Tuesday night, I guest posted at Rebecca's site:
Talking post on Iraq, registered sex offender Scott Ritter, the programs that promote him and much more
You've got me tonight -- C.I. of THE COMMON ILLS. Rebecca wasn't feeling well tonight so I told her I'd do a post for her. I'm just going to write about TCI.
Emma Willman. She's a comedian. We used to highlight her and then we stopped. Why?
It's got nothing to do with her comedy. It does have to do with shorts.
It's impossible to embed a video from YOUTUBE if it's a short. Matteo Lane will sometimes convert his shorts into typical videos. If he doesn't, we don't post them.
Now I know HTML and I could play with it and repost Emma. But I don't have that kind of time. When we first started pausing her for that reason, I thought she'd vary them. She hasn't. You've got to go back three months for when she posted a video and not a short. That's the last one we posted at TCI.
It has nothing to do with a judgment of her comedy or of who she is. She seems great and she's very funny. But I'm not going to spend an hour trying to get the HTML to post a short.
I understand the importance of them but I've got other things to do.
Matteo Lane is posted regularly. And I'm glad. One thing we're trying to do is to feature more voices -- especially more LGBTQ+ voices since that community is under attack.
Matteo is hilarious. I'd
love to be able to tell you that someone recommended him. No, I got
lucky and stumbled onto him on YOUTUBE.
We note AZB -- Alastair and Zac's pop culture program (and Zac's MY BLOODY JUDY which focuses on horror films and TV shows). And we note Fortune Feimster's comedy. We note QUEER NEWS TONIGHT. We note Laverne Cox. We note Matt Baume's excellent work on how the LGBTQ+ community is portrayed in film and on TV. And others and are always eager to find more voices and absolutely need to.
Now there are people we drop.
I'm a feminist and I will not look the other way while a pedophile is paraded on one YOUTUBE left program after another. Scott Ritter is a convicted pedophile. He was first arrested when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. His lie back then was he was being persecuted -- with the multiple arrests -- because he was speaking out against the Iraq War.
Let's deal with Iraq first. Mad Maddie Albright is rightly called out for the US sanctions against Iraq in the 90s (and for saying that they were worth it when Leslie Stahl pointed out to her that you've got millions of Iraqi children who are dead because of sanctions). Guess who supported sanctions? Scott Ritter. If you're INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE and you posted the Mad Maddie video years ago -- and it's still up there -- how, much of a hypocrite are you to run Scott Ritter's writing -- as they did months ago.
Another Iraq truth, like John Kerry, Scott Ritter was for the Iraq War before he was against it. People look the other way on that too.
I am opposed to the Iraq War -- an ongoing war, US troops remain on the ground there (Staff Sgt Samuel D. Lecce -- a US Marine -- died in Iraq back in December). I've never needed Scott Ritter to make point about Iraq or how the war is wrong.
He was arrested multiple times while Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. We ignored his 'wisdom' then. We did call him out. And we were right to do so. The last arrest came nearly nine months after Barack Obama had been sworn in as President. Couldn't blame it on Bully Boy Bush. And this time, there was no sealing the record, no slap on the wrist, no probation. This arrest saw the case go to court. And the court found Scott Ritter guilty. He went to prison for it.
He was let out way too early. He now continues to lie but he is a registered sex offender. He tries to act like he's tough -- prison didn't toughen dough boy -- and he says he'll beat up anyone who calls him a pedophile. Want to start with the court system, Ritter?
So, no, I'm not highlighting that piece of crap. Jimmy Dore was the first to bring him on and, when that happened, we stopped highlighting Jimmy Dore's YOUTUBE program. We then stopped highlighting Richard Medhurst's program, then THE CONVO COUCH and on and on and on.
I got blocked by Tara Reade. Now Ruth and others that got blocked Tweeted her to hold her accountable. I never Tweeted her .
I believe her that Joe Biden assaulted her. But I don't like her. I know all about her. I don't like her. Again, I do believe she's telling the truth regarding Joe Biden and I've defended her for years.
At THE COMMON ILLS, I noted that Tara was awfully good at pretending to care about assault but that people who really care about assault do not reTweet a registered sex offender.
For that, she blocked me. Ruth had been blocked for Tweeting to Tara to call her out. And Tara needs to be called out for that because it goes beyond hypocrisy -- shame on you -- but I went to see what Ruth had Tweeted and that's when I found out I'd been blocked.
It's not surprising. We were among her strongest defenders -- both online and with the actual press (you know, the people who ignored her or called her a liar) -- and the _____ [use the term of your own choosing] never had the good manners or grace to say thank you. She just expected everyone to help her. That surprised me in 2020. As I've learned more about her, it really doesn't surprise me.
Scott Ritter hates me (probably more than Tara does) because I got him shut down back in the '00s. By pointing out -- rightly -- that shows and publications promoting Scott Ritter were responsible if he went after another girl. Even Arianna Huffington got that.
But creeps let him back in about two years ago.
We stopped noting LEFT LENS because the hideous Danny Haiphong began bringing on Ritter over and over. That was hard to do, to drop what was BLACK AGENDA REPORT's online YOUTUBE presence. I knew Glen Ford a little and I knew Bruce Dixon very well. But BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- as imagined by them -- would not have a YOUTUBE presence fronted by an Asian-American, nor feature episode after episode with no African-American guests. I continued to highlight BLACK AGENDA REPORT. Then they began running Scott Ritter's writing.
We don't highlight anymore.
And as a friend of Bruce Dixon's, let me say for the record that he wouldn't have put up with that. For very personal reasons, he would not have allowed any registered sex offender to be published by BAR -- let alone a White man. And I know this because we spoke about it many times during the '00s.
THE GREY ZONE felt the need to bring on Scott Ritter? Bye.
And we get along without them just fine.
I will gladly defend those in need of defending. I will not promote any man -- and child abusers are mainly straight and mainly men -- who is a threat to young girls.
I don't have time for those who promote Scott Ritter -- and I certainly don't have any respect for them.
Sy Hersh (who I've known for years)? He tried to promote Ritter in the '00s. End result? THE NEW YORKER wouldn't publish him anymore. They'd warned him. They'd told him he was dragging the magazine's name down by promoting Ritter. But he kept on. And they stopped publishing him and he had to resort to THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS.
CNN, of course, banned him as a guest once they learned of Ritter's multiple arrests for seeking sex with underage girls.
By the way, the ones promoting him today are worse than the ones in the '00s. In the '00s, they would raise the issue of the arrests. The ones who bring him on now don't raise that issue, don't note that he went to prison, don't note that he's a registered sex offender. They leave all that out. If you ask him about it, he won't do your program. So excuse me if I no longer have respect for 'truth teller' Jimmy Dore. Truth tellers don't go silent for registered sex offenders.
Closing with today's "Iraq snapshot:"
