Trina's Kitchen: French Fry Casserole in the Kitchen

Tonight’s recipe? We had a ton of French fries left over from the game. So what do you do when you have tons of fries? French fry casserole!

· 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

· 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

· 1/2 onion, diced

· 1/2 green bell pepper, diced

salt and black pepper to taste
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
3/4 cup processed cheese sauce (such as Cheez Whiz®)
1/2 (28 ounce) package frozen shoestring potato fries

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C), and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. Heat the oil in a skillet, and cook and stir the ground beef, onion, and green pepper over medium heat for about 15 minutes, until the meat is crumbly and no longer pink and the onion is translucent. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the condensed mushroom soup. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-low heat.

3. Scoop the cheese sauce into a microwaveable bowl, and melt on low power for about 30 seconds.

4. Place the ground beef mixture into the bottom of the prepared baking dish, and spread an even layer of the melted cheese sauce over the ground beef. Top with frozen shoestring fries. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, until the fries are starting to turn golden.

Do the same as above but with already cooked fries. Top with any of the following:

Pickle slices

shredded lettuce
diced tomatoes
Thousand Island dressing
ketchup
mustard

It’s a nice side dish or a meal.

Now another topic. “The answer to greed? Socialism” and “Raw Turkey warning from CDC” touched on a topic earlier this week. Socialism is needed these days, right now, in fact and the young people are not going to put up with all the wars and other damaging things that sell out We The People. With that in mind, let’s note Genevieve Leigh (WSWS):

At over 500 high school and college campuses, walkouts are being planned today, Election Day, by “Walk Out to Vote” in order to “cheer each other on as those eligible cast their votes.” The group is led by a coalition of Democratic Party-affiliated organizations, including the Women’s March and the National Die-In.

The event is part of a broader propaganda offensive directed at youth and students to convince them to vote for the Democratic Party. Every corner of the internet is inundated with non-stop advertisements to “Get out the vote.” From social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, to music streaming applications like Spotify, youth are confronted with the pressure to vote, with the not-so-subtle subtext that if you do not vote for the Democrats, you are complicit in the crimes of the Trump administration.

The fear mongering tactics of the Democratic Party and its allies are combined with a complete absence of any discussion of the actual conditions and concerns of the vast majority of young people.

There is, among young people, a broad and justified hatred for the Trump administration. The administration is a government of extreme reaction, presiding over growing social inequality, expanding war, and the increasingly fascistic attack on immigrants. Young people, however, must be warned: Supporting the Democratic Party is a trap!

What is the actual political role and function of the Democratic Party? The Democrats have gone out of their way to adapt themselves to Trump, while downplaying the far-reaching significance of the administration’s actions. As Trump continues to tear immigrant families apart, erect concentration camps and sends the military to the border, the Democratic Party is virtually silent, calling such actions a “distraction.”

And they are catching onto this. That’s why they were so leery of Hillary.

I’ve seen the young get jazzed and inspired and Hillary is not inspiring. Bill, back in 1992, managed to magnetize. If you’re young, you might not believe that. But he was very charismatic – that was probably true up until around 2010. Age gets us all.

Despite age, Bernie Sanders remains charismatic. That’s in part due to his ideas.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:

Friday, November 9, 2018.

Dog Eat Dog
It's dog eat dog
I'm just waking up
The dove is in the dungeon
And the white washed hawks
pedal hate and call it love
Dog Eat Dog
Holy hope in the hands of
Snakebite evangelists and racketeers
And big wig financiers

Dog Eat Dog
On prime time crime the victim begs
Money is the road to justice
and power walks it on crooked legs
Prime Time Crime
Holy hope in the hands of
Snakebite evangelists and racketeers
and big wig financiers

Where the wealth's displayed
Thieves and sycophants parade
And where it's made
the slaves will be taken
Some are treated well
In these games of buy and sell
And some like poor beasts
Are burdened down to breaking

Dog Eat Dog
It's dog eat dog ain't it Flim Flam man
Dog eat dog you can lie cheat skim scam
Beat' em any way you can
Dog eat Dog
You'll do well in this land of
Snakebite evangelists and racketeers
You could get to be
a big wig financier

Land of snap decisions
Land of short attention spans
Nothing is savored
Long enough to really understand
In every culture in decline
The watchful ones among the slaves
Know all that is genuine will be
Scorned and conned and cast away
-- "Dog Eat Dog," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her classic 1985 album DOG EAT DOG

Thieves and sycophants parade? Hey, Joe, where you going with that award in your hand? Off to War Hawk Land? To give it to Bully Boy Bush?

