Friday, June 03, 2022

Iraq snapshot

Friday, June 3, 2022.  Sarah Jessica Pathetic 9to steal from Rebecca) fools some people, Sabby Sabs errs by giving someone the benefit of the doubt, will the entire US budget eventually go to Ukraine, watch out for the fake asses and much more.


Starting with housekeeping.  Providing a head's up one more time for this coming Wednesday.  The snapshot, if there is one, may go up earlier than normal or later than normal.  I've got something that day and you've been forewarned.


Now let's pick up from Rebecca's "try sarah jessica pathetic."


Here's a thought, how about publications like THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER stop allowing their platforms to be used by Sarah Jessica Parker to attack Kim Cattrall while pretending Sarah's never attacked anyone?  She works in NYC for a reason and it's that we loathe her on the west coast.  Since her HBO fame in the 90s, she's been seen as a gay icon and that always surprises me since David Oliver was a friend and he worked with her and she all but spat on hin and she knew he was gay and made rude (homophobic) statements on the set throughout the filming of the TV show that they did together.  There were many times when he called me crying.  I have letter he wrote me about how awful ou were to him.  This was during a huge panic where gay actors were truly in danger of losing work.  It  was two years after Madonna hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and insisted on doping a rather obvious skit where an actress was refusing to work with an actor who might be gay.  (Yes, Madonna was being very clear who the actress was in that skit.  Madonna was calling her out.)  In that climate, SJP's homophobic remarks weren't just personally harmful, they could destroy a career.

So SJP, don't climb on the cross around me.

I also think it's needs to be noted that Kim was asked about Sarah.  Meaning Kim has not gone out of her way to talk about that show or her co-stars.  It's Kim's past.  Kim only spoke up when they were trying to guilt her into doing a film .  She had said no and had tried to leave it at that.  She wasn't going around discussing it.  Then Sarah thought she could force Kim into making the show.  The only other time was when the pathetic hypocrite Sarah tried to use the death of Kim's brother to make herself look better.  

Stop here for one moment.  I like Dewayne Johnson and I'm glad he stood up publicly to Vin Diesel.  But when Dwayne called Vin out on nonsense and attempts to create public pressure on Dwayne to work with Vin, no one had a fit.

But somehow Kim's the bad one for doing the same with regards to Sarah?
 

Sarah tried to shame her publicly and force her to make a film.  

Kim had a life before that HBO show and she's had one after.  Unlike Sarah, Kim's fame isn't built around one moment with a TV show.

Kim has been asked about that awful TV show -- the sequel.  And she has responded.  That is her right.  They made remarks about her while promoting it -- all of them did.  And Kim ignored it.  They could have given her character a happy ending but instead decided to smear Samantha the way they were smearing Kim.

AND SO IT GOES is a disgusting show that never should have been made.  And none of the three leads can act and they've lost their sense of timing.  They also aged very badly.  Which may why they came off like celibate nuns -- no GOLDEN GIRLS or GRACE AND FRANKIE sex lives for them.

Here's the real tell on how awful Sarah is.

Chris Noth.

Sarah wants you to know that as an actress and as a producer she is just hurt by Kim, it's just so awful, these words from Kim.

Chris Noth.

Kim's never called it a cat fight.  Sarah keeps using that term.  And it's Sarah trying to start a cat fight.

If you doubt it: Chris Noth.

Poor Sarah, Sarah insists.  

What about the women who have accused Chris Noth?

I have no idea if he's guilty or not.

I do know that Sarah was praising him through the roof in the lead up to AND SO IT GOES and I do know that Sarah loves to toss around that meaningless producer credit she has.  

Okay, big producer,  tell us about Chris Noth.

Kim hurt your feelings?  Supposedly Chris physically harmed women.

Why the heck are you talking about Kim?


