Brand new, up for about an hour right now. For more on Crooked Clarence Thomas, see Betty's "Crooked Clarence lies again."
Some episodes zoom in on the main character(s),
others focus on the supporting cast. Shonda Rhimes' SCANDAL:TRUMP
EDITION is no different. Still tuning in today? It was a lot like
wanting to watch a really good episode of MOONLIGHTING but realizing ten
minutes in, "Oh, no. This is an episode revolving around the guy who
played Booger in the REVENGE OF THE NERD movies." There is nothing
worse. And while I know Ms. Rhimes has so much on her plate
(BRIDGERTON and this one are not her only shows), I did lament that she
was not personally overseeing this episode. I know she would have
shaped it better.
As it was we focused on Rudy Giuliani (played by James Woods) and he was losing it because everything he did backfired:
Former
President Donald Trump's close ally Rudy Giuliani's attacks on Georgia
poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were not just defamatory,
argued a CNN panel on Thursday — they were deeply racist, as Giuliani
used completely unprompted language comparing the pair of Black women to
drug dealers while claiming they were stuffing ballots.
This comes as a federal judge determined this
week that Giuliani lost the defamation suit brought by Freeman and Moss
by default, after failing to provide information sought by subpoenas in
the case, which puts him on the hook for damages as well as attorneys'
fees for the plaintiffs.
"Ms.
Freeman and Ms. Moss are not just victims in this case, but they're
really heroes," said former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. "They didn't
ask for this. It's one thing if Rudy Giuliani or Donald Trump goes after
someone who puts themselves in the public eye, someone who runs for
office, someone who goes on TV like us, that's fine. Because they were
private citizens. To be accused of being outright criminals is
outrageous, and now Rudy is facing consequences."
A
federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani was liable
for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that
they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the
2020 election.
The
ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell in Federal District Court in
Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a
central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain
in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the narrow
question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs
in the case.
Judge Howell’s decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that
he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby
Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the
State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.
Mr.
Giuliani’s legal team has sought to clarify that he was not admitting
to wrongdoing, and that his stipulations were solely meant to short
circuit the costly process of producing documents and other records to
Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss so that he could move toward dismissing the
allegations outright.
Although
the stipulations essentially conceded that his statements about Ms.
Freeman and Ms. Moss were false, Mr. Giuliani has continued to argue
that his attacks on them were protected by the First Amendment.
But
Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani’s stipulations “hold more
holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step of declaring him
liable for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress,
civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.”
We
then saw Rudy Giulaini (played by James Woods who did it way too heavy
on the dripping hair dye to get into character) pacing around his home
all alone and angry. "More holes than cheese," he muttered to himself,
"has she seen my boxers?"
"At
least I still have my legal license," stripping down to said holey
boxers and attempting to dance around to "I Still Like That Old Time
Rock and Roll."
Last
month, a District of Columbia-based disciplinary panel recommended
Giuliani be disbarred for his “frivolous” efforts on behalf of Trump to
overturn the results of the 2020 election.
As
the screen darkened on Mr. Giuliani, we went to commercial. I was
hungry and ran to the kitchen for some pretzels. I was just sitting
back down when the show started back up and I spit out a pretzel.
Priscilla Pointer! A great actress -- I loved her in CARRIE and in
everything she has ever done -- but she is 99 years old. Despite that,
Amy Irving's mother delivered in the role of Sidney Powell:
Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell on Wednesday filed to sever her case from her co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case, according to court filings obtained by MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.
The
staunch Trump ally was among 18 co-defendants along with the former
president who were indicted earlier this month by Fulton County District
Attorney Fani Willis over allegations they tried to overturn Georgia’s
2020 election. They are being charged under the state’s racketeering
law.
Powell
asserts in court filings that she has “no substantive connection with
any other defendants regarding the charges in the Indictment.”
"And besides," Ms. Powell screamed in the courtroom scene, "they all stink! And it's more than just body odor!"
Again, Priscilla Pointer delivered. I should never doubt Shonda Rhimes' casting choices. Perfection.
Thursday, August 31, 2023. Nouri al-Maliki is talking about the US
government, Amnesty International spotlights the missing, Bernie Sanders
gets called out (for the last thing he should really be called out
for), bad, bad, bad political 'analysis' from THE VANGUARD, and much
more.
Unless you're the US media, Nouri al-Maliki is yet again in
the news. I have no idea why the US media refuses to cover the former
prime minister and forever thug. Maybe it's guilt? They spent a long
time covering for him while he destroyed Iraq. And they refused to call
out the US government overturning the votes of the Iraqi people in the
2010 election. That's what led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq -- Nouri's
second term after the Iraqi people had voted him out but the US
government negotiated The Erbil Agreement to give him a second term. At
any rate, MEMO reports:
Former Iraqi Prime Minister,
Nouri Al-Maliki, said America intends to close the border between Syria
and Iraq in order to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad.
Al-Maliki added in press
statements that he is not concerned about any American action against
Iraq but he is certain that the recent American military movements aim
to close the border with Syria.
He considered the movement of
foreign forces, whether in Iraq or neighbouring countries, to constitute
a major concern due to fears of a return to the tensions and conflicts
that had previously plagued the region.
Nouri al-Maliki, the head of the State of Law coalition, and other Iran-backed Shia militia leaders in Iraq claim
that the aim behind the United States military manoeuvres to seal off
the Iraq-Syria border is to topple the Syrian regime.
Nouri al-Maliki, the head of the State of
Law coalition, made these claims on Monday, 28 August, but he also ruled
out the possibility that the Biden administration might be planning a
"regime change" in Iraq.
"We have a belief based on proof that
movements by the US forces in western Iraq seem to be aimed at sealing
off the Iraq-Syrian borders," Maliki claimed to Iraq's Al-Sharqiya channel in an interview aired on Monday night.
He added that while the West had imposed
aerial, land, and sea blockade on the Syrian regime, it could "resist"
the embargoes via border crossings with Iraq and therefore, the US aims
"to tighten the embargo" on the Syrian government and "incite
demonstrations" to topple the Syrian regime.
Maliki was Iraq's prime minister for two
successive terms from 2006 until 2014, when the Islamic State (IS) group
conquered a third of Iraq. He also claimed that the US forces did not
consult the Iraqi government concerning its plans to seal off the
Iraq-Syrian borders.
In October 2021, Iraq held
elections and, taking their notes from the US State Dept, the US press
hailed Moqtada al-Sadr as the victor and spoke of what would happen --
what never did.
Now I'm not expecting a journalist be a psychic
but when you completely ignore a power player in a country, you are
going to make mistakes. In the lead up to that election, we repeatedly
noted Nouri al-Maliki. He refuses to go away and retains a great deal
of power.
While the US press was basically misleading people to
believe that Moqtada would be prime minister -- that was not going to
happen, success for Moqtada would have been being the power behind the
throne and that was highly unlikely as well -- Nouri was meeting with
various blocs and blocking Moqtada. And we were noting it in real
time. Moqtada's 'victory' was no victory and we were proven right when,
finally, over a year (one year and 17 days) after the election took
place, a prime minister was named: Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. He was not
from Moqtada's 'winning' bloc. He is not someone who gets along with
Moqtada. He is the candidate that Nouri backed.
Before the
election took place, the US media refused to see what could happen.