‏ @vtlen

A war criminal will get the Liberty Medal and Joe Biden will hand it to him. ⁦@JoeBiden⁩ is not your friend. www2.philly.com/philly/columni…

Brittany DeBarros Retweeted

About Face: Veterans Against the War‏ @VetsAboutFace Nov 5

As the far-right is emboldened across the country, the "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush is being awarded for his service to veterans. Sign and Share this petition.

1 reply17 retweets15 likes

‏ @HoffmanKatja

Thank you, FL veterans for letter...a medal for Bush, the one who lied us into war with Iraq, causing deaths of thousands, horrific physical, and mental devastation to thousands...beyond the pale, disgraceful. Shame on you, Joe Biden. 

‏ @Roxann_Minerals

Damn It, Joe Biden and Michelle Obama, Stop Rehabilitating George W. Bush! | The Nation 

Matt Mungan‏ @mattmungan 18 hours ago

@ConstitutionCtr, why is war criminal, Geoge W. Bush, being presented with the Liberty Medal? @JoeBiden, why are you participating in this travesty?

Will Bunch:

It's a pretty safe bet that no one on the Constitution Center's panel that selected the Bushes for the now-tarnished Liberty Medal consulted with the Iraq-born novelist Sinan Antoon, who wrote in the New York Times in March that "Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country" and noted that estimates of as many as one million dead mean the war "is often spoken of in the United States as a 'blunder,' or even a 'colossal mistake,' " but, he writes, "It was a crime."
Nor did the panel likely investigate the "blessings" that America under Bush's leadership bestowed upon Lakhdar Boumediene, a Bosnian national scooped up in 2001 by U.S. intelligence on baseless allegations and flown to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where during nine years of imprisonment he said he was kept awake for days at a time, forced into uncomfortably painful positions, and brutally force-fed during a hunger strike. "These are things I do not want to write about," he wrote. "I want only to forget."
Apparently America only wants to forget the Bush years as well. (The Iraqi Antoon complained of our "mostly amnesiac citizenry" after watching Bush do a happy dance with liberal TV host Ellen DeGeneres.)

Repeating:

Where the wealth's displayed
Thieves and sycophants parade
And where it's made
the slaves will be taken
Some are treated well
In these games of buy and sell
And some like poor beasts
Are burdened down to breaking

War Criminals are celebrated. Everything comes with a price tag, eh, Ellen?

‏ @cynthiamckinney

US Senate Affirms Support for Child Soldiers and Child Sex Slaves.

3 replies20 retweets28 likes

NBC News‏Verified account @NBCNews 23 hours ago

BREAKING: Calif. bar mass shooting suspect identified as Ian Long, 29, several law enforcement officials tell @NBCNews - @PeteWilliamsNBC

104 replies620 retweets476 likes

Show this thread

‏Verified account @ABC7

#LIVE: Neighbors are saying David Ian Long was a veteran who suffered from PTSD, "I have no idea what he was doing with a gun" abc7.la/2yZhMMl

51 replies316 retweets260 likes

He suffered with Post-Traumatic Syndrome? But, by all means, let's give Bully Boy Bush an award for his 'work' with veterans -- you know, for killing them and wounding them. For using them to try to distract from his War Crimes?

And let's pretend, while we're at it, that the wars themselves don't destroy the Ian Longs. No, every veteran is not going to end up hurting people. (Veterans with violence issues traditionally turn the violence on themselves. Which does explain the high rates of suicide.) And there's no need to give rise to a stereotype. But there's also no reason to deny that these ongoing wars effect a large number of people -- including those who serve in them.

Now it doesn't effect Bully Boy Bush. He's still dumber than dirt. His wallet's a lot thicker but he's still Satan incarnate and, if there's a hell, he'll get to know it quite well.

But Bully Boy Bush didn't serve in Iraq. He sent others to serve. He didn't serve himself. He was too busy doing other things. Hence the incomplete National Guard records.

Bully Boy Bush was happy enough to send men and women into war and he was happy enough to not "do body counts" (a lie, as we found out during the last week of KNIGHT RIDDER", in a Nancy Youssef report). Now he thinks he can emerge from beneath his rock and accept an award. The delusions of the entitled.

Shame on Joe Biden. I love Joe but I'm appalled and this isn't something I'll forget. If he gives out that award, I will not support him in a 2020 run. His presenting that award shows he learned nothing from the Iraq War -- that he voted for. He's learned nothing. That makes him worse than Hillary. Yes, she gave a weak ass apology but it's a hell of a lot better than what Joe Biden's about to do.