Rebecca noted her experience with David Oliver and that we both knew him.  Whenever Sarah tries to fake ass, she can be sure I will be there calling her out and she owes the late David Oliver a very public apology.  She won't offer it because if she loses her gay base, she really has nothing left.  And explaining to them how homophobic she was during this time period will be problematic for her at best.


 Trashing Kim isn't going to make Sarah a better person or erase all that Sarah's done.  If she's in such a chatty mood, why doesn't she fess up to what she did to David.  Or, to be 'current,' why doesn't she talk about the producer's role in the #MeToo age? (On the latter, because she realizes her closet has more than just Chris Noth in it.)


From pathetic Sarah to the pathetic man in the bar buying everyone drinks while his family goes without food and electricity.

Who?

US President Joe Biden, of course.


All the money keeps going to Ukraine.  Those of us paying attention to reality grasped how bad the economic situation in this country was long ago.  Joe's doing nothing to shore up America.  Let's hope all those voters in Ukraine turn up at the polls for the US mid-terms.  Oh.  Wait.  They don't vote in US elections.

Always good for a laugh as it sells war, CNN offers "After 100 days of war, Putin is counting on the world's indifference."  No link to trash, Google it if you want it.  But I do believe the counter headline to that garbage would by, "After 100 days of war, Volodymyr  Zelenskyy is counting on the deep pockets of the American taxpayer."  

We have gotten nothing from Joe Biden.  He's given the American people nothing.  



$54 billion dollars has gone to Ukraine.  The US government 'made' that money by taxing American citizens.  These same citizens are suffering from inflation on his watch, from soaring gas prices -- which will really be an issue the hotter it gets this summer -- and from a government that really hasn't done a damn thing for the American people since FDR was president.  

But $54 billion of our dollars have gone to Ukraine in less than six months.  

And more will be on the way.

Come October, people are not going to be voting on an issue like Roe V Wade.  They're going to be voting on how much gas they're putting in their cars, the cost of energy to cool and heat their residences and the huge increase in prices at the grocery store.  I believe Trina's repeatedly pointed this out already but milk and produce may go down in pricing; however, once Campbells increase the price of a can of soup, for example, it never goes down.  

Joe is destroying the American way of life -- which was already in jeopardy.  

He's destroying it.  

And he wants to whine and blame others.

Excuse me, you spent your entire life in government.  You knew what was what before you ran for president.  So, no, we're not cutting you any slack.  Not only were you in the US Senate from the 70s through the 00s, you had two terms as Vice President of the United States.

What is Joe doing for the American people?  Kate Randall (WSWS) explains:


In a move that received minimal media attention, last week the Biden administration reaffirmed its decision to enact the largest Medicare premium hike in the program’s 57-year history. The president is also endorsing a plan to funnel more money to private insurance companies and escalating plans to privatize the government insurance program for seniors and those with disabilities. Medicare enrolled 62.7 million people in 2021.

The White House announced May 27 that Medicare recipients will not see their premiums lowered this year. This is despite the fact that a rate hike confirmed last November was due in large part to projected costs for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease that have now been lowered.

In November 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced an approximately 14.5 percent increase to premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits and some preventive care and outpatient services. The standard monthly premium rose from $148.50 in 2021 to $170.10 this year.

The hike came largely as a result of uncertainty over whether Medicare would cover the costs of Aduhelm, an exorbitantly expensive drug to treat Alzheimer’s. Under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the controversial drug was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2021, despite disputes over whether it is effective in treating the debilitating disease.

Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, originally priced the drug at $56,000 a year. After a considerable outcry from patient advocates and others, Biogen announced that the drug would cost $28,200 effective January 1, 2022, when the Medicare premium hikes kicked in. In April, Medicare instituted strict rules regarding who could receive Aduhelm, restricting its use mainly to clinical trials.

On May 27, the Biden administration said that despite the halving of Aduhelm’s cost, and also its restriction to a small patient pool, it would not be lowering the monthly premiums deducted from seniors’ Social Security benefits. The administration justified this move on the basis of “legal and operational hurdles.”