During the year long process after the election, the US media refused to
see what was happening. As late as spring 2022, they were still
hailing Moqtada.
From their bubble, they misreported. Today, they're still ignoring him. But let's pretend they 'report.'
Families of the disappeared wage a struggle for justice, truth and reparation in the face of state apathy
Across the Middle East, both state authorities and non-state actors,
such as armed opposition groups, abduct and disappear people as a way to
crush dissent, cement their power, and spread terror within societies,
often with total impunity. Human rights defenders, peaceful protesters,
journalists, and political dissidents are often specifically targeted.
Families and loved ones of the disappeared are left in limbo and
experience constant mental anguish for many years and, sometimes, even
decades. Most often, it is women who lead the struggle for truth,
justice, and reparation, putting themselves at risk of intimidation,
persecution and violence. And it is women who are left to shoulder the
financial burden of providing for their families and caring for them,
often with little to no state support and while facing oppressive
patriarchal norms. They can neither organize a dignified burial nor
properly grieve, and they spend their lives campaigning for the
authorities to reveal the fate and whereabouts of their relatives.
In Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen alone, families have waited and campaigned more than a million years collectively for news of their missing loved ones
While the governments of most those states have not investigated
disappearances nor provided accurate numbers of those missing or
disappeared, family associations, human rights organizations and UN
bodies have published estimates for the number of people abducted and
disappeared in each country. In Iraq, the numbers range between 250,000
to one million disappeared. In Lebanon, the official figure is 17,415.
In Syria, human rights organizations estimate the number to be over
100,000. In Yemen, human rights organizations have documented 1,547
cases of disappearance. When these numbers are multiplied by a
conservative estimate of how many years these individuals have been
missing, a tragic picture emerges of the agonising number of years
families have spent waiting for answers – more than a million years.
In the absence of effective state action, families of the disappeared
have united under victim and family associations to demand their rights
– often at great costs and personal risks. The right to truth for
individuals and societies is recognized in international law and in the
context of enforced disappearances, meaning “the right to know about the
progress and results of an investigation, the fate or the whereabouts
of the disappeared persons, and the circumstances of the disappearances,
and the identity of the perpetrator(s)”.
To commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced
Disappeared, Amnesty International is sharing the stories of
extraordinary sacrifice and persistence by the families of the
disappeared and by human rights organizations in each of these
countries. The quest for truth, justice and reparation looks different
for the families in each country, but what unites them is their shared
struggle and their vision for a more free, safe, and cohesive society.
Share these stories in solidarity with the families of the
disappeared and demand that meaningful action be taken to reveal the
fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.
MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS
Families of the disappeared in the middle east wait more than a million years collectively for their loved ones.
Despite Iraq’s ratification of the International Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, consecutive
Iraqi governments have repeatedly failed to take meaningful steps to
investigate disappearances, reveal the fate and whereabouts of those
missing, or hold accountable those suspected of criminal responsibility.
Crucially, the Iraqi authorities have still not recognized enforced
disappearance as an autonomous crime in national legislation, and there
have been no prosecutions for those suspected of criminal responsibility
for enforced disappearance.
In April 2022, families of the disappeared launched the
#DeadorAliveWeWantThem campaign to demand answers regarding the fate and
whereabouts of their loved ones who were disappeared during the
conflict with the Islamic State. The campaign was supported by Al Haq Foundation for Human Rights,
which is helping families organize themselves nationwide and unify
their demands across their locations, their backgrounds and the
circumstances under which their loves ones went missing. On 15 August
2023, in the lead up to the International Day for the Victims of
Enforced Disappearances, Iraqi families of the disappeared, survivors of
enforced disappearances and human rights organizations came together in
nationwide protests demanding truth and justice for abductions and
enforced disappearances.
1 million missing persons since 1968, making it one of the countries with the highest number of missing persons worldwide.
Demands to the Iraqi authorities:
Ensure timely, independent and thorough investigations into enforced
disappearances and provide regular and transparent updates to the
public about the progress of these investigations;
Ensure protection from reprisals for those seeking justice.
Sabby Sabs and others are so offended by what Bernie Sanders said and how he 'stabbed' Cornel West in the back.
Seriously?
Bernie's
been in Congress for decades and this is where you're going to land
your outrage? Not on the day that America learned the VA had two sets
of lists to make it appear that veterans were being seen much sooner
when they were being delayed and suffering health wise as a result? We
covered the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing that day. A
former Democratic chair of the Committee (not Patty Murray) was as
offended by the hearing as I was. Bernie was the chair and the news of
the dual lists was all over the news. But Bernie began the hearing, as
Committee chair, insisting that was not anything anyone needed to raise
or discuss in the hearing because he wanted to focus on things like
holistic medicine.
Veterans
were ill and some had died as a result of the delays. The VA faked a
fix by keeping two sets of books and no witness or member of the
Committee, per Bernie, needed to talk about anything other than holistic
medicine options.
Again, Cornel's where you land your outrage against Bernie?
You're ahistorical approach is laughable as is your glaring ignorance.
I have stated I will be voting for whomever the Democratic Party's nominee is in the 2024 election.
I mean that. And I can tell you why if you need to know that (though we may touch on it below in talking about Bernie).
I
am not telling anyone else how to vote. Don't plan to. If you want to
vote for someone, you should. If no one speaks to you and you don't
want to vote, that's your right as well. And if you're not voting due
to juggling work and maybe more work and/or family obligations, I
understand that we need a national holiday for voting. Or to do like
Oregon and vote by mail. But however you use your vote is your
business. My only hope for you is that the day of the election, you're
comfortable with how you used it.
"I
had to take my kid to ER because she sprained her ankle at soccer
practice!" Good. That was certainly important. I applaud you.
And
you don't need a worthy excuse like that for me. It's your vote. As
an American citizen, you do with it what you want. We don't have forced
voting in this country.
You
vote on X and two weeks later the press exposes something you didn't
know about the candidate? That's not on you. You're not required to be
a psychic to be an American citizen. But if you make your best choice
on election day, that's all anyone can do.
I
did not vote for Ralph Nader. I had friends who did and some felt
awful. Now Ralph never pleased me on women's issues -- he thought high
heels were more important than reproductive rights -- read his 2000
ROLLING STONE interview if you're not familiar with how dismissive he
was of women's issues and women's rights. So in the lead up to the
election, if someone wanted to talk to me about why they were supporting
Ralph, fine, I'm going to share my opinion and I did.
After
the election when the tallies were closer than anyone expected between
Al Gore and Bully Boy Bush, some friends expressed regret for voting for
Ralph. (Not all did.) Those that came to me with, "You were right"?
No, I wasn't. I wasn't right for them. They voted on election day
using the best information available. And Gore didn't carry his home
state. Ralph Nader voters voted for Ralph. And that is a good thing.
I'm strongly against the Iraq War but it's a good thing people had
something that they wanted to vote for. And Gore's 2002 speeches
indicate that he might have gone to war with Iraq as well.
So my point here is you need to use your vote however you feel is best. At the end of the day, that's up to you.
Just
as I noted Ralph's refusal to treat as citizens -- I'm not going to be
reduced to a "consumer," I am an American citizen -- I'll note things
about the Green Party candidate -- when he or she is named.
