITTER and FACEBOOK. And as we all know, opinion columns insisted it wasn't true.

That's not the worst thing.

The worst thing? THE NEW YORK TIMES did a 'report' that they called an investigation and the 'report' centered on how supposedly people working at THE NEW YORK POST were furious with their paper over that story and did not feel it was accurate or truthful or even journalism.

NYT relied on no named source and most people in the kow say that NYT did a work of fiction (I believe that they did).

So grasp that NYT did not investigate the laptop but they did make time to 'report' on a rival paper, to attack the rival paper.

That's out of bounds. I twas out of bounds when it happened.

But that was part of the attack strategy to dismiss the story.

THE NEW YORK TIMES owes THE NEW YORK POST an apology because when they ran that article -- unsourced -- attacking the paper's integrity, they made it personal.

Again, they owe the paper an apology.

The following sites updated: