Tuesday, October 08, 2024

Iraq snapshot

Tuesday, October 8, 2024.  A lot of typists at news outlets, not a lot of journalists. 


Rachel Maddow looked at some senate races on MSNBC last night.




Regarding the above, the Michigan Democratic Party issued the following:


A bombshell new report from Detroit Free Press has raised questions about “where Mike Rogers lives” after reporting that “Mike Rogers does not live in the house” in White Lake Township as the house “did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy.” 

The Detroit Free Press found that “Mike Rogers’ neighborhoods have everything but Mr. Rogers.” The Rogers campaign is “mighty cagey” about where Rogers lives and “refused multiple requests to discuss the matter.”

Neighbors in the Genoa Township house that Rogers claims to live in with his brother confirmed “he doesn’t live [there]” and said they had “never seen Mike around.” They were “surprised to learn a U.S. Senate candidate was living a few doors down,” including one man who said “I’ve never seen Mike around here. Not one time.”

Questions Mike Rogers must answer:

  • In August 2024, your campaign told the Detroit News that you “now reside in White Lake Township” and referred to the Genoa Township home as somewhere you “previously resided.” If you were no longer living in Genoa Township in August, and you were not living in the unfinished White Lake Township house – as your campaign confirmed – where have you been living? 
  • How do you respond to Michiganders who say they “don’t like it… not one bit” about the fact that you are lying about living in Michigan?  

See also: Michigan Advance: Where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood?, Michigan Advance: A new house is being built for Mr. Rogers in his not-yet-neighborhood, Newsweek: Michigan Republican Candidate Caught Living in Florida, MSNBC: In Senate races, GOP haunted anew with ‘candidate quality’ issues


Let's talk Elon.  Trash.  Twitter Trash.  I'm someone who actively worked on the issue of apartheid, protested, called on our leaders to stop propping up South Africa, marched, haunted the halls of Congress.  My protests?  That started in college.  Our campus newspaper was in such a hurry to glorify an athlete that they printed his words and printed them as truth.  He wanted those of us on campus, and in the US, to know that Nelson Mandela was treated amazingly well, he had a better life than most Blacks in South Africa.  Nelson, at the time, was imprisoned.  In the same article, the athlete from South Africa -- the White athlete from South Africa insisted that apartheid was fine and Black people were happy with it and it was just those of us outside of South Africa that were making a big deal about it.

I always believe that your best tool is common sense.  Common sense tells you that if a White South African says some Black person brutally imprisoned has a better life than other Blacks, that statement is not logical.  

Briefly, I wrote a letter to the editors insisting that this feature story should have either not printed the claims of the sports non-star (he crashed and burned) but, since they did, it was incumbent upon them to note some actual facts about life in South Africa for Black people.  They printed the letter.  Then lined up four of their friends to trash me in letters in the next edition of the paper.  I didn't know at the time that was the case.  It was only when some BMOC wanted a date and apologized for the letter he wrote that was printed that I knew about it.  I knew the letters that came in, I didn't care enough to register who wrote them.  (And, no, I didn't go out with BMOC.)  Though their stunt wasn't known at the time, the letters they published led to real letters -- letters opposed to the lies about how great life was for Black people in South Africa under apartheid.

And the issue just increased over the semester.  At one point, the editor (we'd slept together) came to me as the semester was winding down.  That's when I learned a great deal more about the plot against me -- they were trying to trash me to discredit my opposition to apartheid -- and my rightfully calling them out for their defense of racism. The problem was there were now so many letters, the last edition of the paper for the semester would be nothing but letters.  And, yeah, the letters were in agreement with me.  There had been one or two racists who had written to defend South Africa -- written on their own -- during the semester.  But they had held back a ton of letters.  And now the letter writers were complaining to any college official they could corner.  So they were going to have to print the letters . . . unless . . . I'd agree to an interview.  So you'd ask me questions and I would answer -- that's what I asked the 1 time f**k toy.  Yeah.  And you'd print my answers in full?  Uh-uh.  Yeah, I'm not an idiot about the press.  I said print the letters.

B-b-b-but.

Print the letters, print every one of them.

