That's Kylie Minogue's new hit "Padam Padam." Thank you to Elaine who called me to give me a head's up (see "Kylie Minogue") that I was probably failing right now by not noting it. Mike noted it. It's currently Mike and Elaine's daughter's favorite song. Like myself, Elaine was not asked to note it. But Elaine did get called out tonight for not noting it. Which is why she called with a heads up before my granddaughter called to ask why I wouldn't note her favorite song of late.
Now this is from Tom Mackaman (WSWS):
The New York Times published yesterday a column by Paul Krugman dismissing the role of Ukrainian fascists in the mass murder of Jews and Soviet citizens during World War II and minimizing as mere “shadows” their prominence in the present NATO proxy war against Russia. Krugman’s comment, “The Eyes of the World are Upon Ukraine,” is a thoroughly dishonest and cynical apology for Ukrainian fascism, past and present.
The column comes one day after the appearance of a Times feature article, “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History.” In that piece the Times editors attempted, as WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North noted, to palm off “deep historical and present-day links of Ukrainian nationalism to Nazism and genocide” as a mere “public relations problem for media propagandists, who are trying to sell NATO’s proxy war as a struggle for democracy.”
The Times article evoked considerable outrage, both because it lifts the lid on the embrace of Nazi ideology in the Ukrainian military, and because it acknowledges that the Times and other media outlets have been censoring images of Ukrainian soldiers wearing “patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.”
Krugman, who usually writes Panglossian commentary on the economy, was brought in to put out the fire. Unfortunately for the Times, Krugman is completely ignorant of history.
A pretext for the column was provided by the 79th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II. Krugman absurdly heralds the recently launched Ukrainian offensive against Russia in the Donbas and southern Ukraine as “the moral equivalent” of that battle in the war against Nazi Germany. Both, according to the Nobel-prize winning economist, are about “good versus evil.”
To Krugman, Ukraine is just like “the great democracies” that fought against Nazi Germany. Similar to the US in the 1940s, Ukraine also has “flaws,” even “a darker side” consisting of “corruption” and “a far-right movement, including paramilitary groups that have played a part in its war” in which “Nazi iconography is still disturbingly widespread.” But what, after all, is a little fascism among friends? Nazi paramilitaries and white supremacist ideology are mere “shadows” in an “imperfect but real democracy,” Krugman assures Times readers.
There is, in fact, no “real democracy” in Ukraine. Kiev has outlawed opposition parties and illegalized all criticism of the war. Individuals accused of “collaboration” are hunted down and prosecuted. Those agitating for an end to the slaughter have been arrested, tortured and disappeared. Like Russia and the other Soviet successor states, the country is ruled over by a kleptocracy that emerged out of the old Stalinist bureaucracy. The Ukrainian oligarchy guards its ill-gotten wealth with the aid of Europe’s most repressive labor laws in a society that, even before the war, was among Europe’s poorest. As for “national freedom,” Kiev is waging a vicious campaign against the Russian language, which is spoken by a large percentage of the country, and represses the languages and cultures of other minorities—including Hungarians, Poles, Ruthenians and Romani.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Tuesday:
On Saturday, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado posted a video on Twitter in which she claimed that she had intentionally skipped Wednesday’s key House vote on a bill to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling.
“No excuses: I was ticked off they wouldn’t let me do my job, so I didn’t take the vote,” Boebert said, going on to allege that the voices of individual House members had been stifled during the legislative process. “Call it a no-show protest, but I certainly let every one of my colleagues and the country know I was against this garbage of a bill.”
But Boebert’s claim of a deliberate “protest” absence is contradicted by her own words in the congressional record. After the vote ended on Wednesday, Boebert submitted an official statement in which she said she had been “unavoidably detained” for the vote and would have voted against the bill had she been present.
And Boebert’s claim is further called into question by CNN footage from the House steps in the moments after the vote concluded.
Less than a minute after the vote was finalized, CNN photojournalist Jake Scheuer captured video of Boebert running up the steps as a CNN associate producer [Morgan Rimmer] mentioned that the vote had just been closed. Boebert stopped running for a moment to turn back and ask, “They closed it?” After the associate producer confirmed, Boebert continued her dash toward the building entrance.
When Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was caught on video missing a critical vote last week to prevent a default on the debt—and then tried to spin her absence as an act of conscience -- she didn’t only earn widespread derision and gawking on social media.
The archconservative congresswoman also gifted her leading Democratic rival, Adam Frisch, a moment that crystallized his case against her for the 2024 election: that she simply isn’t showing up for the job she was elected to perform.
“Besides excused absences for sick family members and other family emergencies, I'm not sure why anyone would be late, let alone practically skip a vote,” Frisch told The Daily Beast in an interview on Monday.
“I don't know what was taking her away from voting on one of the most important bills that the Congress is going to probably have this year,” he added.
For his part, Frisch said he would have voted for the legislation that paired an extension of the federal government’s borrowing authority -- which averted a default -- with spending cuts and other concessions to Republicans, though characterized it as “not perfect.”
Boebert has done nothing since being first elected but agitate and self-promote. She is only interested in — and maybe only capable of — engaging in high-pitched diatribes that draw cameras and MAGA supplicants. If it does not benefit her directly, she has no time for it.
The debt ceiling debate was the perfect example.
Before the vote, Boebert showed up on time and eager to every press gaggle with a microphone. She spent weeks calling for fellow House Freedom Caucus crazies to oppose the deal hammered out by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She pulled out all the top hits, from lambasting “the swamp” to proclaiming “fake news.”
Rep. Ken Buck’s opposition at least had the benefit of consistent principle. He has never supported a debt ceiling hike and opposed similar measures under former President Donald Trump. Rightly or wrongly, Buck believes the government spends too much and should be held to account when it bumps up against its budget limits.
Boebert is not nearly as nuanced. Apparently she just felt a lack of attention since she had the national spotlight on her during the contentious election of McCarthy to Speaker of the House. In January, she gleefully preened for the lights and flashbulbs as she confounded even the most conservative pundits with her unintelligible rationale.
Eclipsed in the interim by her best frenemy, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has taken on the role of MAGA Translator in Chief for McCarthy, Boebert seemed spoiling for an opportunity to throw herself in front of cameras again. Consequently, when the hint of opposition to the debt plan deal surfaced, Boebert straightened her skirt, flipped her hair and went running to the closest reporters. It is the political equivalent of a Pavlovian bell.
Boebert could not help but undermine her own leadership and party. The opportunity to promote her own brand and social media following pulled more strongly than any political loyalty, much less the best interests of her constituents thousands of miles away.
Boebert did stop short of calling for McCarthy to be removed from office. A part of the Succession-esque “meal fit for a king” Boebert and company forced McCarthy to swallow in exchange for their support in his Speaker bid, she demurred when asked about whether a snap vote should be called to oust McCarthy. Instead, Boebert replied that she was “focused on taking down this bill.”
Apparently, she was so focused that she forgot when the vote was scheduled.
But again, I just can't stop marveling over her lack of character. She plotted her lie. She thought if the press members who saw her running to make the vote and knew she missed it came forward, she could just deny it and lie and be believed because it was her against the media. She taped the lie and she released the video with her lie.
I just can't stop marveling over this. If she'd run over a person by accident, is this how she'd have handled it?
We talk to our children about reality and responsibility. Well, most of us do. Most of us. Not Lauren. Which is how she ended up dropping out of high school because she got pregnant and raised a son who, at 17, got a younger girl pregnant and now Lauren's about to be a grandmother.
She takes no responsibility for her actions and that's apparently torn apart her family and she still can't learn from it. As Elaine noted:
Boe-Boe. Next year is an election year and all she has to show for it is hate. She's not serving anyone. Hell she couldn't even make the debt ceiling vote after running around getting press on it over and over. Boe-Boe's a lazy hack.
This is how she acts when she almost lost her seat last November? A handful of votes (found during the recount) allowed her to retain her seat. Instead of rolling up her sleeves and getting serious, she's continued to be one of the biggest jokes in the land.
She has some developmental issue that is preventing her from learning. It's really sad.
It is sad. Everything about Lauren's trashy life is sad.
And, as Elaine noted, next year is an election year. Lauren has so much to live down.
She's not the only one running for election. Senator Tim Scott wants to be president of the United States -- not president of The Down Low Club, president of the United States. And what better way to show your maturity then losing it repeatedly on THE VIEW. To the point, please note, that the studio audience boos you.
That should be quite the campaign. Meanwhile, former US Vice President Mike Pence made the announcement yesterday that everyone's long expected. Let's get Karen to a support group for women whose husbands, late in life, come out of the closet. Oh wait, that wasn't the announcement. Yet. No, Mike announced he's running for the GOP's presidential nomination.
There's so much crazy in the world of presidential campaigns these days. THE VANGUARD noted one example.
As Ruth observed:
That is THE VANGUARD and they are taking on the nonsense of the People's Party. That has been the biggest con job in the world. No candidates came up from it. Now they are desperate for attention so they go with a celebrity: Cornel West. The professor must not have many ethics or possibilities if he has taken their nomination.
Taken.
Be clear about that. It is a supposed political party. But they did not have a primary, they just handed out their nomination. That is democracy?
They are a very sad and very mixed up group.
And, as THE VANGUARD pointed out, they don't even have ballot access. Talk about a vanity campaign.
In other news, Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:
The Iraqi parliament will convene on Thursday to vote on the country’s
highly-awaited budget bill, after almost three months of studying the
draft.
The Iraqi council of ministers approved the federal budget bill for the
years 2023, 2024, and 2025 in March, and sent the draft to the
legislature. The parliament was set to vote on the budget on May 27, but
disagreements within the finance committee, concerning amendments
relating to the Kurdistan Region, prevented the legislature from
carrying out of the process.
The finance committee is yet to reach an agreement on the divisive
amendments, but is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss the latest
updates, according to Jamal Kochar, a Kurdish member of the committee.
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Boe-Boe7 hours ago
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