The Common Ills: Iraq snapshot

Friday, October 25, 2024. Don't just get mad, get even.

Early voting is taking place, mail-in voting is taking place and the last day of voting will be November 5th, ten days from now.

And it can be discouraging. In a normal election, it can be discouraging. In this one, it especially is. I hear comments as we go around speaking where people feel the biggest opponent Kamala Harris has is not Convicted Felon Donald Trump but the media. And it's true. The media's done an awful job -- All Things Media Big and Small. Others cover the corporate media. Here's OCCUPY DEMOCRATS doing that.

And people have rightly called out THE NEW YORK TIMES and others. To me, those are the rivers. I prefer to focus on the tributaries. Our so-called independent media. The beggar media. You can't watch or listen or go to their page without them constantly begging you for money. Money that then waste -- PACIFICA RADIO has accomplished nothing in over a decade -- let's be honest. Or is mere survival -- on some of the worst snake oil programming -- supposed to count as something worth praising?

Amy Goodman constantly says -- forever sticking her hands into your pockets -- 'We couldn't do this without you.' And she's right. She'd have to get a real job and, considering what she's done to Kamala, we should stop enabling her by giving her money.

'Al Gore is the world's worst liar.'

I don't believe that. I don't think he lied any more than anyone else and he might have lied less. But that's something that stuck and it didn't come from the right wing. It didn't come from the corporate media. It came from a distant relative of Al's (Gore Vidal) writing in THE NATION.

Can someone ask THE NATION if they think that witty column was really worth the over one million dead Iraqis that resulted from their amplification of Ralph Nader as a savior and their trashing of Al Gore.

I don't blame Ralph Nader voters. Some were going to vote for him regardless. But I do blame our left 'independent' media and their ho-hum coverage of Al Gore. I think you should as well. We have the Iraq War because of the beggar media. Certainly, if Al were running today, they would take him a little more seriously and cover him better because of climate change. But back in 2000, they just wanted to have their fun.

And they're pulling the same crap again.

Reality: PACIFICA would have gone under. THE NATION would have struggled but would have survived on a very limited circulation. THE PROGRESSIVE would have gone under. Amy Goodman might not have been able to hijack ownership of DEMOCRACY NOW! (thanks, Leslie Cagen, you always were repulsive) from PACIFICA. So many would not be standing today had they not trashed Al Gore.

Because trashing Al Gore and putting Bully Boy Bush in the White House led to the Iraq War. And that's the only thing that saved our beggar media. They used it to fund raise off. They pretended they cared.

Ivan Brobeck. If you were watching and listening and reading in 2008, you might remember him.

You might not.

He was a US service member who checked out and went to Canada where he tried to get recognition of some form of status that would allow him to stay in Canada. It didn't come to be. So he returned to the US as the 2008 presidential election was taking place.

And everyone . . . looked the other way. We called it "The Full Brobeck." The beggar media had used the Iraq War to make money. Pretended to care. But they didn't care. And Ivan's story didn't matter to them which was telling those of us on the left that we didn't matter either.

We matter. If we didn't, they wouldn't always be begging us for money in pledge drive after pledge drive, pop up after pop up.

Kamala Harris matters.

She could be a great president. We know that. We know damn sure she'd be a better one than Donald Trump. But she could be a great president.

So it's very frustrating to watch DEMOCRACY NOW! and THE PROGRESSIVE and IN THESE TIMES do everything that they can to derail her campaign. An e-mail to the public account came in last night about Donald Trump's worship of Hitler and how offensive that is (agreed) and the e-mailer was glad that Kamala had spoken and so had her running mate Tim Walz. The e-mailer said he was glad I had noted Tim's reaction as well because I don't usually note Tim.

Tim's the running mate.

For that reason, he'll always be noted less. Kamala wasn't noted much when she was Joe's running mate.

But the other reason he's been noted less and reason why I've actively made decisions not to note him sometimes is because he's already got a fan club. COMMON DREAMS -- even when attacking Kamala -- was happy to publish praise Tim articles. THE PROGRESSIVE, as we noted yesterday, has Kamala on the cover of their latest little read magazine -- it was once a monthly, let's see if we can't ensure it stops publication completely -- but they've never published an article praising Kamala or applauding her. They attack her. They did publish two rah-rahs for Tim this week. But they've done that before.

They like him. Beggar media likes him. He's a he. He's White.

They like Tim.

They identify with Tim because they're all White or people of color who've learned what to do to fit into the office mindset.

And that's not meant as an insult to Tim.

It is meant to make you think about the content beggar media has produced.

And to think about how they've treated a Black woman. Day after day after day.

2016 had some sexism in the media. It was nothing compared to 2008. That's when Matthew Rothschild, then in charge of THE PROGRESSIVE, wrote things like the column where he was tickled by right wingers calling Hillary the c-word. It wasn't just FOX "NEWS." It was the media. Non-stop sexism.

FAIR? Every week they seemed to find, during the Democratic Party primaries, evidence of racism to weigh in on in their radio program COUNTERSPIN. And Ava and I noted at THIRD, in real time, how they repeatedly avoided noting any sexism. As we noted, it took until May for them to finally note an example of sexism. Hillary being called a bitch on CNN.

Peter Hart: One of the most disturbing features of the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race is the way racism and sexism have been expressed. CNN viewers were treated to one pundit explanation that people might call Hillary Clinton a bitch because well isn't that just what some women are. Not everyone's so out in the open. MSNBC host Chris Matthews opened his May 18th show wondering how Barack Obama would connect with regular Democrats? Obviously code for working class Whites. This would seem to make the millions of Obama voters so far irregular. But then consider the May 14th op-ed by Washington Post Writers Group Kathleen Parker. She wrote about 'full bloodness' and the patriot divide between Obama and John McCain offering that there is "different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines through generations of sacrifice." This makes Obama less American than his likely Republican rival and his success part of a larger threat "There is a very real sense that once upon a time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity." Well thanks to The Washington Post, Parker's rant appeared in newspapers around the country including the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune. We're not sure what those papers used for a headline but one blogger suggest [nonsense] would do. Parker's attack wasn't even new. Before in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wondered if Obama had ever gotten misty thinking about his country's rich heritage. John McCain by contrast "carries it in his bones." There's an appetite in corporate media for such repellent ideas as Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell recalled, Noonan's column was praised by NBC's anchor Brian Williams as Pulitzer worthy.

Now they didn't tell us who said it. And they didn't think it was worth more than a single sentence -- after detailing multiple examples of racism. It's not either you call out racism or your call out sexism. You call out both and you call out other examples of discrimination. Unless you're beggar media.

Kamala is at the intersection of race and gender. And apparently defending a Black woman is much more difficult for the largely White beggar media than defending a Black man.

David Corn, at MOTHER JONES, kind of explored this topic this month but only as it applies to right wing media.

But reading it, you should wonder, "What kind of difference would we see in the coverage if, for example, Patricia J. Williamson was still writing for THE NATION?" And, if she was writing for the magazine still, this Black woman would have been -- as she was in 2008 -- on DEMOCRACY NOW! and every PACFICA RADIO program explaining not just the issues of racism targeting the candidate (Barack) but racism and sexism with regards to the coverage of Kamala.

A woman, a Black woman, in Pennsylvania this week, shared her outrage in one of the groups we spoke with and asked, "How many drone strikes has Kamala carried out? Oh, right, NONE!" And she's exactly right. Kamala's covered as though she's a criminal -- covered that way by our beggar media.

Tabitha had a video yesterday that so captured what Ava and I are hearing in group after group that we speak to as we try to get out the vote.

She concludes with, "From this point forward, those people will be treated just as I treat the MAGA nuts in this society." And she recommends a TIKTOK video by a woman who is sharing her disappointment with all the attacks not just on Kamala but on herself for supporting Kamala.

These attacks and insults that both women speak of? They're not coming from the right-wing, they're coming from supposed leftists.

And it's very frustrating when you grasp how many elections have been won due to the votes of Black women and yet here we have a Black woman running for president and we're not supposed to feel joy, we're not supposed to be excited -- this is coming from the left.

And Amy Goodman and all her other creepy inbred freaks can hope we're not seeing it. But we are seeing it and it's opened our eyes to just how hard and difficult equality still is -- on the left -- in 2024.

Tabitha made me cry in her video because I don't think you can watch the coverage of Kamala and not see what Tabitha's talking about unless you're just lying to yourself.

And these reactions are real and widespread but beggar media thinks they can trick us.

Reality: Beggar media does not control the votes.

All they do, in the best of times, is shine a light on something that causes corporate media to follow. That's it.

And if all the people we're speaking to -- again, we've spoken in all the states except for Hawaii and Alaska -- show up and vote, Kamala's got it. So I understand if you're sad or angry, but we vote.

And then we forgive these losers in beggar media because . . .

Oh, honey, no. You got the wrong one. I'm a bitch and I've never pretended otherwise. We make them pay. After the election, we work on taking our pound of flesh. We make sure everyone we know grasps what beggar media did and how they worked overtime to dampen enthusiasm for Kamala, how they belittled her and attacked her, how they ran puff pieces on Tim Walz but not the head of the ticket. We make sure that their reputations are destroyed.

So when you're feeling dejected right now because yet another idiot has attacked Kamala as the election looms, stand up a little straighter and go about your business knowing we're going to vote and we're going to do everything we can to get her elected. And when the elections over, we're going to work on accountability for every piece of beggar media that worked overtime to elect Convicted Felon Donald Trump back into the White House. And we're not going to go to say, "Oh, Kamala won so we'll just let it go." Oh, hell no. There's going to be another Kamala, that's the thing. Win or lose, there will be another Kamala. And we need to make such noise that they never again think they can treat the next Kamala the way they did the woman who is I hope our next president.

One of the reasons 2016 was less sexist in its coverage was because these same fools attacking Kamala had attacked Hillary in 2008 and they finally got called out for it. We can go into Amy Goodman's history there because it's a long one. But the pushback and the call out after Hillary dropped out of the primaries resulted in sending a message to all media. We need to be sure the same message is sent again because that is the only way change will happen.

We've already dealt this week with the idiots and whiners -- the Gaza Freaks (purity pests who don't care about the Palestinians or they wouldn't be working so hard to re-elect Donald) -- that Kamala's 'ignoring' the base -- maybe Ralph Nader's base. As I already stated, nothing she does is ever good enough for them so if I were running her campaign, I would've told her to avoid them as well.

The goal is people who might vote for you, people you might be able to reach. And it is working -- I don't know to what degree -- but saving our nation appeals to people of all political stripes. REASON is a Libertarian magazine. Here's the opening of Ilya Somin's piece:

In this post I am going to explain why Kamala Harris is a far lesser evil than Donald Trump, and therefore, I plan to vote for her. Both candidates have serious flaws. But Trump's record of trying to overthrow constitutional democracy after he lost the 2020 election creates a strong presumption against him. In addition, he is worse on key policy issues, most notably, trade, immigration, federal spending, and maintaining the Western alliance in the face of threats from authoritarian powers.

This outweighs Kamala Harris's significant weaknesses on some other issues, especially because Trump is more likely to be able to implement his worst policies through unilateral executive action, while Harris's worst ideas require hard-to-secure new legislation. Arguments that Trump is superior on deregulation and issues related to the judiciary are greatly overblown, and nowhere near enough to offset his awfulness elsewhere.

It would be foolish to expect this piece to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. I am no Taylor Swift, and my endorsement has little, if any, political value. But I hope readers might find it of value as an exercise in how to assess issues and weigh them against each other.

At THE NATION, Micah L. Sifry writes:

First, the Harris campaign is actually just the Biden campaign infrastructure with a different (and better) candidate. But that infrastructure was not built to scale a mass mobilization campaign. Prior to Biden’s dropping out, his field operation was handling a trickle of volunteers. Now it has struggled to manage the flood unleashed by Harris. Many pop-up entities flowered after Biden bowed out, starting with Win With Black Women and spreading to dozens of similar “Xers for Harris” groups who attracted hundreds of thousands of participants to mass Zoom meetings in early August. But leaders of those groups tell me they have had little success figuring out how to best funnel the people they’ve attracted into the Harris campaign machinery.

Of course, no one has ever built a full-blown presidential campaign in such a short time. By necessity, the Harris campaign is partially relying on the Democratic National Committee’s organizing infrastructure. But that means it has also inherited the DNC approach, which is very top-down and media-centric. Sri Kulkarni is a former Texas congressional candidate who was an early developer of the concept of relational organizing, where voters are encouraged to match their contact lists against the Democratic voter file and then try to personally engage with voters they actually know. This is called “friendbanking.” He is now working triple time to help scale up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s relational effort to help candidates across the country, including in Pennsylvania.