And that's what they had to do and it was a campus scandal for years because people started finding out how the paper's staff had tried to trash me by recruiting people to write letters -- four of the letters in the last edition were from people paper staff had begged to attack me in print and these people had refused.  It was a campus scandal because the paper wanted to defend racism.  It was huge and it became huge again when apartheid finally fell in South Africa.

I think we all have prejudices and I'm always going to be suspect of Whites who lived in South Africa and enriched themselves and never made any effort to end apartheid. 


For example, Charlize Theron.  She's always tried to be nice to me but I've always blown her off.  Why?  She's a White woman who grew up in South Africa.  I consider her suspect. She's always praised her life in South Africa.  I pointed that out to her.  I pointed out that she never says, "Of course, it was great for me because I was White."  That is why she had it great.  She was 15 when apartheid ended and maybe some day she'll be adult enough to publicly correct the record and show some growth.  But I don't care for her.  I don't like her.  


She benefited from racism.  And I am highly prejudiced against racists.


Which brings us to Elon and his musky trashy mother.





Elon Musk’s mom has been accused of encouraging followers on X to commit voter fraud and was fact-checked by her son’s own social media platform.

Maye Musk quoted a post by her son before he spoke at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania yesterday, where the billionaire wrote: “Super important to get all your friends and family to register to vote. Georgia’s registration deadline is Monday!!”

But his mom went a step further and suggested to her 1.1 million followers they could vote more than once under fake names - which is illegal.

“The Democrats have given us another option,” she said. “You don’t have to register to vote. On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”

Followers, including many attorneys, were quick to call her out, and a community note soon appeared underneath her post which said: “This is, in fact, illegal.”

The note linked to the US Code which states voting more than once intentionally is federally prohibited.


I would actually change that code.  I would make it where you can only vote in one national election.  So Elon's trashy mother -- a real tramp, everyone says -- could vote in the US election.  Or she could vote in the Canadian election.  Or she could vote in the South Africa election.  But she shouldn't be allowed to vote in all three or even two.

I'm really not a fan of multiple citizenship.


From Crapapedia:


Maye Haldeman was born on April 19, 1948, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, a twin[6] and one of five children.[3] Her family moved to Pretoria, South Africa, in 1950. Her parents, Winnifred Josephine "Wyn" (Fletcher) and Dr. Joshua Norman Haldeman,

[. . .]

As a young woman, Haldeman was a finalist in the 1969 Miss South Africa beauty competition.[3] In 1970, she married Errol Musk, a South African engineer she met in high school. They had three children: Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk, and Tosca Musk. She named Elon after her American grandfather, John Elon Haldeman (born in Illinois).[13][14]

In 1979, she divorced Errol Musk. Two years later, Elon, who was about 10 at the time, decided to live with his father, as he had the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a computer, things which Maye could not afford to give the children as a single parent.[15] Kimbal joined Elon four years later.[3] After graduating from high school, Elon decided to move to Canada; in 1989, six months later, Maye moved to Canada with her daughter Tosca.[16]

Maye earned a master's degree in dietetics from the University of the Orange Free State in South Africa. Her major was taught in Afrikaans – one of the four languages Musk now speaks.[3][12] She later earned another master's degree in nutritional science from the University of Toronto.[17]


Are you seeing how the White woman found fame and fortune in a country that denied Blacks basic rights?  Are you getting how she benefited from racism?

Israel is an apartheid system as well. And I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone in that country that does nothing to protect and build the rights of Palestinians.  Apartheid will be dismantled.  That's a historical reality.  And those who opposed that happening should be seen for what they are.  

 

Mama Musk lived in South Africa while it was an apartheid system.  She left in 1989 -- just as freedom was about to be a possibility for Blacks in the country.  WIKIPEDIA doesn't mention that, do they?  They just pretend like she an Elon -- two White racists -- both decided to move to the US.  That's not what happened.  Those who were part of the racist system -- or seen as being part of it -- left in 1989 -- some left sooner -- but they left in 1989 because they couldn't deal with Black people having rights.  It was no longer the 'dream world' that they loved so much.  


Racist Maye made a ton of money in South Africa and lived there until the age of 51.  She's a racist.

Elon is her child.  She taught him to be racist.  And he's certainly lived up to her teaching.
 



  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk touted a $47 referral bonus that the billionaire's political action committee is offering to the public for each registered swing-state voter whom they refer to an online petition that collects personal contact information of voters who are "in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms."
  • Musk's promotion of the petition came a day after he appeared with Donald Trump at a campaign rally by the Republican presidential nominee in Butler, Pennsylvania.
  • The states where the offer is valid — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina — are considered likely to provide the margin of victory in the election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.


Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is backing Donald Trump in the presidential election, on Sunday touted a $47 referral bonus that the billionaire's political action committee is offering to people for each registered swing-state voter whom they refer to an online petition that requires signers to submit personal contact information.


 


That move strikes me as illegal.  Trying to buy a US election.  And worse, doing so when you're not an American.  Oh, sure, needing US tax dollars for his success, Elon became a US citizen in 2002.  But he didn't give up his citizenship elsewhere.  He remains a citizen of Canada and of South Africa.

The immigration reform we need starts with ending dual and triple citizenship.  

Citizenship is not a patch work quilt.  And we don't need someone who's 1/3 American trying to influence our elections.  Trash like that -- racist trash -- never should have been allowed to become a US citizen.  We have more than enough racists already in this country, we don't need to open our borders to more.




We ended yesterday's snapshot with  Alex Seitz-Wald (NBC NEWS) report:


 A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war.

[. . .]


The 25 Islamic religious leaders who signed the letter, which comes a year after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war, argue that Muslim voters have a duty to think logically about their voting decisions and that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options."

“She is a committed ceasefire candidate too and is the best option for ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon,” they wrote.

The imams argued that former President Donald Trump is a threat to their community.

“Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure. Particularly in swing states, a vote for a third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the elections,” they wrote. 

“Given [Trump’s] well-documented history of harming our communities and country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment,” the letter reads. 



Yesterday, there were a lot of typists, not a lot of reporters.  A typist, for instance, typed this:


The “Abandon Harris” group pushing for voters to protest Vice President Harris over the conflict in Gaza is endorsing the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the presidential race. 


The group started as Abandon Biden and, as early as December 2023, they were publicly stating that they wanted to put Trump back in the White House.  That hasn't changed.  Nor has the 'reporting.'  They aren't Democrats.

In states with closed primaries, some did become Democrats . . . to vote in this year's primary.  They're not Democrats.  They registered solely to trash Joe Biden.  And, even then, they didn't have any real power did they.

Some typists yesterday came closer to reporters when they worked in that Jill's 'big victories' in polling reached 1%.  That's much lower than the CAIR poll that started all this lying about Jill's 'success' gave her.  We told you, the CAIR poll is junk poli sci.  It's not legitimate. 

And the group isn't legitimate.  If you leave this year, you find out that Abandon Biden (now Abandon Harris))  is a bunch of non-Democrats many are Green Party members.  


A bunch of liars and a bunch of fakes.  Pennsylvania co-chair?  That would be Colleen who wrongly believed that refusing to give her last name on the organization's website -- the only co-chair who did -- would keep people from finding out what she really stands for.

Using the junk science CAIR poll, a number of people have created the mistaken impression that Jill Stein's campaign had anything to offer.  Ava and I covered the nonsense this week in "Media: The damage done by Dave Zirin and The Gaza Freaks:"


The Gaza Freaks.  You may know one.  They're Americans who pretend to be concerned about the Palestinians.  But they really aren't as their actions -- or inaction -- demonstrate over and over.  Take the movement's self-proclaimed leader Dave Zirin. Dave writes for THE NATION and THE PROGRESSIVE and what he often lacks in intelligence or even basic skills, he often makes up for with passion that he channels into misguided avenues. 

 

Dave's got a new piece at THE NATION.  We're not linking to it.  Search it if you want but THE NATION and their paywall nonsense gets on people's nerves. It's a paywall that Nation Builders do not agree with.  (Nation Builders keep the magazine-website going by donating thousands each year and they're really not cool -- we did a polling -- with the idea that an election year finds THE NATION limiting the amount of articles someone can read.)


Dave's piece isn't worth anyone wasting a free click. If you feel it is, search for it, it's entitled "Behind the Harris Campaign's Quest for the Mythical 'Cheney Democrats'."  If you're late to the party, former US House Rep Liz Cheney, a Republican, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president and has spoken with the Democratic Party's presidential candidate at campaign events.  Dave is freaking out.