And Cornel needs to stop presenting as the Green Party's presidential nominee. He is not. (See Ann's "Oh, look, liar meets liar.")
More to the point, just as I questioned support for Ralph to friends, I will question support for Cornel West.
He
knows how to be a bit player in THE MATRIX franchise? He knows how to
bury himself in pop culture and academia? He knows how to run up
outstanding taxes and child support obligations in the amount of
half-a-million dollars?
Barack Obama was
dismissed as "just a community organizer." No, he was someone who had
held public office in Illinois and had been in the Senate for a few
years when he was running for the Democratic Party's presidential
nomination (sworn in back in 2005, announced in 2007). And at his age,
that was a strong resume. Cornel is 70s years old. I'm not seeing
strength.
I'm seeing a
motor mouth who wants to turn every Q&A into multiple sermons and
pepper them with dated (incredibly dated) pop culture references --
again, Cornel, 11 year olds today are not listening to Tony! Toni!
Tone. He's never come off more out of touch than during that recent
exchange.
I'm seeing someone who hypes himself constantly.
I'm not seeing anyone who actually does anything political.
He's
going to heal us? How? By calling Laura Ingram "dear sister"? Dear
liar's more like it but he apparently needs to fawn and flatter to get
FOX "NEWS" media attention -- and as Ava and I noted earlier this week,
Green Party members are getting very vocal in their distaste for Cornel
and for his right wing media appearances. We've been added to a
listserv and they are getting very vocal.
They're
also tired of him acting as though he's the nominee and pointing out
he's not even a Green Party member and how the party needs to honor its
own and not recruit from outside.
There's
nothing he's doing that shows he's trying to appeal to Greens and
that's the reality. You can have your hissy fit and pretend otherwise
but you're living in the same world of delusion as a Donald Trump cult
member.
In part, that's due
to the YOUTUBERS appalling ignorance. They don't know the Green Party
and don't bother to learn how it works. (There will be no nominee until
the summer of next year when the party holds its national convention).
In part, it's due to their whorish ways and their inbred behavior.
Serial plagiarist Chris Hedges talks to The People's Party and offers himself
up as vice presidential nominee and Cornel as presidential nominee.
Then Ms. Chris Hedges tells her husband he can't run so it's just Cornel
on the ticket.
Liar
Chris goes to all the YOUTUBE idiots that will platform him (Katie
Halper, et al) and isn't that interesting that Cornel's running, he's
known Cornel for years and, as an observer, he's just real happy.
Observer?
You worked behind the scenes and secured the nomination for Cornel.
And then you omitted that fact from your written reports and your
YOUTUBE interviews and while Katie Halper and that crowd doesn't know a
damn thing about journalistic ethics*, as a former NYT-er, one, who lets
always remember was the first to front page the false link between Iraq
and 9/11, Chris does know his actions violated basic journalism. (See
Ava and my "Media: Marianne's campaigning for right wingers, Cornel's trying to destroy The Green Party" about how Cornel didn't realize what he was exposing when
he talked about how Chris secured the nomination for him).
[*Katie
Halper declared that she didn't need to disclose certain relationships
because she was an opinion journalist. No, dear, that's not how it
works.]
Chris,
with the help of twice-failed nominee Jill Stein, then tried to force
the Green Party to name Cornel the Green Party's nominee. Grasp that.
Grasp that they wanted a political party to do a backdoor deal, to ignore their bylaws and written practices.
I'm
sorry, I could never get on board with that. I called out Donna
Brazile and Debbie Washerwoman for gaming the primaries for Hillary. I
don't have the hypocrite gene that Chris Hedges does -- the one that
lets him repeatedly steal the written work of others, that lets him
pretend he was against the Iraq War when he actually front-paged the
false link between Iraq and 9/11 and did so in October of 2001 beating
out Michael R. Gordon, Judith Miller and everyone else, the one that
lets him set up backdoor deals and then pretend like he wasn't
involved.
I'm not ever going to support someone who was part of that.
And lets go back a moment more. Lets go back to how he ran to the Green Party.
I'm
sorry, you're a grown ass adult and you take the nomination from a
political party and then announce yet less than a week later you're
running from that same party.
Running for it, running from it.
I believe that's the definition of a flip-flop.
And
I believe that a grown adult should do research on the party he wants
to be the nominee for before -- before! -- accepting their nomination.
In fact, the grown adult should do research on the party before trying
to become the nominee.
Where has Cornel shown any common sense?
Don't see it.
If you do, support him. But you'll never convince me.
Bernie doesn't think Cornel should run. He is supporting Joe Biden.
I'm a little more open than that because I'll support whomever the nominee is.
But
Bernie is genuinely worried about the election and about what happens
if Donald or some other nut job gets in the White House.
I
think we'll see at least one death on the Supreme Court in the next
four years. I could be wrong. But I think it's likely -- and if it
works by karma, it'll be Crooked Clarence Thomas. If you think the
Court is packed with extremists right now, let one of the current crop
of Republicans vying for the nomination become president and see what
happens.
It's a valid concern.
It doesn't have to be your concern.
Your
concern might be, for example, building the Green Party. I'm not going
to fault you on that. If that's your concern, that's how you should
vote.
I don't see how
Cornel's going to help you there since he keeps acting like they're
trotting out the 2004 strategy. That's the strategy that destroyed
every gain Ralph made for the party in 2000. Whomever the Greens
nominate for their nominee next summer needs to answer as to what kind
of campaign they're running and what the goals are.
Your
concern might be that America's not White 'enough' or straight 'enough'
-- like so many on Twitter -- and want to vote for Ron DeSantis. There
I think your priorities are seriously off as is your understanding of
the world but, again, it's your vote use it how you think is best.
Bernie
thinks it's best for Cornel to run as a Democrat and that he will do
damage in a Green or independent run. That's his opinion and he's
allowed to express it.
He didn't stab Cornel in the back.
The
YOUTUBERS wetting their panties need to calm the f**k down. I don't
have any stomach for high drama. Nothing shuts me down more than
someone blinded by hysterics.
I'm also not big on voting out of fear.
Let
me go ahead and disclose my reasoning regarding the decision to vote
for whatever Democratic is the presidential nominee. ROE's dead. And I
believe the Democratic Party betrayed us big time on that. They could
have codified it -- as Barack promised to do "first thing" in his first
campaign for president. Ruth could have -- and should have -- retired.
She was too ill to serve and her 'personal' nonsense (Hillary was going
to be elected she just knew and she needed to give Hillary a Court
appointment). Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House how many times and
she never pushed to codify ROE? Barack failed, yes. But Nancy was in a
very powerful position and she could have done something and did not do
anything.
I'm angry to this day.
I would love to sit this election out.
But
I look around stunned by what's being done to LGBTQ+ persons. The
attacks, the hatred. The murder of an LGBTQ+ ally (Lauri Carleton) for
displaying a Pride flag. The attacks on education by Ronald DeSantis
and others. The attacks on knowledge -- that's why you outlaw,
African-American studies, gender studies, LGBTQ+ studies, to attack
knowledge. The violence towards people of color that these hate
merchants are fostering with their rhetoric is appalling. They refuse
to own the outcomes including their role in the murder of the three
people killed last Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida (Anolt Joseph "AJ"
Laguerre Jr., Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion and Angela Michelle Carr). As the editorial board of THE MIAMI HERALD notes:
What
happened over the weekend in Jacksonville isn’t a talking point. It’s
senseless, yet increasingly common, violence that claimed the lives of
three Black Floridians, targeted because of their race, according to law
enforcement. The Dollar General shooting shouldn’t be treated as an
outlier, an act carried out by a mad man. If mental illness were a
factor, as it seems to have been, it’s not the full story. The Justice
Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The racist
writings by the suspected gunman and the swastikas drawn on his
AR-15-style rifle should be treated with the same urgency with which
Florida lawmakers treated mental health after the 2018 Parkland school
massacre.