Kulkarni tells me that more than 50,000 people have signed up for the DNC’s relational campaign, which, like the DCCC, uses the Reach app to help people activate their personal networks. Among those are at least 7,000 in Pennsylvania, he says. But so far the Harris campaign is primarily using the DNC’s Reach tool to prompt its users to share social media content, rather than to actually friendbank. This seems unwise. In theory, when Democrats hit the final weekend before Election Day and everyone is scrambling to move voters who still haven’t cast their ballots, a robust friendbanking operation could give campaigners access to a list of activists who actually know these missing potential voters. Each of those 7,000 Pennsylvanians on Reach could also potentially activate another voter or two on their own. Such a strategy worked for Jon Ossoff in the special runoff election in Georgia in 2020—helping his Senate campaign identify 40,000 people who had actually skipped the general election. While many independent groups are trying relational organizing this year, including the WFP in Pennsylvania, where it has roughly 20,000 supporters on Reach, it appears it has yet to be adopted by the top of the Democratic hierarchy.

"The flood unleashed by Harris." At last, someone at THE NATION besides Joan Walsh can note that, yes, there is enthusiasm for Kamala. I guess the lesson in 2024 is that Black women are invisible. As candidates and as voters because you don't find these left outlets crediting Kamala with one damn thing. They slam her. They go on and on about the supposed base being outraged by her -- even though there's no stronger base for the Democratic Party than Black women and Black women are backing her all the way.

I'm glad the reality got in there. It's a shame it took so long and it's a shame that others aren't following suit.

A crackpot in every home? Is that what DEMOCRACY NOW! is going for.

There was some Chicago crackpot what was his name? Let's not name him. He was trash and let's not help him be remembered. He was a blogger for a few years before he died. Jesse Jackson was a bad guy, he'd write. Everyone in Chicago was a bad guy, he'd insist. He'd write posts like that over and over, day after day. That's what DEMOCRACY NOW! has turned into. I don't know what it is that makes the show go ape s**t crazy at presidential election time but it does. Amy brings on her friends and lets them lie and lets them attack people. And this isn't a right or left thing. Ava and I have documented it for years at THIRD. She decides who she likes and then recruits those who also like her candidate. They might, in fact, be working for the campaign of her candidate or be a pledged delegate for the campaign she favors but she won't tell her audience that. She'll lie to them, while lecturing everyone else about journalistic ethics. She brought Lie Face on in 2008 because Lie Face was working for Barack's campaign. Amy knew that because a little bit before she'd been on Rev Jesse Jackson's radio show with Lie Face and Jesse doesn't play. He has ethics. And he identified Lie Face for what she was. A little bit later Amy brings her on DEMOCRACY NOW! and Lie Face is just a college professor who took some students to New Hampshire and she's just sharing neutral observations as a college professor and . . . No, she was for Barack which was why she trashed John Edwards and why she ignored Hillary. Amy thought people wouldn't notice or ever catch on. But they did notice. Now that wasn't the end of Lie Face for Amy. She continued to bring her on.

We have PBS friends. Lie Face pulled that stung once on PBS -- and attacked the wife of a Congress member -- and we let PBS friends know that Lie Face was not just a political observer and college professor, she was campaigning for Barack. That made PBS look like fools. They refused to ever let her back on.

But again, Amy wants to play you for a fool every presidential election.

I really wished she'd learn to grow. I was hoping she would. But she didn't. So she'll probably die Goody Whore as well. And probably pretty soon. What's up with that right eye? She needs to have it looked at.

So Goody brought on the crackpot that the Secret Service wouldn't let into Kamala's rally.

Another anti-Kamala segment. Well, again, the Iraq War saved them. It's good business for these beggars when a Republican is in the White House. People are outraged and the Goody Whores can show up and pretend to care and steal your money.

ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS notes:

CNN host Anderson Cooper faced backlash on social media Wednesday night following his sharp questioning of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris during a town hall with undecided voters in Pennsylvania, with his confrontational approach leaving some viewers scratching their heads.

During the event in Delaware County, Cooper repeatedly pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s weak handling of illegal immigration and her shifting stance on fracking, questioning why she hadn’t accomplished in four years what she was now pledging to do as president.

The hardline questions drew swift criticism from viewers who accused Cooper of applying a double standard that worked in Donald Trump’s favor.

Numerous online voices blasted Cooper for repeatedly interrupting Vice President Harris and holding her to a higher standard than Trump, whose vague “concepts of a plan” on health care and other key issues have faced little to no scrutiny from the network.

Critics argued that while Harris faced overwhelming dissection by the media, Trump was getting a free pass by choosing to skip the event altogether.