 

What's causing the meltdown?  Realizing how ineffective he is and how ineffective his life has been.


Dave was one of those who jumped on the Occupy Wall Street craze.  We call it a craze and not a movement because where is it now?  Or take Camp Casey.  Both started out with basics we could all agree on and support.  And then they got co-opted by crazies before they could make any real difference.  That's because we surf fads.  People talk about Neo-liberalism shipping jobs overseas but who knew movement building was one of those jobs?

 

Movement building is hard work and it doesn't have overnight.  There's no quick fix.


It's something that escaped The Gaza Freaks. 


After decades of living under apartheid and being slaughtered, the Palestinian people truly captured the world's attention in the last 12 months.  And sympathy for and identification with the Palestinian people had never been greater.  There was talk of the need for a cease-fire to end the genocide the Israeli government is carrying out.  

 

Longterm observes of the situation knew a cease-fire was little more than a needed band-aid.  If that's all that took place, the slaughter would continue -- as it had in the many years before October 7, 2023 -- and it would do so in smaller numbers to avoid worldwide press coverage.  Longterm observers knew there was a lot of work to do and were proceeding to roll up their sleeves and work for a truly better world for the Palestinian people.  


And then there were the Daves.  Surfers who hop onto a craze.  You know, the way CODESTINK always does.  They'll hitch a ride on a cause for a few months and then, when press attention moves elsewhere, they'll find a new cause that can gather attention for themselves because isn't getting press coverage much more important than working for -- and bringing about -- actual change?


2024 is an election year.


Since July, The Gaza Freaks have insisted they're not voting for Kamala Harris.  They wrote her a letter detailing what they wanted for Christmas and then they threw their tantrum.


Using a questionable poll by CAIR, they convinced themselves that they had the numbers when they didn't.  They trashed her.  They used their outlets: COMMON DREAMS, THE PROGRESSIVE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, etc, etc -- to try to destroy enthusiasm for Kamala and her presidential campaign.


Donald Trump is not going to be a better choice for the Palestinian people and only a liar says he would be.  If you actually cared about the Palestinian people, you wouldn't be urging people to vote for Jill Stein who is yet again running for president on the Green Party's ticket and is financed with Republican dollars and Republican attorneys working for her campaign for free.  Why?  Because they hope she can steal enough votes from Kamala to put Trump back in the White House.


Now the lying Greens (not all Greens are liars but the ones who pretended to care about Palestine are) are as frustrated as non-Democrat Dave Zirin.  They're getting so frustrated that they're getting their lies mixed up.  Take Building A New World who has been all over the internet in recent weeks insisting that if you care about the Palestinian people, you cannot vote for Kamala and must instead vote for Jill.


Building A New World let it slip on Sunday with this comment, "Getting Green to 5% is the most valuable thing you can do with your vote."


See, it was never about the Palestinian people.


No, it was about whoring and lying.  And here's some truth for the dirty whores: The Green Party isn't getting 5% of the vote.  They couldn't do that in 2000 when they had a real candidate (Ralph Nader).  They got 2.7% -- and that was with the help of Patti Smith, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, The Indigo Girls, Phil Donahue, Paul Newman, Eddie Vedder and many more stumping for the campaign.  Jill has previously gotten 0.4% of the vote (2012) and 1.1% (2016).  So, yeah, they're lying when they pretend that they're within reach of 5%.


It's a dead party and that's why it's nominated Jill for the third time.  They're unable to grow the party and they make clear that they have nothing new to offer.


When we looked at the CAIR poll and found all of its problems -- it's a junk poll -- we were surprised by the reaction.  We expected condemnation but didn't get it.  Instead, people who checked our findings (glaring imbalance in gender among those responding and sample size too small too represent everything CAIR insisted it did and much more) found that the poll was seriously questionable.  Last week, more polls came out and they didn't back up the claim the CAIR poll had spread -- the false claim -- that Jill had all this support.


The CAIR poll didn't pass the sniff test when it originally got some press attention.  But it was popularized by the Gaza Freaks.  And they spread the lie hoping the lie would become truth.  That didn't happen.


And now Dave and the rest of The Gaza Freaks are feeling powerless and impotent.


He's having a hissy fit that Kamala's not catered her campaign to him and that she's not going to because he doesn't have a lot of support.  The CAIR poll being exposed as a lie -- and no other polling backing it up -- left the Gaza Freaks out in the cold -- as though Carole King was singing to them when she sang, "Now, girl, take a tip from one who knows, If you open a new door, You may find the old one's closed" ("Out In The Cold").


That's certainly what happened to Dave.  Now, mere weeks out from the election, he and the Gaza Freaks realize that they have no input.  So he comes along to lie again -- this time insisting that 'the base' has more voters than there are Cheney-types who might vote for Kamala.


He doesn't even have a CAIR survey to back up his lies this time.  


And facts don't work for him.  All you have to do is look at the numbers that Nikki Hayley got in the GOP primaries this year.  That's a significant number.  Bringing some of those over to Kamala could swing the election.


By contrast, nothing she has done has been good enough for The Gaza Freaks.  Nothing.  A nuanced speech at the DNC was either ignored or attacked by stupid people who honestly thought a viable candidate for president is going to give a speech in the midst of a campaign proclaiming that they will terminate a long standing alliance with another country.


If Kamala's elected president, there's a chance we can pressure her on the Palestinian issue.  Donald Trump?  Not a chance.  

 

The smart thing to do would have been for Dave and his fellow unwashed freaks to have made clear that they were giving Kamala conditional support to get her into the White House and then would be pressuring her seriously on this issue. 

 

 The Gaza Freaks -- who make us such a large part of independent media and such a very small part of the actual left (and none of the center-left) -- have done nothing week after week but try to defeat Kamala Harris.  They've done everything to destroy enthusiasm about this historic run.  Pick up any issue of THE NATION this year and compare it with 2020 if you're not getting just how poorly they treat Kamala.  And if you're White, you probably need to stop a moment to think about because Black people get it.  Black people are very clear that Kamala's been spat on.

 

The Gaza Freaks, in their tiny bubbles where everyone echoes everyone -- even the token person of color who only got into the bubble by echoing the others -- you don't encounter reality.  But we do.  Speaking around the country, we do.  Crowds around the country are outraged over the way Kamala's been (mis)treated by so-called 'independent' media (THE PROGRESSIVE, COMMON DREAMS, DEMOCRACY NOW!, IN THESE TIMES, THE NATION, etc).  They have every right to be outraged.  Joe Lieberman wasn't treated this poorly in 2006 by this media (that's when he lost to challenger Ned Lamont and Joe left the Democratic Party).

 

And, honestly, what has been the point? 

 

The Gaza Freaks never really cared about the Palestinian people.  

 

'Ava and C.I., that is your claim!'

 

Yes, it is.  But the facts back us up.  Kamala is not the president of the United States.  Joe Biden is.  He'll be president until January 20th.  What have the Gaza Freaks done since July?  We're not seeing any demands made to Joe.  We're not seeing any protests of Joe.  We're not seeing any action at all.

 

But they do flap their gums and work their keyboards to tear apart Kamala.  


In 2006, in a roundtable at THIRD, I said I would be closing shop at the start of 2008 -- closing shop online and that it was a shame that the Iraq War would still be ongoing and US troops would still be in Iraq.  Jim especially couldn't believe that.  The country's opinion had turned against the Iraq War, Americans wanted it to end and wanted US troops home.

US troops remain on the ground in Iraq.

Jim was a college student then.

I'm not a psychic.  I did have experience with many causes.  I knew that a year or two doesn't accomplish anything.  These are long term struggles.  You have to commit and you've got to do the work.  

Gaza Freaks don't get that -- nor do they get how they push people away with their nonsense.  And, clearly, trying to elect Donald Trump is nonsense.  It will not help the Palestinian people.

The Iraqi people who followed US 'leaders' -- self-appointed, unelected -- noted how despite their words -- Norman Solomon, CODESTINK, et al -- they quickly dropped the issue of US troops out of Iraq.  

You can't pick up and drop an issue and expect change.

The apartheid in Israel needs to be dismantled.  And it will happen.  Historically, these abuses end.  We can help it end by working on the issue.  The notion that putting Donald back in the White House will help is a lie.  
 

The following sites updated:

 

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