Were the mass
shooting to serve as a lesson for Florida policy makers, they would
quickly launch task forces to address the white supremacy that’s latent
in Florida. This is the state where neo-Nazis boldly marched outside
Disney World in June with flags bearing swastikas. Just as disturbing,
some flags bore Gov. Ron DeSantis’ image. Last year, Florida hosted the
America First Political Action Conference, a white supremacist event
that took place in Orlando. And the state is home to many Proud Boys, a
group that harbors white supremacists within its ranks.
A
mourning Jacksonville needed a leader, an empathizer, and a statesman,
qualities the divisive, ever-aggrieved Florida governor lacks on his
best days. And so in that fraught moment, facing constituents his
administration has insulted and disempowered,
DeSantis revealed himself to be an utterly spent force — lacking even
the vocabulary to speak lucidly about the awful thing took place the day
before.
"What
he did, what he did, was totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,"
DeSantis said in a stilted, brief speech during a prayer vigil for the
victims of the high-profile hate crime the prior day, in which a shooter
entered a Dollar General in Jacksonville's New Town neighborhood and
killed two Black men and one Black woman specifically because of their
race. Their names were Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph "A.J."
Laguerre Jr., 19, and Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion, 29.
Unacceptable, the governor said — as if this shocking act was some social blunder.
The audience of mourners loudly booed DeSantis, forcing him to stop speaking and prompting Jacksonville City Council member Ju'Coby Pittman, who was originally appointed to the council in 2018 by then-Gov. Rick Scott,
to scold the crowd. "Let the governor say what he's going to say, and
we're going to get this party started," she said, somewhat awkwardly, of
the prayer vigil being held for the victims. It was a moment many
politicians might have found a bit humbling if not humiliating, but it's
doubtful the arrogant and thin-skinned DeSantis, whose campaign once
likened him to an earthly warrior ordained by God himself, found it to be anything other than an unfair — unacceptable? — personal insult.
Some
larger context here: DeSantis pressured the Legislature last year to
pass a congressional map that, for the first time in decades, wiped out a
Jacksonville district that allowed Black voters to elect the candidate
of their choice. It was those very constituents DeSantis was directly
facing on Sunday, coupled with their pain and outrage over the shooting.
New Town and most of the city's majority-Black neighborhoods are now
represented by a Republican in Nassau County who has about as much in
common with those neighborhoods as a porcupine does a goose down pillow.
And this was no mere accident but a deliberate political project by the
governor to challenge a provision in the state constitution that is
supposed to prohibit the dilution of minority voting power. Pittman's lifeline to the governor was a generous gift, indeed.
I know that overturning ROE felt like a gut punch. I don't want others to suffer because other rights are at risk.
I'm not Joe's biggest champion but he has refused to sell out the trans community.
Do
you know easy that would be for him to do? Do you know that advisors
have begged him to do that? And he's standing for equality. I applaud
him for that.
Ketanji Brown
Jackson appears to be a justice who will fight for democracy. She was
Joe's Supreme Court nominee and I don't fault him on that, I praise him
for it.
I can find other things to applaud. If he's the nominee, he'll have my vote without hesitation.
(Tara
Reade? She's a homophobic transphobe who would gladly slide into a
political bed with Marjorie Taylor Greene -- who she can't stop
reTweeting. She also defected to Russia -- abandoning her 'beloved'
pets in the process. I don't care about her. I think she told the truth
but at a certain point when you're doing nothing but advancing hate
merchants I just don't care. And I don't care about Tara. She's
exhausted all the compassion many showed towards her -- even those who
didn't believe her.)
When
ROE was overturned (see "Today is a story of betrayal -- one long betrayal"), I thought I'd said everything I needed to
that day. But it felt different the next day, much worse. Much worse
to wake up in a world where reproductive rights don't matter.
And then all the hate that people flaunted and their organized efforts to destroy -- a film, a store, a personality.
That's
before what's allegedly a flash drive with Glennyth Greenwald's browser
history was dropped off at my agent's office.That was another eye
opener -- regardless of whether is Greenwald's or not. The little punk
in Colorado that they're trying to turn into a hero because of "Don't
Tread On Me"? There are other things on that jacket and I'm not sure
people grasp what they are and what they mean.
Having
entered the flash drive world, I'm aware of what they mean. I was
disgusted and shocked by that browser history -- whoever's history it
was. The hatred. The violence. The organizing to destroy. I go
back and forth over displaying that garbage here -- not the stuff where a
woman is battered, that would never go up here. In then end, I don't
want it here. It's reality and if someone else posted it, more power to
them. But it's vile and disgusting racism and homophobia and
transphobia and some of this is Tweets (other things as well -- there's a
manifesto in there as well) and they're up at Elon Musk's site (even
women cowering with black eyes and bloody noses). They feel fine
Tweeting publicly about their racism, specifically, their hatred of
African-Americans. And clearly Elon Musk agrees with them because this
stuff has been up on Twitter for months and months.
We're up against more than we know.
And I'm not going to use whatever time I have left on this earth letting hate merchants destroy this country.
Those
are my reasons. I disclosed that I would be voting Democrat for
president regardless of the nominee as soon as I realized that was what I
was going to do. I'm disclosing my reasons above. Those are my
reasons. They don't have to be your reasons. It's your vote and I'm
not going to shame anyone for voting Green or anything like that. And if
you vote by voting (or vote by not voting), you shouldn't let anyone
else shame you for how you vote.
You also shouldn't be listening to idiots. And you can toss me in there if you want, that's fine.
But
I'm referring to Zac on THE VANGUARD. He really needs to push his
chair away from the table. He does not have the knowledge necessary and
he refuses to learn from his mistakes.
He
speaks what he wants to happen and pretends he has factual backing for
it. He doesn't. It just his uneducated hopes and dreams passed off as
fact and I'm really getting tired of it. He has plenty to offer on
YOUTUBE but political analysis escapes him.
His
big mistake was when he was convinced Marianne Williamson was the
candidate and used that to insist that the just-announced candidacy of
Robert F. Kennedy Junior wasn't going to matter. And of course it did
and any educated person knew it would. If you said it wouldn't you
either were an idiot or a liar. The country lost President John F.
Kennedy. That's a wound that has never healed. To fail to grasp that
was shocking. Now Junior let everyone down and his polling's going down
but, point of fact, he's still more popular than Marianne.
Long
before POLITICO wanted to report reality on Marianne's interaction with
others, we told you here about that. I know Marianne. But Zac (and I
think Gavin too) wanted to tell you those reports from POLITICO were hit
jobs and not true and blah blah blah.
They were exactly right, those reports.
Now
we've got Zac basically blowing Cornel West on air. He's not the Green
Party's presidential nominee despite Zac misrepresenting him every
time. Zac is not a Green Party member. Zac has clearly not followed
the Green Party's history.