Joe claims to be a Catholic.  I hope he grasps that his destination, per his religion, will be hell.  Not purgatory.  All of Hunter's crooked deals won't be able to buy Joe out of hell.  That's where he's going.  The Catholic faith is very clear on what happens to the greedy who exploit others.  

If only the seniors in need had a crooked son who could make deals with Ukraine and with China and take in money -- hide it from the American people, lie about when some started to talk about it and then pretend like it didn't happen when e-mails show up proving that it did.

Hell.

That's where Joe's going if his religion is correct.  It's certainly where he belongs.  And there should be no pretense that he is the friend of the working class.  Joe is no one's friend.  He is an unethical liar who has lied and lied for years and years.  His lying cost him his run for the president in the 80s.  The press today works overtime to ignore his current lies.  They weren't so scared in the 80s.


But a lot of people start out strong and end with a pathetic whimper.  Look at CODESTiNK,  pretending to give a damn about the Iraq War.  Remember?  They did a 'hunger strike' action -- that they forgot to tell people really wasn't a hunger strike.  They also forgot (though we didn't, we included it) that anyone contemplating a strike should check with their doctor first.  That was the most lunatic action in the world and those of us already committed to their summer action that the strike was supposed to lead into were left supporting the strike.  

Ava and I were committed to that action -- CODESTINK was going to Iraq and they were going to meet with various Iraqis and explore what was needed to end the war.  We supported that so we had to hold our tongues about the strike and support it.  It was a lunatic move and I don't know of any feminist who thought it was smart.  But we all held our tongues.  In addition, in this community, we tried to scale back that hunger strike.  We noted we'd participate one day a week, for example.  Trying to se the tone because (a) it wasn't healthy and (b) we knew those bitches weren't going on a real hunger strike.  I think one woman did, one CODESTINKER, I think Diane did honestly go on a hunger strike.  The rest of them treated it like Ramadan and just fasted while the sun was out.

If you're not getting why it was a lunatic action and those of us who are feminist were appalled by it, we live in a country where there is an ever growing number of hunger disorders.  Though they do not exclusively exist among females, the overwhelming number of people suffering from eating disorders are female.

So why would a group of 'women' encourage fasting?  ('Women' because CODESTINK action level at the top includes men, they stay hidden most of the time except when they pop up as one of Medea Benjamin's co-writers.)  

In addition,  a group targeting women for membership wants to encourage women to show strength by fasting?  By making ourselves weaker.  What a load of garbage.

It's really easy for people to look back at the 80s right now and think the fitness craze Jane Fonda started was about women wanting to be thin.  No.  That was true for some.  But for many women it was about strength.  Jane often told the stories  of these women when she spoke or gave interviews.  It could be a woman stopping her to say how empowered she felt because she went to the grocery store and was able to carry her own bags out without any struggle.

Instead of fostering that power in girls and women, CODESTINK told us that the way for us to hold power as girls and women was to starve ourselves and weaken ourselves and hope some Prince Charming rescued us. 

It was garbage.

And by 2007, when Jodi was using the group to get Barack Obama elected, it was obvious that they were just a bunch of fakes.  Jodi should have disclosed publicly and repeatedly that she was a Barack bundler.  She didn't do that but she did deploy CODESTINKers to 'bird dog' Democrats running for the presidential nomination who weren't Barack.  Barack was voting to continue the Iraq War but Jodi wasn't going to have him bird dogged.  

Fake ass trash.  

And what do we know about CODESTINK?

Kermit might sing about the rainbow connection but if he were singing about CODESTINK it woul dbe the DSA connection.  Which brings us to this from one WSWS article by Eric London.


In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, mass demonstrations involving tens of millions of people took place in the United States and across the world. A section of the middle class “left” took part in these demonstrations, which brought together a broad cross-section of the population, including many young people and workers, in opposition to a war that would last nearly two decades and kill over 1 million people. At the time, individuals and political tendencies associated with groups like the Green Party and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) participated in the demonstrations and presented themselves as anti-war.

