Wednesday, November 16, 2016

NYT is a joke

David Walsh (WSWS) reports:


In two open letters last Friday, one addressed to its staff and another directed to its readers, the New York Times apologized for its coverage of the US presidential election and promised to approach the Donald Trump administration with impartiality and fairness. The letters represent a white flag of surrender to Trump and the extreme right unfurled by an important element of the American liberal establishment.


In his letter to “colleagues,” Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. referred to “one of the most momentous weeks in our nation’s recent history” and urged his staff to recall the “instructions” of Adolph Ochs (1858-1935), onetime owner and publisher of the Times, “to cover the news without fear or favor.”


It is, one might say, a little late in the day for that. The Times has been one of the principal voices of the American ruling elite for more than a century and a half, encouraging or approving countless crimes and injustices. In recent years, it has consistently served as a propaganda arm of the CIA and Pentagon, promoting US wars of aggression from Serbia to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria and leading the media campaign of war-mongering against Russia.



That is so true.

NYT has always been a mouth piece for the US government.  It always follows the State Dept.'s lead.

Gore Vidal wrote about that many, many times before he died.

And after their lies for the Iraq War, no one should believe them.

I was reading a piece -- maybe at Deadline -- where a former NYT editor explained that they shape the coverage.  The editor's come up with a story and ask the reporters to go out and find the 'facts' that back up the story.

That's really obvious from their coverage of Donald Trump.

They missed the boat completely.  And they did it because they don't pay attention to facts but just want to preach. 


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



Wednesday, November 16, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, the lies of the US election continue, an idiot proposes it is sexist to criticize Hillary Clinton -- at least right now, let us grieve, let us grieve, and other nonsense.



Starting with the US election so many of us were tired of before it happened and remain tired of now. There are real issues effecting lives right now and it's must be so very nice to be an American citizen unconcerned with the wars your government is currently actively carrying out.


The ridiculous Angelina Chapin (HUFFINGTON POST) tries to pretend she's a feminist (she's not) and ties criticism of War Hawk, corporatist and scandal magnet Hillary Clinton to sexism:

I think every liberal woman has broken down at some point in the past week.  For me, it was at 2 a.m. on Wednesday when I called my boyfriend and wept.



If you think every liberal woman cried, then you're not only a bad columnist, you live in a tiny and terrifying bubble.

As Demi Moore said THE BUTCHER'S WIFE, "Well you ought to get out more."

Angelina goes on to whine that Hillary has "30 years of political experience."

No, she has 12 years -- she was a US senator for 8, she was Secretary of State for 12.  First Lady is not political experience.  Especially now that women have opportunities, we no longer need to pretend that 'woman behind the man' is experience.

And non-feminist Hillary sneered so at First Lady that she insisted she would give Bill things to do as First Spouse so that he wouldn't have to plan dinners, etc.  In other words, Hillary said, "That's women's work."  And only a few of us feminists took the time to call her out on it.

She takes Thomas Frank to task for calling Hillary a "party hack."  I'm no fan of Thomas Franks (I hope I've been fair to him but I'm not a fan of his).  But Thomas Frank's criticism of Hillary did not begin today, this month or even this year.  And it has nothing to do with sexism.

Were Angelina a feminist, she'd grasp that.  But she's just another whiner trying to play the woman card to get her way.

She insists that "when you inflict your analysis on a woman who is devastated that Americans just elected a man who considers her subhuman, you are being sexist.  Plain and simple."

Angelina, grow the f**k up.

Plain and simple.

Crawl back, crying, to your safe space, try to create the illusion of being in the womb if it helps.

But stop kidding that you're about feminism.

Women want to run for political office (and have and are).

There's no "Oh, but it's a girl so shut up with the criticism."

That's not feminism.

That's sexist.

We can handle it.

We get pushed around and pushed down every day.  Like many Americans.

And we get back up.

And we pull ourselves together and we go on.

If we want to compete in political races, we can't whine, "Oh, the results hurt my tender little girl bits and feelings so nobody can say anything!!!!"

People can say whatever they want, first of all, in a democracy.

Second of all, you need to grow the hell up and you need to toughen the hell up.

I'm embarrassed, as a feminist, that you chose to publish that crap.

Your nonsense is as pathetic today as Gloria Steinem's b.s. in REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN about how she saw her future as running a diner and there's a table in there where women can whisper and talk alone.  That's not radical.  Taking the conversation to the public square isn't even radical -- it's just democracy.

While we're mentioning Gloria Steinem -- who started her career as a CIA operative -- as THE NEW YORK TIMES recently noted and refused her request for a correction because it is true (and she used to brag about it before she suddenly became a feminist) . . .


She at least got her overall theme right -- don't mourn, organize -- in her recent GUARDIAN column.

(Though I would have said, don't wallow, organize.)


Hillary didn't change any rules in the political game.  Gloria's dead wrong on that and the speeches Hillary gave to Wall Street back that up.

Gloria, for those who are too young to know, appointed herself a feminist leader and had her friends in the media join her with that.  It's how she leaped ahead of women who'd written books on feminism, given speeches, done activism, how she leaped ahead of entire collectives of women.

She's never done much for women.  Since 1976, she's actively undercut women at every Democratic Party convention -- usually with regards to the party's platform.  This is documented and if you don't know it, you didn't bother to educate yourself.

She can't hide those actions.  Through the threat of lawsuits and bullying, she was once able to hide the CIA past that she's previously confessed to.

Gloria's still thinking she can get away with rewriting history.  In her column, she insists:

In 1972, I ran as a delegate pledged to congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, a candidate for the presidency. 

You did run, Gloria, but you lost.  A detail you leave out.

More to the point, not only was Gloria not a delegate for Shirley, she didn't support Shirley.

From Jackson Landers piece for THE SMITHSONIAN earlier this year:


“Feminists were split over her candidacy,” recalls Gottlieb. “Gloria Steinem, who you would expect to have supported her, supported McGovern instead. That was significant and it hurt on a personal level quite a bit. . . .you can’t look at 1972 through the same magnifying glass as 2016. Having a woman run for President was like having somebody from Mars run for President. And you then have a black woman running for president and everybody, all interest groups, were grappling with ‘how do you deal with such a changed landscape?’ People were not comfortable with having a black woman. And she often said, between being black and being a woman, the biggest problem was being a woman.”

So just stop grandstanding, Gloria.

And stop lying.

The media anointed her leader and helped her push out "old" Betty Friedan.

Betty was 52 when Gloria and her cronies shoved Betty aside insisting that "young blood" was needed.

Gloria's now 82 and has refused to step aside or to elevate any other woman because she's going to die holding on to the title the media created for her.


Actress Jane Fonda appeared with Gloria recently.  A friend started to tell me about it and I stopped her saying I couldn't deal with the stupidity right now.  She insisted (good for her) and it turns out Jane actually made sense. From CNN:


"I am very grateful for the time that I lived in Georgia. I learned so much," Fonda said. "And one of the most important things that l learned was the importance of listening to people who you don't agree with, with an open heart."
And that's what needs to happen now, she said.
"I know that we all didn't vote for the same people," Fonda told the crowd. "And we have to, as women, we have to have each others' backs, no matter who we voted for. We have to listen carefully."



Those are smart words.  Maybe they're a step back to activism?  Something Jane spent the last 8 years forgetting?

And I'm saying "actress" and not "actress and activist" -- as she bills herself -- because the Iraqi people have never forgotten her grandstanding January 2007 speech in DC where she claimed she would not be silent or stop fighting until the Iraq War was over.

Then Barack was elected and the issue never mattered to her again.

On actresses, Susan Sarandon.

Angelina Chapin is just so upset by negative criticism of Hillary.

It's so mean.

And what are the outright attacks on Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon?

Jill ran for president.  As Ann  -- a born and bred Green Party member from day one --  pointed out maybe Jill's supporters should be cursing out Hillary's crowd for refusing to support a woman who was against endless war, for the environment and for the people.

In other words, Hillary cost Jill Stein the election.  (Jill's run has resulted in the Green Party getting ballot access on 12 more states in the 2020 election.)


Debra Messing is a psycho, a lousy actress, star of three failed TV shows and a bully online.