At
one moment in yesterday's segment on Krystal Ball, Zac was saying Jill
Stein did this and Jill Stein did that -- praising the idiot (she's a
liar and a coward and those of who care about Iraq will never forgive
her for 2012 -- Zac scratches his head and says "Huh?" because he's
never done the work required) and then in the same segment getting upset
with Krystal's implication that Jill cost Hillary Clinton the 2016
election. Hillary cost Hillary the election. In 2008, running for the
nomination, she went everywhere, she mingled with the people -- was
there a bar in Pennsylvania she didn't go to in order to meet potential
voters? -- in 2016, princess didn't want to be out on the campaign trail
and couldn't make it states in the lead up to the general election.
When she did show, she presented one celebrity after another. Her 2008
campaign was people-based and her 2016 was a bunch of celebrity
nonsense. She was trying to copy Barack in 2008, copy how he won the
nomination. It did not work for her, she is not Barack.
But Zac's telling you all these idiotic -- I hope good pot-based -- thoughts that are miles away from facts.
Cornel's going to get this amount of vote and Cornel's going to do that and . . .
Stop it. Put the joint down for a moment, splash some cold water on your face and wake the hell up.
Cornel's
not the nominee and he may not end up being the nominee. You're
infatuated with him for some reason and your latent racism leads you to
conclude that because Cornel's Black a lot of Black people will vote for
him.
Ajamu Baraka was Jill's running mate and he's Black. Didn't help the ticket.
African-Americans
vote Democrat. African-American saved Joe Biden's ass both in the
primaries and in the general election. There's no indication that this
is changing.
You're
simplistic beliefs -- latent racism -- that an untested politician
(Cornel) is going to get X number of votes and do this and do that?
There's no basis in reality for your comments.
Reality:
Only 2000 saw the Green have real impact. That's when Ralph Nader
ran. He got 2.4 million votes in the general election. Jill? She got
1.4 million in the 2016 election (469,000 in 2012). She's a loser and
she'll always be a loser and the people of Iraq suffer to this day
because of her. Again, 2012. Don't have the time to spoon feed you, go
read "Let the fun begin (Ava and C.I.)."
Zac
just gets worse as the segment goes along as he starts talking Cornel
just getting votes in states that are already going to go blue. "Safe
blue states."
I just want
to slap him. If the Green Party wants to build -- and certainly if it
wants at least 5% of the vote -- it can't do the 'safe state' strategy
-- it can't do it again. It did in 2004 and destroyed all the inroads
that had been made via the 2000 election. (They went from Ralph's 2.4
million votes to idiot David Cobb's 119,000 votes.) That's not building
a party. That's a vanity run. And people have every right to call
that out.
Here's the video
because I'm done talking about it. I don't understand why you would
grin and speak in a boastful voice when everything you were saying was
so factually incorrect.
Zac has his strong points, analysis of campaign politics is not one of them.
A
far-right Georgia lawmaker on Tuesday suggested that although he’d
prefer to resolve differences with his political adversaries peacefully,
he won’t rule out violence against those behind what he described as
“Nazism.”
Georgia state Senator Colton Moore during an appearance on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s “The War Room” suggested that defunding Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is among his top priorities.
[. . .]
“Do
you want a civil war? I don't want a civil war. I don't want to have to
draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative
means of doing so, and the first step to getting that done is defunding
Fani Willis of any Georgia tax dollars."
“And
hopefully Representative Jordan and Representative Biggs will follow
suit in congress and strip her of her federal dollars too because she is
not upholding her oath to the constitution.”
So
an elected state official is openly threatening insurrection and about
taking a gun to use on a state official? This prompted surprise and
discussion.
How is this person not under arrest? And tossed out of office?
Kemp,
who had previously survived scathing attacks from Trump over his
refusal to endorse the former president's false claims about the
election, declined to comment on the indictment of Trump and 18 others
at a conservative political conference hosted by radio host and Kemp ally Erick Erickson.
Noting that he had been called before a special grand jury to testify during the investigation, Kemp stated forcefully that
Democratic President Joe Biden was the rightful winner of Georgia’s 16
electoral votes and said swinging the spotlight to Trump’s legal
troubles would be a mistake.
"It's the smell of desperation: attacking prosecutors when a defendant has no defense to stand on," says professor
of law Joyce Vance, the well-known MSNBC legal analyst former U.S.
Attorney. "But in Georgia, it's being taken to new and dangerous levels.
Impossible to view this as anything other than an effort by Georgia GOP
to place Trump above the law."
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin adds, "GA legislators are now openly and loudly discussing how to punish Fani Willis. Why? Because she dared to come for the king."
"Keep your eyes on how they deploy SB 92 once October comes," Rubin adds.
Georgia Public Broadcasting has
called SB 92 the "divisive district attorney oversight bill," which
"would create a commission with power to remove district attorneys."
Criminal law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick, pointing to that new law, writes:
"Publicly stating that your new commission to discipline and remove
prosecutors is an easier way to interfere in the Trump prosecution
doesn’t seem like it will help your side of the pending constitutional
litigation over that commission."
“He
only wishes I was going away,” Christie said, saying Trump was
“obviously” watching as he criticized the former president on TV when he
posted that message.
“I
was laying out the truth about him,” Christie said, saying the “one
thing he cannot stand” is when someone credible calls him out.
“He
knows I’m not just some politician talking about his problems. I’m
someone who’s done it, and done it well,” Christie said, noting his 130
wins and zero losses in prosecuting political corruption cases when he
was a U.S. attorney.
“I
know how deep his problems are, and how much they’re damaging both the
Republican Party and the country,” Christie said. “I’m not getting out
this race. Maybe he should think about getting out of the race since
he’ll be spending most of March and half of April in a courtroom in
Washington, DC.”
That’s a reference to the March 4 start of Trump’s election interference trial, one of four criminal cases against the former president.
Wednesday, August 30, 2023. More details on the battle that left French
soldier Nicolas Mazier dead, the persecution of a cardinal in Iraq,
Ronald DeSantis' bloody hands and the bloody hands of all the hate
merchants, and much more.
Minister of the French Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu said that
Mazier “came under enemy fire” during a counterterrorism mission in
Iraq.
“Faced with terrorism, France will not back down,” Lecornu said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Seargant Nicolas Mazier was fighting for France, for our security.
Fallen in Iraq, the whole nation mourns him,” Macron said on X.
France's chief of defense staff later on Tuesday released a statement
saying that units of French and Iraqi soldiers were ambushed amid an
anti-terror reconnaissance operation around 100 kilometers north of
Baghdad, during which Mazier was killed in an exchange of fire.
“Four other French soldiers were injured during these clashes and were
immediately given medical attention before being transported to an
American military hospital in Baghdad,” the statement added.
During the latest clashes, the French and Iraqi forces landed by
helicopters in the al-Eth area after an Iraqi air strike on the
extremists’ position but came under intense attack, the sources said.
“It was clearly an ambush by terrorists,” one Iraqi security source said. The battle lasted for more than four hours.
Meanwhile
the Iraqi government continues in its attempts to strip Cardinal Louis
Raphael Sako of his rights. The US government has officially complained
over this move but that hasn't stopped the efforts to topple the
Christian leader. Luke Coppen (THE PILLAR) notes (in the introduction to his interview with the Cardinal):
It’s been a difficult summer for Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako.
The
leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church — one of the 23 Eastern Catholic
Churches in full communion with Rome — left his residence in Baghdad in
July. He relocated to the autonomous Kurdistan Region, where around half a million Iraqi Christians have settled since 2003.
The move turned a spotlight on the
cardinal’s difficult relations with two Iraqi political figures: the
country’s President Abdul Latif Rashid, and Rayan al-Kildani, the leader
of the Babylon Brigades’ militia and its political wing, the Babylon
Movement.
It was President Rashid’s
decision to revoke a 2013 presidential decree recognizing the cardinal
as the head of Chaldean Catholics and the person responsible for its
assets that prompted Sako to abandon the Iraqi capital.
Al-Kildani’s Babylon Brigades, meanwhile, have pursued what Sako has described as a “deliberate and humiliating campaign” against him.
Ano
Jawhar Abdoka is the KRG's Minister for Transportation. He is also a
Chaldean Catholic and the head of Shlama Trend for Christian Affairs in
the KRG and he heads the Christian Chaldean Assyrian Syria Alliance in
the KRG's Parliament. At RUDAW, he writes:
The ongoing turmoil faced by Christians today mirrors the trials
previously endured by Jews in Iraq. The emergence of militias intent on
occupying Christian lands and properties in areas like the Nineveh
Plains and other Iraqi cities encountered a significant obstacle in
their path — Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean
Catholic Church.
As the spiritual leader of Iraq's largest church, representing
approximately 80 percent of Iraqi Christians, Patriarch Sako opposed the
creation of Christian militias. His beatitude consistently urged the
Iraqi government to prevent the existence of such groups, as Christians
inherently advocate for a robust and stable government, not a fragile
one.
Influential figures like the bishops of the (Nineveh Bishops Council)
also opposed militia formation and the acquisition of Christian
political representation in the Iraqi parliament through tens of
thousands of votes outside of the Christian house gathered by militias
to support their proxies and impose them on Christians , intended to
consolidate the political power of these militias.
The resilience of Christians shocked the militias, prompting them to
target the head of the most powerful church, aiming to set an example
that would discourage others from opposing their expansionist policies
in the Nineveh Plains. This culminated in efforts to compel their allies
to affect the decision of the presidential institution of Iraq, by
issuing a presidential decree by the Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid,
to withdraw the presidential dated for more than 10 years ago, only
concerning Patriarch Sako.
Suppressing the Christian voice
While numerous other decrees by the Iraqi presidency for various bishops
and churches leaders remain in place, exclusively targeting Patriarch
Sako serves the purpose of conveying a clear message: Christians must
remain silent and cooperative during the militias' efforts to alter the
demographics of their ancestral lands in the Nineveh Plains. This
silence is also expected regarding the multitude of human rights
violations and abuses committed by these militias.
Turning
to the United States, where fear and hate are yet again being marketed
by hate merchants. Again -- because this is nothing new in American
history. Periodically, We The People, have to take these hate merchants
to the curb and drop them in the garbage bins. Nut job Naomi Wolf
brought Moms for Bigotry to prominence. But White Karens have a long
history of bigotry in the US as Adam Laats (SLATE) points out:
Everyone loves moms. Everyone. And that’s a problem for groups like Moms for Liberty.
The group revels in its inflated reputation as a “national powerhouse,” but its century-old playbook has always had a fatal flaw.
As
the 1970s story of Alice Moore shows, white conservative mothers have
always had great initial political success, but that appeal tends to
spiral quickly out of their control.
Moore’s
story might sound familiar. She rocketed into national prominence in
1974 by taking over her local school board, blocking books and fighting
for “parents’ rights.” She ran as a nonpartisan “mother,” but in truth,
she was an experienced activist for conservative causes. Long before she
ran for school board, she had fought against abortion rights and
against sex education in schools. She railed against public schools’
alleged progressive agenda, accusing them of “destroying our children’s
patriotism, trust in God, respect for authority and confidence in their
parents.”
Once
on the school board of Kanawha County, West Virginia, Moore ignited a
dramatic boycott of a new series of textbooks. She inflamed conservative
opinion nationwide by claiming that the books trampled on parents’
rights. Moore warned that the new books would force white kids into
feeling guilt and anguish about America’s racism.
Moore
did not invent her powerful political persona. She modeled her career
on that of Texas’ Norma Gabler. Gabler had become a national powerhouse
in the 1960s by blocking history textbooks and forcing publishers to
tell a more conservative story. Though Gabler always called herself just
a “Texas homemaker” or “Longview housewife,” she ran a staff of eight,
combing through textbook copy to sniff out progressive content.
Gabler,
in turn, modeled her organization on that of the Daughters of the
American Revolution. As far back as the 1920s, DAR leaders campaigned to
keep America’s public schools “fundamentally Anglo-Saxon.” Back then,
DAR claimed almost 200,000 members. Anne Rogers Minor, DAR’s national
leader at the time, claimed that it was their role as patriotic mothers
to “Guard well your schools.” Minor warned that too many teachers taught
ideas that parents might not like. As Minor put it, “We want no
teachers who say there are two sides to every question.”
DAR’s
activism was powerful and lingered for decades, but their sprawling,
angry organization always ranged beyond the control of the national
leaders. In 1963, one DAR member in Mississippi humiliated the group
with her violent opposition to a widely used children’s book. The book, The New Our New Friends (1956),
had been read for years in Mississippi public schools. It told cheerful
moral stories about cute baby animals, as when Bobby Squirrel
discovered he could get a nut just by asking for one. One local DAR
leader, though, accused the book of spreading subversive socialism by
teaching children, like Bobby Squirrel, to expect a “collective welfare
system.” DAR had worked hard to maintain their reputation as America’s
maternal conscience. This kind of strident, frenzied activism, however,
opened up the group to mockery from all sides, as when historian James Silver sarcastically
praised the Mississippi DAR for keeping the state’s children safe from
the dangerous “story of the squirrel storing nuts.”
By
the 1970s, Alice Moore’s career repeated the pattern. Just like Norma
Gabler and DAR, Moore attracted huge support, seemingly overnight. Her
warnings about new textbooks led to a boycott of local public schools.
The fledgling Heritage Foundation scrambled to send support. The White
House, too, voiced its enthusiasm for Moore’s vision. President Ford’s
commissioner of education, Terrel Bell, opposed any textbooks that
“insult the values of most parents.”
As
Alice Moore quickly found, however, her meteoric success came at great
cost. Her inflammatory language about public schools and teachers led to
a spate of bombings and shootings. The school board building was rocked
by a dynamite bomb. Two elementary schools were firebombed.
Nonconservative members of the school board were physically attacked and
pummeled at a public meeting. The district’s superintendent went into
hiding, moving from couch to couch every night to escape incessant death
threats. Soon school buses came under hails of sniper fire. Along the
turbulent picket lines, two people were shot; thankfully, both survived.
The
right-wing periodically shows up to sew hate and discord throughout the
country. Sometimes, nut jobs like Naomi Wolf enable them. As Anita
Bryant learned the hard way, there is no career in hatred. The Daughters
of the American Revolution are a disgraced organization as a result of
their bigotry. The world remembers and embraces Marian Anderson,
however, the woman DAR tried to persecute. From The National Museum of African-American History & Culture:
The great operatic contralto Marian Anderson is most often
recalled for her brave and stirring performance from the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after the Daughters of the American Revolution
refused to allow her to sing from the stage of their Constitution Hall
because of the color of her skin.
