Thursday, November 14, 2024

Iraq snapshot

Thursday, November 14, 2024.  Carville goes crazed, Donald learns the US Senate does not work for him, a cult member is nominated for National Intelligence, and much more.

First up, this.


BlueSky, Threads, anything, get off Twitter if you're able to.  BlueSky actually sounds better from the video above.  Danielle Moodie is going with BlueSky, for example.  But if you're able to, take your free labor off Twitter.  We know who Elon Musk is, let's not be working on the plantation for him.

And let's make sure that we understand every day that he is a racist.  He was born in raised under apartheid.  He was taught to look down on Black people.  And though he fled South Africa when apartheid was crumbling, he carried his belief in racism with him.  It's who he is, it's who he will always be.

Now let's move over to another person who would make the world a better place by dying, James Carville.


80 years old and still a disgusting vile man, James Carville.

And a know nothing.  He trashed Kamala's campaign early on, we need to remember that.  This is someone who wants us to fall in line -- that's people of color and all women regardless of race -- but when it mattered most refused to fall in line. 

He was out there trashing Kamala, trashing her campaign.  A far cry from when CNN broke with him in 2008.  Is that what's made you even more bitter, James?

We were going to highlight another Roland Martin video -- and may this snapshot, otherwise we'll do it in tomorrow's snapshot -- it went up here last night.  I'm sure Roland does a fierce take down of James but I was just told about this video and all I've heard is James' nonsensical ravings and maybe a minute of Roland.  If I'm repeating, Roland, my apologies.

First off, my state still has 13% of the vote to count.  Kamala won it, that's not the point.  The point is that right now the official count of the popular vote is still Kamala 48.2% and Donald Trump 50.2%.  That's not a landslide, that's not a mandate.  That's not even a big difference so grasp that first of all.

James Carville is what Sam Seder's going to grow into if Sam's not careful.  

He's an idiot who  never built a thing and who only won by hurting others.  He refused to invest in the work and time needed to build the Democratic Party, all he ever wanted was -- bean counter that he is -- a campaign that could appeal to swing voters.  And if used racism?  All the better for James.

It didn't matter that James signed off on racism, not to him.  He didn't care about the effect on the country or the direct impact on people's lives.

He also didn't give a damn about growing the Democratic Party.  There was no push on that from him either.  

Now you can argue that last one was a mistake this time.

Some people are arguing it.  Colin Allred, for example, wasted resources in Texas.  

It would have been wonderful to have seen Beto get that kind of funding from the national party in 2018, for example. 

Beto got voters.  Colin didn't.  That's reality.  And reality is that Colin should have done better but he was a James Carville -- he caved.  Fighters win.  Bill Clinton grasped that, Carville never did.  You can't run on weakness.  And that's all Colin did once his political spine collapsed.  


That said, Texans were really glad to see advertisements on TV.  

There was one about an old couple talking about their Social Security -- I haven't seen it.  But I've heard about it in roundtables, I've read about it in e-mails.  

Imagine being that forgotten by your own party that you're grateful for a Social Secuirty spot.

That's the James Carville, they starved Texas and other states like it.

They don't want to do the building and the work.

They're just bean counters trying to figure out the easiest way to do anything.  They plant the crop in same plot of land over and over and strip the soil.  They have no clue how to actually build or grow.

You do it through investments.  And that's too much for old man Carville.

He did nothing to help Kamala's campaign, he did nothing to help her.  Hey, 80 year old useless old man, go away.  No one needs you.  No one wants you.  

In 2008, Barack Obama supporters doctored a documentary to take out Hillary.  They altered footage from THE WAR ROOM.  On it, they insisted, some Clintonite was using the N-word.  And this story moved quickly through the media.  When I heard about it, I thought, "Damn it, Carville."  Because it easily could have been him.  Fortunately, it was no one.  The clip was doctored.  

But that's the reality of James Carville, you hear someone used the N-word in the Clinton campaign and you immediately think Carville.

That's is his legacy.

That and the trailer tramp labels he pushed on all the women who said Clinton propositioned them or harassed them.  

That's his legacy.

He's built nothing.

He will die a loser because that's all he's ever been.

"We didn't have a process!"

Joe Biden was dead in the water after the debate.

That's reality.  

He goes on ABC a week later and seems steady but still weak and he's unable to pivot so he's getting pummeled with questions.

It is July.  The election is in November.  The polls show much worse results then what we got last week.

He had to step down.  He could not fight the media.  People rarely grasp that.  To his credit, Joe did.  

You really think there was time for a campaign for the nominee?

First off, if it was the Biden-Harris ticket.  So if he was going to drop out after the primaries, yeah, it would go to her.  That's what's logical.

Second, Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson never got traction and nobody liked them -- excuse me, people who got married with Marianne as a wedding guest liked her -- and those YOUTUBERS -- Kyle and Krystal -- tried to pimp her off on us.  But America never took to her or to Dean.  

We'd never had this happen in the Democratic Party and things needed to move quick because we wouldn't have months to come together after the primaries.  That's generally what happens, the primaries generally are over -- in terms of knowing who has the nomination -- by May.  That gives June and July for the losers to get over it before the convention and August, September and October before the general election.

And in my lifetime, only one candidate I supported in the presidential primary ever got the nomination (2004, John Kerry).  You cannot do a primary -- even a mini-one -- in August and expect to deliver in November.

We were damn lucky, as a party, that Joe stepped aside.

There is no mandate, there is no landslide.  Trump -- and the media (see Stan's "Why does NEWSWEEK need to lie?") can keep lying, but the country remains split and that's what the official count demonstrates. 


We're damn lucky Kamala was the nominee.  She was strong and she was surefooted.  Can you imagine Marianne simpering around the press as they asked her about crystals, her difficult relationship with the gay community due to her snake oils AIDS' 'cures,' her difficult relationship with everyone who's ever worked for her, her 'brand' that long age cratered and her inability in the last two decades to adapt . . . 

Kamala gave the best debate performance of any presidential candidate in modern times.

"It's the economy, stupid" -- James said it in the 90s.

The economy under Joe Biden was great.  He turned it around.  And Trump could coast on that if he weren't an idiot and determined to impose tariffs but history will show that Joe saved the economy.

For too many people, though, and this was before Kamala became the nominee, there was a feeling that the economy was not better because they continued to see price hikes.  Prior to general election, one of the few people noting this was Senator Elizabeth Warren.  She didn't just press release it and leave it alone.  She talked about.  Every Democrat should have been talking about that, the price gouging. 

Everyone in Congress should have been on message.

But they weren't.

Credit to Elizabeth Warren for doing what everyone else should have done.

In addition, Joe should have issued -- I stated this in 2023, at the start of it -- a stimulus.  Now James Carville mocked me on that behind my back.  I said people needed money and you could call it a post-COVID stimulus.  

That didn't happen.

That could have made a difference.

But we didn't get that.

And so it was an economy election with a lot of stupid people.  If you don't know that a tariff is paid by the people in the country imposing the tariff then you are stupid.  Hopefully, you'll learn and be less stupid.  Doesn't help the country now, but maybe you'll learn.

Economics for most people is what they can put on the table. 

If Congressional Democrats had made that a unified message, it might have made a difference.

If THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, THE PROGRESSIVE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, et al had stopped attacking Kamala daily and covered the economy seriously, it might have made a difference.

But remember, Amy Goodman thinks her DEMOCRACY NOW! audience is too stupid to understand economics.  She told that to the late Danny Schechter who immediately told me.  I told him to do a blind item at NEWS DISSECTOR and that I'd pick up on it and carry it to THIRD, which I did.

So there's a lot going on.

People made decisions and we have to live with them now.

We don't need James Carville and his garbage.  It was a very close election.  No one's ever done what Kamala did.  Probably no one else could have.  

The Gaza Freaks had already shut her out -- don't give me your b.s. that a speaker at the DNC would have mattered.  Not only could it not have happened, but it wouldn't have mattered.  Everything the Gaza Freaks did after to poison the well made that clear.

Let's stay with the Gaza Freaks but move on. 

Gaza Freaks are yet again destroying support for their goals.  Courtney McGinley (NEWSWEEK) reports that the University of Rochester was the site of an 'action' in which posters of professors and staff went up with slogans like  "Wanted: Connection to War Crimes."  Students can do whatever they want -- if it was students -- and I'm not going to clutch the pearls.  But I will point out that's a lousy way to win support for your cause.  I will point out that support for these actions cratered at the end of last spring.  If they want press attention, they'll need to try something different -- because campus protests was the story of last spring.  But an action like this might please a freak like Michelle Shocked look-alike Linda Sarour but it doesn't move the needle on those in the middle and it actually pushes some of those in the support camp away.  


It's a failing move.  Kind of like protesting outside the White House.   Yawn.  The media needs new angles and, too bad, none of the non-college student leadership knows a damn thing about a media friendly moment.  Grasp that Susan Benjamin (stage name "Medea") is forever pulling stunts and hoping one of them will get her the attention she is always starved for.  If she truly knew how to create a media moment, she get actual moments.  Instead, she's just the crazy and pathetic woman who smells and people laugh at.  

Repeating, the protests you enjoyed under Joe Biden's presidency may be criminalized under Trump's so now's not really the time you need to be pushing more supporters away.  But, then again, if anyone in that camp knew how to strategize, they wouldn't have spent six months attacking Kamala.  You're in Ralph Nader land now where no one wants to know your name and no one feels they owe you anything.  



The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group on Wednesday published a propaganda video of hostage Sasha Trufanov, which his family authorized media outlets to publicize.

After a year in captivity, Trufanov describes a shortage of food, water, electricity, and basic hygiene products in the Gaza Strip, adding that he now has a skin condition that he did not have before being abducted. Like in several other hostage videos released by terror groups, Trufanov urges citizens to demand the government reach a deal for their release, and says that the Israel Defense Forces operation only puts them in more danger.

It is unclear exactly when the video was made, though it appears to be recent, as Trufanov mentions Israel’s ground incursion in Lebanon, which was announced on October 1. Though he says in the clip that he is aged 28, the video was released two days after he turned 29, his second birthday in captivity.



Not a good look for the 'movement.'  Or do they think keeping someone away from their family and friends is a good look?  Netanyahu is a War Criminal.  But so is someone who holds a person hostage for a year and counting. 

It's going to be interesting to watch the Linda Sarour's try to navigate this minefield and maintain public support.  Too bad they're probably on their on their own now.  So they'll scream in horror at each other -- unable to communicate with the larger, needed group -- and the body count will only increase.

Didn't have to be that way. 



Yesterday, shock!!! Shock!!!  And more shock!!!! That the US Senate refused to play . . . Donald Trump's bitch.  Honestly, you're surprised by that?  You don't understand human nature?

Oh, wait, the country's full of idiots.  Like the ones who thought because people screaming they wouldn't vote for Kamala Harris had a right to have someone on stage at the Convetion.

The DNC pageant is about rewarding the old boys' club and setting up the next one.  Women who are actually Democrats and are names have a hard time getting on that stage due to all the egos.  But, sure, your little nobody that has no national stature and is not anyone the DNC plans to turn into a national star (they planned to turn Barack Obama into one and that's why he spoke at the 2004 convention).

You are so filled with stupidity and with conspiracy talk that sometimes you miss the most basic things in the world.  From Tuesday's snapshot:


From ALL ABOUT EVE -- Bette Davis played Margo,  Thelma Reed played Birdie.  It's after a performance and Margo's assistant Eve (Anne Baxter) has picked up the costume and headed off from the dressing room.  
 

Birdie:  May I be so bold as to say something?  Have you ever heard of the word "union"?

Margo:  Behind in your dues? How much?

Birdie:  I haven't got a union. I'm slave labor.

Margo:  Well?

Birdie:  But the wardrobe women have got one and, next to a tenor, a wardrobe woman is the touchiest thing in show business.

Margo:  Oh, oh.

Birdie: She's got two things to do:  carry clothes and press 'em wrong.  And don't let anybody try to muscle in.




You know what's touchier than a wardrobe woman?  A sitting US senator.  




After 17 years in the hot seat, McConnell is expected to exit his post at the top of Senate Republican leadership on Wednesday, ending his run as the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

At the top of the billing to replace the 82-year-old are South Dakota Senator John Thune and Texas Senator John Cornyn, two establishment conservatives and longtime McConnell allies who have not always seen eye to eye with the president-elect.

Meanwhile, a gamut of Trump’s key allies, including Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Charlie Kirk, are aggressively lobbying for Florida Senator Rick Scott to take the helm. (Trump, notably, has so far avoided endorsing any of the contenders.) But the overzealous pressure campaign—which is also being pushed along by some far-right social media influencers and their harassment tactics—is on the verge of combusting, according to Politico.


That’s because most of the Senate Republican conference won’t have to face reelection until 2028 or later. On top of that, the vote is by secret ballot, ensuring that no one—from their constituents to MAGA’s top brass—will know if they voted for or against Trump’s candidate.
“Senators do not take kindly to having an army of social media trolls attack them,” one unnamed aide told Politico on Sunday, noting that the effort was only “pissing off senators whose votes Rick needs” to win.


And sitting US senators do not take kindly to anyone outside the Senate -- that includes a president -- attempting to tell them what to do.  Now pair that with Kaia Hubbard (CBS NEWS) reporting:


As Senate Republicans prepare to vote Wednesday on new leadership for the upcoming Congress, President-elect Donald Trump is already weighing in with demands for the new majority leader regarding his Cabinet. 

After a decisive victory in the 2024 elections, Trump is returning to the White House with a GOP-led Senate at his side. Senate Republican leaders are expected to ease the way for the president-elect's agenda and his Cabinet and judicial nominees. Trump has made it clear that he'd like his nominees to be installed immediately, suggesting that he may want the option to bypass the Senate's advice and consent role entirely. 




Please  note, that would be the Constitutionally assigned role of advice and consent.   For the ignorant -- like Donald Trump -- let's not the Constitution:


Article II, Section 2, Clause 2:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.


When the most recent US senators were sworn in back in January of 2023 -- two years ago -- the median age was 65.3 years.  

Wait.  We have MAGA drive bys and you know they were homeschooled so let me explain median.   Think of it as the midpoint.  So half the US Senate, in 2023, was composed of senators under the age of 65.3 and half was composed of senators over the age of 65.3 -- 65.3 is the mid point.


And US senators are very territorial.  And that's before you get to over half being over 65.  So he wants to bypass them on advice and consent and he wants to be able to determine who will be the next Majority Leader -- something the Senate traditionally does all by itself.


Pushy and stupid, that's Donald Trump.  

A Senate campaign?  That's much more difficult than a House campaign (except in Alaska which has two senators and one member of the House of Representatives).  They work very hard in those runs -- or at least hard for them -- and it being the upper house and it being a six year term, they tend to think they know better than others -- and that's before you factor in the issue of incumbency.

US senators do not like to be pushed around or talked to like their children.  But there goes the idiot Trump antagonizing the Senate -- Republicans and Democrats -- before he even gets into the White House.


Where's the popcorn, right?




Get it?  

No, the US Senate -- GOP members -- made Donald Trump their bitch.  He'll have to curry favor with them.  Lindsey Graham will crawl into bed and spoon with Donald but the others have a little more self-respect.  And, if we're being honest, Lindsey's always one of the first to stab Donald in the back when talking to other senators.

The GOP in the Senate will fall in line with Trump . . . when he flatters, when he grasps that they're not going to be ordered around.  This is a turf war.

You saw it with Samuel Alito making clear this week that Donald might like him to step down from the Supreme Court but that he will only do that when he is good and damn ready.  (See Marcia's "Trying again.") 

Idiots like Glenneth Greenwald lost it ahead of Trump's taking the oath of office in January 2017 because Senator Chuck Schumer noted that the intelligence committee had "six ways from Sunday to get back" at someone.  Drama Queen and chronic masturbator that he is, Glenneth went into a shrieking panic: Schumer was threatening Trump!!!

No, drama queen.  Chuck was noting the reality of turf wars.  



Could Donald Trump be the Newt Gingrich of presidents?  Someone with grand plans whose hubris and ego destroy it all?  We can only hope.

And those ready to fight?  We may want to focus on Tulsi Gabbard.





Group post I participated in ("Trashy Tulsi talks").  As we completed it and were about to post, Betty realized we forgot something important: Tulsi is a cult member.

Donald Trump is nominating a member of a cult to be Director of National Intelligence.  Guru Chris and that relationship need to be explained.

We should be demanding that news outlets actually cover what the cult Tulsi is a member of practices.

We wouldn't turn national intelligence over to a Moonie.

In addition, Tulsi visited with Bashar al-Assad.  A butcher.  Is she stable enough to hold this position?

Those serving in the reserves with her sounded the alarm on her to the government reportedly resulting in her being on a watch list.

This is a nomination that needs to seriously explored.


 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Kristi Noem Wants To Be At Home In Homeland Security"  and "Elon Secures A White House Position"  went up last night.  

The following sites updated:









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