She hates Susan Sarandon.  She lied about her months ago to start a Twitter war and get a little bit of fame in the hopes NBC wouldn't cancel her show.  (They did.  Largely because the hate she was spewing in her Twitter feed at that time was alienating viewers and NBC was getting tons of complaints -- and Ava and I warned about it when it started, we wrote about it at THIRD as soon as NBC suits told us and Debra still didn't cool it.  So she cost a crew, the cast and others jobs because she couldn't stop spewing her hate.)

She's still hating on Susan Sarandon.



Send it to .









Debra's an idiot.  (I love the "my understanding" Tweet regarding contacting Congress -- did you miss out on third grade, Debra?)

She just can't stop going after Susan nor can "I forgot because I'm ill" Kurt Eichenwald (see Betty's "Crazy Debra Messing" for a good laugh on that loser).






JESUS CHRIST. NOW she wants to give racist, islamophobic, homophobic, sexist,mysogynists  a chance!"Pure" 4 Bernie. F[**]K everyone else.













Are Kurt and Debra going to buy food for the people they're trying to put out of jobs.

If you missed it, if the head of a company endorsed Donald Trump or gave money to his campaign, Debra's started a campaign to put them out of business.

How many thousands of people is Debra trying to put on the unemployment line?

Chances are, if you own the business, you'd be okay if it went under -- you should have diversified your portfolio.

But if you work for the business, where are you going to find a job elsewhere.

You could argue Debra's crackpot scheme is racist since African-Americans still have a larger unemployment rate in this un-recovered economy.

Debra and her ilk need to grasp people like Ann.

She is a Green.

She was raised that way.

Ann has never voted Democrat in her life (or Republican) and she never plans to.

But because she's a woman and African-American, Debra's racist thinking is that Ann owes the Democratic Party a vote?

Not only is the Green Party a valid party for any American to choose to vote for, it's also now a party with people being born into it.  Just as the Iraq War has gone on so long you have people who were in first grade when it started already having finished high school, the Green Party has been around so long now that there are people who are raised in Green families the same way people have been raised in Democratic families and Republican families.


So before someone laments poor feelings again and calls for safe spaces, they better curb Debra and get her shots.

And, for the record, I'm not a bully.

I'm a bitch.

There's a big difference.

One difference?  A bully tries to put you out of business.  A bitch just warns you that if you don't calm down your Twitter feed the corporation paying you money is about to drop you.  And after Ava and I warned on Sunday and it was confirmed on Monday, the actress learned to drop the hate (not the politics, just the hate).






Atrocious - President-elect Trump wants to put the architects of the Iraq War back in charge of our foreign policy. 










You know what's atrocious?

US House Rep Barbara Lee did nothing to stop the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War under Barack.  On the Afghanistan War, she was always resetting the clock, "If President Obama hasn't ___ by ___, I'm going to propose . . ."

Marriage to him?

Because she never proposed to end a war.

She was in the Democratic controlled House in 2009 and 2010.  Democrats also controlled the Senate.

The only way to stop the War Hawks was to do a Congressional investigation into the lies of the Iraq War.

They elected not to.

For numerous reasons.

So don't come crying now that people whose behavior you tolerated and, yes, normalized are now likely to be back in government.  A full and public investigation would have ended that.  You didn't call for one, Barbara Lee.


For the Democrats -- as many e-mails from Iraqis are currently noting -- it was "move on" about the Iraq War -- a luxury that the Iraqi people did not have.  But on this election, as the e-mails from Iraqis keep pointing out, Americans want to whine.

Gloria Steinem, he is your president.  I've got 15 e-mails in the last 24 hours alone from Iraqis stating that he is your president, Donald Trump, and you are responsible for what is done in his name the same way you were for Barack Obama (I agree) and the same way you were for Bully Boy Bush (I don't use the p-word for BBB, he was gifted with the oval office by the Supreme Court).



In Iraq, the war continues, the tragedies continue, the War Crimes continue.




Iraq: At least one fighter executed after he surrendered.












And let's dedicate this snapshot to John Stauber who keeps telling truth.  Taking on the nonsense at Huff-n-Puff and Gloria's nonsense inspired by John's latest COUNTERPUNCH article.
















ADDED at 5:43 pm est on 11/16/16:

The following community sites updated:
























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