Less well remembered is the extraordinary life she led before and
after that moment, in a career that took her from Philadelphia, the city
of her birth, to New York City, the White House, and performances
before royalty and in the great opera halls of Europe.
Anderson possessed a voice of power, grace, and extraordinary range.
Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini said, "a voice like hers only comes
along once in a hundred years.”
And yet, like many African American singers of her era, Anderson faced discrimination in her own country.
After graduating from high school, Anderson applied to the all-white
Philadelphia Music Academy, which refused to admit her. Undaunted, she
continued to pursue her dream and, when she was 23 years old, Anderson
beat over 300 competitors for the opportunity to sing with the New York
Philharmonic Orchestra.
In Europe, South America, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere, she
captivated audiences with performances in multiple languages, including
operatic arias and songs drawn from the classical canon.
She also included traditional African American spirituals in her repertoire, sharing this important art form with the world.
By 1939, Anderson was an international sensation. However,
when Howard University invited her to perform in Washington, D.C., the
Daughters of the American Revolution denied her access to DAR
Constitution Hall, the only auditorium large enough to accompany the
throngs of anticipated fans. It would be Walter White, executive
secretary of the NAACP, along with Secretary of the Interior Harold
Ickes and others that fixed this injustice by inviting her to perform at
the Lincoln Memorial.
The air was cold on April 9, 1939 - no favor to an opera singer.
Anderson was also intimidated by the prospect of singing before the
largest crowd she had ever faced. But, considering all she had overcome,
these were small obstacles. She strode to the microphone and, with all
her dignity and mastery, began her first song: “My Country ‘Tis of
Thee.”
In many ways, Anderson was an unlikely hero. Off the stage, she was
quiet and reserved. When asked to comment on the Daughters of the
American Revolution and their refusal to let her perform, she
characteristically demurred - preferring to let her performance speak
for itself.
It did. Seventy-five thousand people heard her sing that
morning, and before her retirement, she would enthrall millions more.
She would make her belated debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955, tour
the world on behalf of the United States in 1957, and sing for the
inaugurations of presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.
Following Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington
in 1963, Anderson captivated the audience with her rendition of the
spiritual “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.”
Eventually, she moved to Connecticut, and at the end of her life, she
traveled to Oregon, where she lived quietly, occasionally accepting
well-deserved honors, until her death at age 96.
At the National Museum of African American History and
Culture, we have many treasured artifacts and exhibits from Anderson’s
storied life. There is one of which I am particularly proud: the
ensemble Anderson wore on April 9, 1939, when she sang to the conscience
of the nation.
Although she wore a fur coat over her shoulders to fend off the cold,
her jacket was bright orange with jeweled buttons that sparkled in the
sun. A jacket befitting the icon she truly was. In 1993, with Anderson’s
permission, the jacket was redesigned with new fabric and the trim that
was on the original garment. We are honored to conserve and share the
skirt as Anderson wore it that day.
If you have only ever seen black-and-white footage of her
performance, I invite you to come to the Museum to see more. View Marian
Anderson’s dress on display, listen to her voice, and learn more about
her inspiring life and career. Come and experience a moment that
transfixed, and ultimately helped transform the nation. Join us as we
celebrate the life and achievements of a great American hero.
A constant
in American history is that the hate merchants find a minute or two of
popularity and then the American people slam them with shame.
The message Michael Farris had come to deliver was a simple one: The time to act was now.
For
decades, Farris — a conservative Christian lawyer who is the most
influential leader of the modern home-schooling movement — had toiled at
the margins of American politics. His arguments about the harms of
public education and the divinely endowed rights of parents had left
many unconvinced.
Now,
speaking on a confidential conference call to a secretive group of
Christian millionaires seeking, in the words of one member, to “take
down the education system as we know it today,” Farris made the same
points he had made in courtrooms since the 1980s. Public schools were
indoctrinating children with a secular worldview that amounted to a
godless religion, he said.
The
solution: lawsuits alleging that schools’ teachings about gender
identity and race are unconstitutional, leading to a Supreme Court
decision that would mandate the right of parents to claim billions of
tax dollars for private education or home schooling.
“We’ve
got to recognize that we’re swinging for the fences here, that any time
you try to take down a giant of this nature, it’s an uphill battle,”
Farris said on the previously undisclosed July 2021 call, a recording of
which was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and
shared with The Washington Post. “And the teachers union, the education
establishment and everybody associated with the education establishment
will be there in full array against us — just as they were against
home-schoolers.”
Nevertheless,
Farris assured the conservative donors, their money would be well spent
on this legal campaign. A conservative supermajority reigned on the
nation’s highest court. In statehouses and at school boards, political
activism over parental rights had reached a fever pitch.
“The time is right,” he said, later adding, “Sometimes it does take a while for seed to be planted and to germinate.”
The
50-minute recording, whose details Farris did not dispute in a series
of interviews with The Post, is a remarkable demonstration of how the
ideology he has long championed has moved from the partisan fringe to
the center of the nation’s bitter debates over public education.
They
want to destroy the country and democracy and plan to use 'religion' as
their excuse -- getting why the Pope called some Americans out (see
Trina's "Hawaiian Macaroni Salad in the Kitchen") -- and when they go down, they'll take nutso Naomi Wolf
with them. She's going to be ranting and raving like a bag lady -- or
Germaine Greer -- and she's destroyed her legacy -- which never should
have been that much to begin with.
But
in real time, many innocents suffer as a result. Saturday saw a mass
shooting in Jacksonville, Florida which left Angela Michelle Carr, Anolt
Joseph ("AJ") Laguerre Jr and Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion dead. From yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
I’d like to bring in Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost into the
conversation. Representative, your response to the racist shootings in
Jacksonville? And also, you called on Governor DeSantis to call for a
special session to discuss the matter. Your sense of the governor’s role
in the past in terms of dealing with issues relating to the Black
community?
REP. MAXWELLALEJANDROFROST: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me on.
And it was just sad. Organizers, advocates, community leaders,
clergy, folks across the state, for years — for years — have been
pleading with the governor to do many things, but two things in relation
to this tragedy that happened in Jacksonville. Number one, act on gun
violence. In a country where the leading cause of death for a child is
to be shot to death, we need to do something. In a country where we lose
a hundred people a day due to gun violence, we need to do something
about the problem. And unfortunately, what we’re seeing, especially in
the Republican Party now, is not only do they not want to do anything
about it, but they want to say there’s no way to fix the problem, which I
completely dismiss. That’s not why we run for office as elected
officials.
The second thing, this governor consistently embraces and champions
this far-right, fascist movement that is growing across the country, but
really Florida and Texas, I believe, are the two epicenters of. And
that movement gives credence and gives power to racist bigots like the
murderer who went into that store and murdered three people and hunted
three people down because of the color of their skin. All of these
things are connected. When that shooter, months before that, would turn
on the news, weeks before that, would turn on the news to see that kids
in Jacksonville, middle schoolers, would learn that Black who were
enslaved benefited, had personal benefit, from their slavery, that gives
people credence. That pushes bigotry and racial hatred into people.
And so, you know, I saw those videos and those pictures of the
governor at the funeral, at the memorial. And I was tweeting about this
data. I have been in so many communities across this entire nation just
after a mass shooting and just after a shooting. I’ve been doing gun
violence work since I was 15 years old. And I get the want to, no matter
who it is, have that unity. I understand it. But I have to say — I have
to say, in moments like these, we have to stand strong on ensuring that
leaders who contributed to the problem can’t use our communities as
campaign stops. And that’s exactly what the governor did. And I’m happy
that activists and organizers booed him and yelled to him, “You’re part
of this! You’re part of the reason this happened!” because it’s nothing
but the truth.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you’re calling on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into what’s happening in Florida?
REP. MAXWELLALEJANDROFROST:
Yes. Yes, I am. This is very important, too. We, as Democrats, as an
organizer, we’ve got to take steps back and look at: Where is our power
now? We understand that with this far-right, authoritarian leader as our
governor, we need to look at power in other places, people power on the
ground, but also the fact that Democrats, we hold the administration.
We have the White House and President Joe Biden. And I want to see the
Department of Justice do a lot more, using every tool in their toolbox,
to investigate not just this specific incident, but everything going on
in Florida.
And, you know, myself, I sent a letter with Congressman Jamie Raskin
to Chair Comer of the Oversight Committee, the committee I sit on, and
we asked the chair: We need to have hearings on what’s going on in the
state of Florida, because this anti-democratic governor — it’s not just,
you know, in the state of Florida; it’s spreading throughout the entire
country. We saw what happened in Tennessee with the Tennessee 3. It’s
this far-right movement that seeks to subvert democracy to consolidate
power. And it’s important that we talk about it.
The chair completely, you know, did not respond to us, so I held my
own hearing. I put my own hearing together, brought Andrew Warren, the
state attorney who was taken out of office. That happened again with
Monique Worrell. We brought state Representative Anna Eskamani. We
brought a substitute teacher that was fired for simply posting footage
of empty bookshelves because of the book ban. And we brought Jasmine
Burney-Clark, who runs Equal Ground, that works on educating people
across the state and fighting for democracy across the state and voting
rights.
And what we found in that hearing and through our research is the
governor is targeting municipalities, counties and people across the
entire state that disagree with him. And he’s subverting democracy,
removing them from office, and we can’t stand for it. All of these
things are connected. We need the Department of Justice to look into the
racial hatred, the hatred of Black people, hatred of immigrants, going
on in the state of Florida.
AMYGOODMAN:
Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Alejandro Frost, we want to thank you
so much for being with us, the youngest member of the U.S. Congress,
former national organizing director of March for Our Lives, which was
formed by survivors of the Parkland shooting in Florida. And, Rodney
Hurst, civil rights leader from Jacksonville, all the best during this
storm. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
No
one has done more to attack and preach hate in the current presidential
nomination cycle than Ronald DeSantis. He's gone after reproductive
rights, he's gone after the LGBTQ+ community, he's gone after
African-American studies, he's been silent as one hate crime after
another has taken place. He does have blood on his hands. Hayley Gunn (RADAR) notes:
A Florida state representative said Governor Ron DeSantis had "blood on his hands" after a racially motivated shooting killed three Black citizens, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Sunday night Rep. Angie Nixon appeared
on MSNBC and didn't hold back when she discussed the latest tragic
shooting at a Jacksonville Dollar General store on Saturday.
MSNBC's Lindsey Reiser asked Rep. Nixon her thoughts on DeSantis' statement on the previous day's shooting.
After
three innocent Black people were gunned down by a 21-year-old white man
who carried an AR-15 style rifle adorned with swastikas, the governor
said, "Florida, the state, and its people condemned the horrific
racially-motivated murders, perpetrated by a deranged scumbag…
Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable, and targeting people
due to their race has no place in the state of Florida."
DeSantis' was booed by a crowd of mourners who gathered on Sunday to honor those senselessly killed.
Nixon branded DeSantis' words nothing but "hollow statements" as she claimed the governor's past comments attributed to the shooter's actions.
"This is a governor who has done nothing but fan these types of
happenings throughout our state," the state rep told Reiser. "Look, at
the end of the day, the governor has blood on his hands."
On
yesterday's BURN IT DOWN WITH KIM BROWN, Kim noted the booing and
weighed in on the nonsense of a politician who wanted the booing to
stop.
The shooting claimed the lives of Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19, and Jerrald Gallion, 29.
The
gunman, identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, left
racist writings and used racial slurs before launching the attack
Saturday and then killing himself, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters
said. Palmeter had worked at a Dollar Tree from October 2021 to July
2022, the sheriff said.
“There’s no question” the killings were racially motivated, the sheriff told CNN on Monday.
“He hated Blacks, and I think he hated just about everyone that wasn’t White,” Waters said. “He made that very clear.”
The killer was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun – which were both legally purchased, the sheriff said.
The
Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime and an
act of racially motivated violent extremism, Attorney General Merrick
Garland said Sunday.
US Vice President Kamala Harris issued the following statement on Sunday:
On Saturday, as Americans marked the 60th anniversary
of the March on Washington, a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle
and handgun opened fire at a Jacksonville store just blocks away from a
Historically Black University, taking the lives of three Black
Americans.
Already,
federal law enforcement has opened a civil rights investigation into
this attack and is treating it as a possible hate crime and act of
domestic violent extremism.
As
we allow that investigation to proceed, let us continue to speak truth
about the moment we are in: America is experiencing an epidemic of hate.
Too many communities have been torn apart by hatred and violent
extremism. Too many families have lost children, parents, and
grandparents. Too many Black Americans live every day with the fear that
they will be victims of hate-fueled gun violence—at school, at work, at
their place of worship, at the grocery store.
Every
person in every community in America should have the freedom to live
safe from gun violence. And Congress must help secure that freedom by
banning assault weapons and passing other commonsense gun safety
legislation.
Doug and I will keep the victims and their loved ones in our prayers.
# # #
And we'll note this from Monday's White House press briefing:
MS.
JEAN-PIERRE: This Saturday, our nation marked the six- — 60th
anniversary of the March on Washington, a seminal moment in our history
and in our work towards equal opportunity for all Americans.
Sadly,
this day of remembrance ended with yet more American communities
wounded by an act of gun violence, including communities in Boston,
Chicago, and Joppa[towne]. At least one shooting this weekend was
reportedly fueled by hate and carried out with two firearms.
On
Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, a white gunman went on a shooting
rampage at a store near a historically Black university and killed three
Black individuals. Even as we continue to — to — we continue searching
for answers, we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has
no place in America.
As
the President said in his statement yesterday, we must refuse to live
in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students
going to school — to school live in fear of being gunned down because of
the color of their skin. Hate must have no safe harbor. Silence is
complicity, and we must not remain silent. And we must continue to do
all we can to keep guns out of dangerous hands.
The
President and the First Lady are praying for the victims and their
families, and this entire administration grieves with the people of
Jacksonville.
As
for the failure Ronald DeSantis and his inability to speak honestly to
the issue? Are we asking for too much from him? I'm just wanting a
single sentence: "I apologize to the people, the state and the country
for the hate I've inflicted and all the harm that has resulted from
it."