Twenty years later, groups like the DSA and Greens not only support imperialist war, in some cases their political representatives are leading it. The DSA’s four elected members of Congress voted unanimously for the Biden administration’s $40 billion in military spending to fight Russia in Ukraine. The German Green Party is part of the coalition government carrying out the rearmament of German imperialism. Pabloite and Morenoite groups like the International Socialist League urge the imperialist powers to send more weapons to neo-Nazi Ukrainian militias.

A June 1 article by Matt Duss in The New Republic entitled “Why Ukraine Matters for the Left” is a milestone in the exposure of the pseudo-left’s pro-imperialist political essence.

Duss is a top foreign policy adviser for Bernie Sanders who typifies the social layer that has now become a main constituency of the Biden administration’s war against Russia. According to a profile in The Nation, Duss “first became involved in politics via anti-globalization activism and Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign.” A February 2020 Foreign Policy article noted that “Music, not foreign policy, was one of Duss’s biggest life passions—until the 9/11 attacks galvanized in him a sense of wanting to do more on US politics and policy toward the Middle East.” He developed a career as a critic of the war in Iraq, telling The Nation, “I was just uncomfortable with America sending troops around the world.” 





In mid-May, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) congressional slate voted unanimously for a $40 billion bill endorsing the US-led proxy war against Russia. No member of the DSA delegation issued a public statement explaining their vote, and none even so much as tweeted to defend their actions. The DSA evidently hoped that nobody would notice: an article in the DSA-affiliated Jacobin Magazine reported on the passage of the bill but did not mention the votes cast by the DSA’s own members.

On Monday, Jacobin magazine republished a 1916 article by American socialist Eugene Debs opposing the First World War and attacking those who attempt to reconcile “socialism” with support for imperialism. In a written introduction, Jacobin presents itself as the inheritor of Debs’ socialist, anti-war tradition: “This Memorial Day, we should rededicate ourselves to fighting the horrors of war. So here’s a 1916 Eugene Debs piece about why internationalism is at the heart of socialist politics.”

The DSA is not fighting the horrors of war, it is funding them, and Debs’ article is a devastating exposure of the DSA itself.

Debs denounces “self-called socialists who are nationalists first and who set the ‘fatherland’ of their masters above the whole earth and above all the workers of the world.” He excoriates the parties of the Second International for voting for imperialist war credits. Such parties and politicians are “not socialists at all” but “traitors to the cause.”

“When the tocsin sounded,” Debs continues, “international obligation was swept away, or forgotten, and in the frenzy aroused by the military clackers, thousands of socialist party members became the intensest of nationalists and ‘patriots,’ utterly denying their international principles and obligations and turning traitors to the movement.”



Like most on the left who follow politics for ten years or more, I don't like the DSA.  Their history is one of whoring.  Whoring to get attention.  Doesn't that describe CODESTINK.  Remember that big meet up in Iraq that they were going to have?  They raised funds for it but, at the last minute, Medea knew she could get more attention via Palestine so despite the fact that donor monies got her to the Mid East, she and crew never went through with the meet up with the Iraqis.

Fake ass.  Whorish attention getters.  That describes DSA, CODESTINK and the poster candidate for DSA AOC.  

And, if you'll remember back a few months, the first whore we called out for cheerleading war on Russia this year was . . .  a CODESTINKER.   A bunch of fake asses.

Which brings us to another thing.  Please stream Sabby Sabs video below if you haven't.  Disclosure, I haven't.  I posted it before I got on the treadmill (these snapshots are dictated).  





Sabby is making a number of important points.

She is also dead wrong in her observations about David Sirota.  

I think next Wednesday, we'll go into this.  I'll dictate the snapshot early and it will mainly be an e-mail from David Sirota.  

I've tried to be nice about this over the years.  That was a mistake.  Listening to a friend quote Sabby in the video above on another phone makes that clear.