The Iraq War continues and bully Boy Bush is getting an award -- and Joe Biden's handing it to him.

XINHUA reports of 'liberated' Mosul, "At least three people were killed and 11 others wounded in a car bomb explosion near a restaurant in the west of the city of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, a local police source said Thursday."

That's Bully Boy Bush's legacy. "The war on terror." He was the terror. Iraq, Afghanistan, these wars continue and their death toll increases. AFP notes:

A report of the study conducted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs put the toll between 4,80,000 and 5,07,000 people, but said the actual number is likely to be higher since there are “limits in reporting”.

Now those deaths do not rest solely with Bully Boy Bush. Barack Obama continued those wars. Donald Trump continues them now. And there were a lot of people in Congress -- Joe Biden, that includes you -- who signed off on them.

For Iraq alone, Brown's study counts 295,00. And, as the study notes, this is an undercount.

How many people have to die before Joe Biden's bothered enough not to hand an award to Bully Boy Bush?

Jason Ditz (ANTIWAR.COM) observes:

This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951 US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.

The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are “inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution and progress.”

Iraq remains destroyed. The war continues. The occupation continues.

Kirk Sowell (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) examines the latest government:

Adel Abdul-Mahdi—a former minister of finance, minister of oil, and vice president of Iraq—barely managed to secure a confidence vote for two-thirds of his cabinet on October 25. The former member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), a Shia Islamist party, was nominated prime minister on October 2. But he has since nearly failed to launch his government, which will face pressure from a population frustrated by years of failures on security and public services.

The roots of Abdul-Mahdi’s weak government lie in the manner in which the prime minister himself was elected. After he resigned as minister of oil in 2016, Abdul-Mahdi left ISCI to become an independent and did not run in the May 2018 parliamentary elections. However, on May 23 he published a Facebook post explaining why he could not be prime minister because all the reforms he would want to implement would be opposed by many. These included such broad changes as moving away from the rentier state, strengthening state institutions and ensuring their independence from political influence, reining in illegal militia activity, and reducing the influence of tribalism.

This pitch aligned well with the rhetorical vision of populist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has long associated himself with such themes. The political class was focused for much of the summer on the struggle over Haider al-Abadi’s effort to secure a second term. Yet once the fallout over Basra’s massive water pollution crisis ended Abadi’s hopes in early September, Sadr quickly backed Abdul-Mahdias a replacement, and Barham Salih designated him to head the next government immediately after his own election as president on October 2. Sadr conditioned his support two days later by declaringthat he was giving Abdul-Mahdi “a period of one year to prove his success.” This gives Sadr the option to take credit for the government’s success if it does well or turn against it next year if protests over poor public services swell again.

Moreover, the coalition nominating him was unclear and fractured. Although Sadr was the driver behind his nomination, the only figure who actually ran in the election whose approval was essential for Abdul-Mahdi’s candidacy was Hadi al-Ameri—leader of the Badr Organization and head of the Fatah Alliance, which with 48 seats is the second largest in parliament after the 54 for Sadr’s Sairun. The process was so opaque that Iraqi journalists were uncertain which of these blocs had nominated him.

Sadr and Amiri, being political rivals with very different worldviews, also never agreed on a specific policy program or even a method of choosing ministers, with Sairun giving Abdul-Mahdi full discretion to nominate their share of the ministries while Amiri’s Fatah insisted on naming specific ministers. Furthermore, Abdul-Mahdi conducted separate bilateral negotiations for ministerial positions with Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition (SLC) and the Sunni Arab National Axis Alliance, even though they were technically both part of Amiri’s Construction Bloc (Bina). Without agreements with both parties, they likely would have blocked passage of his cabinet, but this situation also underlines Abdul-Mahdi’s lack of a unified coalition. His bilateral agreements with parties do nothing to bind them to each other into a working majority capable of passing legislation or approving executive appointments.

The lack of a real coalition behind the new government became evident when parliament met to approve the proposed cabinet on October 24. Abdul-Mahdi got off on the wrong foot during his speech presenting his government program by failing to make more than passing reference to the demands of Sunni Arab MPs—such as reconstruction and the return of Sunni provinces’ displaced citizens. This led Speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi of Anbar to push through a motion to incorporate a list of Sunni demands into Abdul-Mahdi’s prepared text regarding the government’s program, holding a vote to approve his statement before the body could proceed to consider ministers.

15 years and counting, still the Iraq War continues and no one responsible for starting the war or continuing it deserves any award.

The following community sites updated:

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