“CNN brought every GOP candidate on for a #CNNTownHall and let them lie up and down. Fact-checked nothing and stood by while they made things up the whole time,” wrote one X user. “Tonight @andersoncooper is picking apart every single tiny little thing Kamala says. CNN is trash and so is Anderson.”

Another user echoed the sentiment, stating, “I wish @andersoncooper would concentrate on questions that need to be answered and not on gotcha questions. The audience has much better questions than Anderson.”

At times, it seemed as if Cooper was trying to put Harris on the spot, especially when it came to her fluctuating positions on key issues such as the border. Harris even had to cut Anderson off as he talked over her response to a question from the audience about immigration.

We see them. We see all of them. Let's wind down with this from Philadelphia yesterday:

Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1:27 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, hi, guys.

Q Hello.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay. Good morning — or af- —

Q Good afternoon.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: — afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Well, let me start by saying I’m really very proud to announce that we’ve had some endorsements this morning, as we’ve been rolling out endorsements, by two leaders in the Republican Party: the mayor of Waukesha and then, of course, former Representative Fred Upton.

And this continues to be, I think, evidence of the fact that people who have been leaders in our country, regardless of their political party, understand what’s at stake. And they are weighing in — courageously, in many cases — in support of what we need to have, which is a president of the United States who understands the obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States and our democracy.

As for last night, yet again, Trump not showing up, refused to be a part of a CNN debate. And clearly, his staff has been saying he’s exhausted. And the sad part about that is he’s trying to be president of the United States, probably the toughest job in the world, and he’s exhausted.

I said last night what I mean, which is the American people are being presented with a very serious decision, and it includes what we must understand will happen, starting on January 20th, in this choice.

Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list, or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks like the folks last night with a to-do list, understanding the need to work on lifting up the American people, whether it be through the issue of grocery prices and bringing them down or investing in our economy, investing in our small businesses, investing in our families.

Happy to take any questions.

Q Madam Vice President, you will be back in Philadelphia with members of your team on Monday, former President Barack Obama, as well as Bruce Springsteen.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Do you — can you tell us where you — that may be?

And secondly, any other, as we would say, heavy hitters in your campaign planning to come to Philadelphia in the lead-up to Election Day?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m very honored to have the support of former President Obama. As you know, he’s been on the campaign trail and has been really wonderful and extraordinary in terms of the time and effort that he’s putting into our campaign. And people like Bruce Springsteen, to have their support — and, of course, he is an American icon — I think it just shows the breadth and depth of the support that we have and also the enthusiasm that a lot of people are bringing to the campaign and feel about our campaign.

Q Any other big names we can share?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have nothing to report at this moment. (Laughs.)

Q (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Stay tuned, however.

Q Vice President, what do you make of the gender gap in this election? Why do you think you have stronger support among women than the former president?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I have to be honest with you, it’s not what I see in terms of my rallies, in terms of the interactions I’m having with people in communities and — and on the ground. What I am seeing is e- — in equal measure, men and women talking about their concerns about the future of our democracy; talking about the fact that they want a president who leads with optimism and takes on the challenges that we face, whether it be grocery prices or investing in small businesses or homeownership.

So, I’m not actually seeing that kind of disparity, and I intend to be a president for all Americans. And that includes paying attention, yes, to a fundamental freedom that has been taken away because of Donald Trump — the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body — and, in equal measure, to prioritize the economic needs of individuals and families in America and what we also must do in terms of upholding our strength and standing on the global stage.

Q Madam Vice President —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You all sort that out, okay? (Laughter.)

Q How are you going to vote on Prop 36 in California? You are a California voter. Do California and other states need to punish drug and theft crimes more harshly?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So, I have not yet voted, and I have not yet had the chance to read through the ballot. I will keep you posted on that.

AIDE: We have time for one more question.

Q Madam Vice President, this topic was brought up last night, but will construction of a southern border wall continue in your administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I will tell you that my highest priority is to put the resources into ensuring that our border is secure, which is why I’ve been very clear: I’m going to bring back up, as president, that bipartisan border security bill and make sure that it is brought to my desk so I can sign it into law.

The biggest issue that we have right now is that Donald Trump has stood in the way of what would have been a proven part of the solution to the bigger problem, which is that we have a broken immigration system in America, and we need to fix it. And we have the tools at hand, but we have on the other side of this election, Donald Trump, who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.

I intend to fix the problem in a way that is just about practical solutions that are within our arms reach if we have the commitment to do it.

Okay? Thank you.

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