Sabby's being gaslit thinking she dealing with an honest broker.  She's giving him the benefit of the doubt that she shouldn't.


We can go into what led up to that e-mail in particular, how he was lying and I called him out on it and how he responded with his threat.  It was a very popular e-mail while I was campaigning against him to ensure he did not take hom an Academy Award.

Sabby's on strong ground everywhere except for her analysis of David.  There she makes the mistake of giving him the benefit of the doubt -- a benefit he didn't earn.  He hasn't misheard or misunderstood.  


David is not an honest broker.

Sabby's only mistake was giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

And anyone like me who has buried reality on that is at fault (not Sabby Sabs).  If he hadn't been part of that garbage movie DON'T LOOK UP, I wouldn't have revisited the past but he was and his rage-a-holic e-mails were instrumental in ensuring that he did not take home an award.  


Okay, Jonathan Turley has an interesting take on Amber Heard's nonsense (Elaine covers it in "Jonathan Turley, FIRESTARTER") and we'll quote from David North at WSWS on the case :

On Wednesday, a jury in Fairfax, Virginia found for actor Johnny Depp in his defamation lawsuit against his former wife, actress Amber Heard. The verdict is a significant defeat for the #MeToo sexual misconduct witch-hunt and a victory for the defense of elementary legal norms, including the presumption of innocence and the right to due process.

The seven-person civil jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (lowered to $350,000, in accordance with the maximum under state law). Heard was awarded $2 million in damages for a comment made by Depp’s lawyer in the British press during an earlier, unsuccessful lawsuit in the UK. Depp had sought $50 million, for damage done to his film career, and Heard had counter-sued for $100 million.

Since October 2017, hundreds of lives and careers have been ruined through the dissemination of largely unsubstantiated claims, gossip and rumors. Isolated and officially disgraced, instantly turned into pariahs by the media, many of the accused have simply chosen to disappear. Virtually none of the latter have been charged with a crime, much less convicted. Now, a well-known figure has stood up to the petty bourgeois lynch mob, taken the issue to court and permitted a jury to decide on the merits of the case. The results are clear enough.

The jury, whether it intended to or not, rendered a damning verdict not only on the Depp-Heard affair, but on the entire McCarthyite scandal-mongering that has consumed a considerable portion of the upper middle class in recent years, led by the New York Times, the New Yorker and the Washington Post, and championed directly and indirectly by the Democratic Party and its “left” apologists. In reality, if most of the #MeToo allegations were subjected to the same degree of objective scrutiny, they would fall apart in a similar fashion. Hence, the howls of outrage from the identity politics-obsessed media following Wednesday’s verdict.

The Depp-Heard case hinged on a Washington Post opinion piece published in December 2018, one year into the #MeToo campaign, “I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change,” which appeared with Heard’s byline. In the piece, the actress (in fact, a ghost writer, as the trial revealed) asserted that “two years ago … I became a public figure representing domestic abuse.” This was a thinly veiled reference to her marriage to Depp (2015-2017), an allegation that ultimately triggered his suit. The actor denied that he had ever physically abused Heard.

That the jury, after six weeks of hearing evidence and three days of weighing the facts, concluded its deliberations in such a decisive fashion is revealing. As various commentators noted, public officials and celebrities are obliged to meet a “very high burden of proof” in order to collect damages. The jury members had to determine if two passages and the headline of the Post article were defamatory. Because of Depp’s prominence, as the Associated Press noted, “to find that she committed libel, the jury needed to conclude that Heard acted with ‘actual malice,’ meaning that she either knew what she wrote was false or that she acted with reckless disregard for the truth. The jury ruled in favor of Depp on all three counts, finding that she had indeed acted with actual malice.” Meanwhile, Heard’s lawyers had informed the jury Depp’s claim “had to fail if Heard suffered even a single incident of abuse.” The jury members evidently did not believe the actress’s allegations of physical abuse.


The following sites updated: