He Finally Did It Friday Reads
Posted: January 3, 2020 Filed under: Middle East, morning reads | Tags: Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, Qassim Suleimani assassination 22 Comments
Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells by Anna Airy. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 2271)
Happy New Year!
I wish I could say this with a lot of hope in my heart but after last night’s late news we’ll be lucky at this point if we avoid World War III. Also, this time there will be no allies because Cadet Bone Spurs thinks we can just go it alone and has managed to offend every friendly country in the world. His Maximum Pressure approach to the world has not only left us friendless but more likely facing increased violence around the world.
Trump’s freaky christofascists have been frothing at the mouth for their mythical end times. I suggest they grab a bucket and go help Australia if they’re really all concerned about the earth ending in fire. Problem is my freakish friends, according to your specific mythology, a Temple has to exist that no one’s built yet so I’d think twice about travelling any where around the world or signing up for the diplomatic corps or the marine corps for that matter. We are just one target rich environment now.
Since this assassination reminds me a bit of the Arch Duke Ferdinand one that kicked off World War I I decided to give you some paintings from the period. This collection comes from the UK’s Imperial War Museum: “6 STUNNING FIRST WORLD WAR ARTWORKS BY WOMEN WAR ARTISTS.” You can read the backstories on the painters and their work at the site. Basically, the IWM commissioned the women to capture the women’s effort in the so-called War to End all Wars.
So, here’s what’s gone down so far. The U.S. directly targeted and killed an Iranian general that was, in fact a very bad man. However, there are a lot of very bad men in the world that need to disappear and if they did, no one would care. This one has quite a few people that care about him and they all have no problem with dying for a cause as they’ve proven over the last 40 years. This is from the NYT: “U.S. Strike in Iraq Kills Qassim Suleimani, Commander of Iranian Forces”.
Iran’s top security and intelligence commander was killed early Friday in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that was authorized by President Trump, American officials said.
The commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who led the powerful Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed along with several officials from Iraqi militias backed by Tehran when an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired missiles into a convoy that was leaving the airport.
General Suleimani was the architect of nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over the past two decades, and his death was a staggering blow for Iran at a time of sweeping geopolitical conflict.
The strike was also a serious escalation of Mr. Trump’s growing confrontation with Tehran, one that began with the death of an American contractor in Iraq in late December.
Christmas Day in the London Bridge YMCA Canteen, 1920, by Clare Atwood. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3062)
Please tell me we didn’t do all this for a Defense Department Mercenary Contractor. I have yet to hear who this person actually was but if it’s the result of Rumsfeld’s war privatization efforts I’d totally believe it.
It took awhile for the Defense Department to take credit for the assassination of Suleimani and others so we all got our news from Iraqi and then Irani state TV. Sort’ve like we always hear about news about Russia from Russian State TV first. The Spawn of the Orange Swamp Thing seemed to know more about the attack than just about any one but definitely more than Congress and the all important Gang of 8 who handle that sort’ve thing for the country. Here’s a bit from Hill Reporter: “Deleted Tweet From Eric Trump Hints He May Have Known About Strike Against Iranian Military Leader Days Ahead Of Time’. Doesn’t that bring you comfort and joy or the season? You know, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Man and all that jazz?
The protests that broke out around the embassy got an off the cuff tweet from Eric the Dim.
Those protests broke out on December 31 of last year, according to the New York Times. On that same date, Eric Trump sent out a tweet, which has since been deleted. Twitter user @realTuckFrumper had a screengrab of the tweet, which suggested military action was coming forth.
Why (the better question is HOW) did @EricTrump know anything about this in advance…and why has he since deleted… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
#TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) January 03, 2020
“Bout to open up a big ol’ can of whoop ass,” Eric Trump’s tweet read. It was followed with a flag emoji.
Other users on social media also verified the tweet as being legitimately posted by Eric Trump on that date. There’s no indication or confirmation that he was indeed aware of military action occurring later on in the week, but the words from Eric Trump caught many people’s attention after the airstrikes were announced.
The Scottish Women’s Hospital: In The Cloister of the Abbaye at Royaumont, 1920, by Norah Neilson-Gray. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3090)
The UK Guardian has a subtle lede this morning over an Op Ed penned by Mohammad Ali Shabani. “Donald Trump’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani will come back to haunt him. The Quds force leader had the status of national hero even among secular Iranians. His death could act as a rallying cry”
The US has assassinated Qassem Suleimani, the famed leader of Iran’s Quds force, alongside a senior commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. To grasp what may come next, it is vital to understand not only who these men were but also the system that produced them.
Nicknamed the “Shadow Commander” in the popular press, Suleimani spent his formative years on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein – who at the time enjoyed the support of western and Arab powers – was attempting to destroy the emerging Islamic Republic. But few remember that his first major mission as commander of the Quds force – the extraterritorial branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – was involved in implicit coordination with the United States as it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban were, and to some extent remain, a mutual enemy. That alliance of convenience ended in 2002 when US president George W Bush notoriously branded Iran a member of the “Axis of Evil”.
In the years after, Suleimani laboured to bleed the US military in places like Iraq. He succeeded. After having spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of troops, Washington withdrew from Iraq – partly as a result of Iranian pressure on the Iraqi government – in 2011.
But Suleimani had little time to celebrate. His attention was turned to containing fallout from the Arab spring, focusing his energy on propping up the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That development saw the creation of a region-wide network of Iran-backed militias numbering more than 100,000 men, unprecedented Iranian military collaboration with Russia and the transformation of Hezbollah into a force capable of operating on significant scale outside Lebanon’s borders.
By 2014, when he successfully halted Islamic State’s attempt to overrun Iraq, Suleimani was feted as a hero among Iraqis, alongside the local commanders including al-Muhandis. The same response was evident in Iran, where he quickly became a household name and was rumoured as a potential future president – a trend that was strengthened by the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
So the US has not merely killed an Iranian military commander but also a highly popular figure, viewed as a guardian of Iran even among secular-minded Iranians. And with the assassination of al-Muhandis, the Trump administration has put itself in the position of having killed the operational commander of a large branch of the Iraqi armed forces.
Some will characterise the killings as a huge blow to Iran’s proxy capabilities and wider policy in the region. But such an approach ignores how the Iranian system is structured.
In an Ambulance: a VAD lighting a cigarette for a patient, by Olive Mudie-Cooke. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3051)
As reported last night on MSNBC by a very shaken Andrea Mitchell on The Last Word, this is exactly why Israel–who could’ve taken him out at a moment’s notice–never gave it a second thought. The second and third order conditions were considered to be worse than any benefit from the assassination. Mitchell actually interviewed SOD Mike Esper in what turned out to be an interview worth dissecting.
Even more disturbing was an interview later on a special Rachel Maddow with “Brett McGurk, who served as special envoy on the global coalition to defeat ISIS under Pres. Obama and Pres. Trump, talks to Rachel Maddow about the serious implications of the strike on Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.” You may watch the video but here’s the bottom line: ” McGurk on US strike on Soleimani: ‘We need to presume that we are now in a state of war with Iran’.”
Iraq is truly in a bad place now. And, I know, it’s not like we haven’t put them in a bad place since Dubya’s adventures there at the behest of all those Chicken Hawk Cabinet members of his. But, this Op Ed from the UK Independent describes the situation in more detail “Iraq’s worst fears have come true – they are now at the centre of a proxy war between the US and Iran. General Qassem Soleimani made a terrible mistake in the final weeks of his life by underestimating the popular protests across Iraq. Donald Trump has made a bigger one in killing the influential commander.” This is written by Patrick Cockburn.
I spoke to Abu Alaa al-Walai, the leader of Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada, a splinter group of Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of whose camps had been destroyed by a drone attack in August. He said that 50 tonnes of weapons and ammunition had been blown up, blaming the Israelis and the Americans acting in concert. Asked if his men would attack US forces in Iraq in the event of a US-Iran war, he said: “Absolutely yes.” Later I visited the camp, called al-Saqr, on the outskirts of Baghdad where a massive explosion had gutted sheds and littered the burned-out compound with shattered pieces of equipment.
I saw other pro-Iranian paramilitary leaders at this time. The drone attacks had made them edgy, but I got the impression that they did not really expect a US-Iran war. Qais al-Khazali, the head of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, told me that he did not think there would be a war “because Trump does not want one.” As evidence of this, he pointed to the failure of Trump to retaliate after the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier in September that Washington had been blamed on Iran.
In fact, events developed very differently from what both I and the paramilitary commanders expected. A few days after I had spoken to them, there was a small demonstration in central Baghdad demanding jobs, public services and an end to corruption. The security forces and the pro-Iranian paramilitaries opened fire, killing and wounding many peaceful demonstrators. Though Qais al-Khazali later claimed that he and other Hashd leaders were trying to thwart a US-Israeli conspiracy, he had said nothing to me about it. It seemed likely that General Soleimani, wrongly suspected that the paltry demonstrations were a real threat and had ordered the pro-Iranian paramilitaries to open fire and put a plan for suppressing the demonstrations into operation.
All this could have been disastrous for Iranian influence in Iraq. Soleimani had made the classic mistake of a successful general in imaging that “a whiff of grapeshot” will swiftly repress any signs of popular discontent. Sometimes this works, often it does not – and Iraq turned out to belong to the second category.
General Soleimani died in the wake of his greatest failure and misjudgement. But the manner of his killing may convince many Shia Iraqis that the threat to Iraqi independence from the US is greater than that from Iran. The next few days will tell if the protest movement, that has endured the violence used against it with much bravery, will be deflated by the killings at Baghdad airport.
Women’s Canteen at Phoenix Works, Bradford, 1918, by Flora Lion. © The rights holder (Art.IWM ART 4434)
This Dexter Filkins piece in The New Yorker from September 2013 is a good place to read a profile on Soleimani. The NYT also has a profile “Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran’s Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast. The commander helped direct wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and he became the face of Iran’s efforts to build a regional bloc of Shiite power.” This link is for that article which was published today.
General Suleimani was at the vanguard of Iran’s revolutionary generation, joining the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in his early 20s after the 1979 uprising that enshrined the country’s Shiite theocracy.
He rose quickly during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. And since 1998, he was the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ influential Quds Force, the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus, melding intelligence work with a military strategy of nurturing proxy forces across the world.
In the West, he was seen as a clandestine force behind an Iranian campaign of international terrorism. He and other Iranian officials were designated as terrorists by the United States and Israel in 2011, accused of a plot to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s chief enemies in the region, in Washington. Last year, in April, the entire Quds Force was listed as a foreign terrorism group by the Trump administration.
But in Iran, many saw him as a larger-than-life hero, particularly within security circles. Anecdotes about his asceticism and quiet charisma joined to create an image of a warrior-philosopher who became the backbone of a nation’s defense against a host of enemies.
He was close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Friday issued a statement calling for three days of public mourning and “forceful revenge,” in a declaration that amounted to a threat of retaliation against the United States.
“His departure to God does not end his path or his mission,” he said.
All this means is that many Shia Islam followers in quite a few countries are not going to let him go quietly into the great night. It also means that Congress will have another likely investigation on its hands which means a lot more on Nancy Peolosi’s To Do LIst.
So, this is a long post and it has taken me a good deal of time to compile but I hope it will give us a basis for conversation today. I hope that your New Year will be wonderful and that you will be surrounded by all the family, love, and happiness you deserve!!! May all Goodness in the Universe protect us on this where yet another war seems inevitable!
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.
Monday Reads: It’s beginning to look a lot like Impeachment
Posted: December 30, 2019 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: tRump Ukraine memo 13 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
Welcome to the last few days of 2019! The NYT has a story up today that describes how every Republican Talking point on the Ukrainian Aid Freeze is basically obfuscation and may foil McConnell’s plan to prevent key witnesses being called to provide information supporting the political quid pro quo narrative. This is the headline today “Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion. The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.” Here’s the key take away.
It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.
The aide, Robert B. Blair, replied that it would be possible, but not pretty. “Expect Congress to become unhinged” if the White House tried to countermand spending passed by the House and Senate, he wrote in a previously undisclosed email. And, he wrote, it might further fuel the narrative that Mr. Trump was pro-Russia.
Mr. Blair was right, even if his prediction of a messy outcome was wildly understated. Mr. Trump’s order to hold $391 million worth of sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, night vision goggles, medical aid and other equipment the Ukrainian military needed to fight a grinding war against Russian-backed separatists would help pave a path to the president’s impeachment.
The Democratic-led inquiry into Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine this spring and summer established that the president was actively involved in parallel efforts — both secretive and highly unusual — to bring pressure on a country he viewed with suspicion, if not disdain.
…
Interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials, congressional aides and others, previously undisclosed emails and documents, and a close reading of thousands of pages of impeachment testimony provide the most complete account yet of the 84 days from when Mr. Trump first inquired about the money to his decision in September to relent.
What emerges is the story of how Mr. Trump’s demands sent shock waves through the White House and the Pentagon, created deep rifts within the senior ranks of his administration, left key aides like Mr. Mulvaney under intensifying scrutiny — and ended only after Mr. Trump learned of a damning whistle-blower report and came under pressure from influential Republican lawmakers.
In many ways, the havoc Mr. Giuliani and other Trump loyalists set off in the State Department by pursuing the investigations was matched by conflicts and confusion in the White House and Pentagon stemming from Mr. Trump’s order to withhold the aid.
Opposition to the order from his top national security advisers was more intense than previously known. In late August, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper joined Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser at the time, for a previously undisclosed Oval Office meeting with the president where they tried but failed to convince him that releasing the aid was in interests of the United States.
By late summer, top lawyers at the Office of Management and Budget who had spoken to lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department in the weeks beforehand, were developing an argument — not previously divulged publicly — that Mr. Trump’s role as commander in chief would simply allow him to override Congress on the issue.
And Mr. Mulvaney is shown to have been deeply involved as a key conduit for transmitting Mr. Trump’s demands for the freeze across the administration.
The interviews and documents show how Mr. Trump used the bureaucracy to advance his agenda in the face of questions about its propriety and even legality from officials in the White House budget office and the Pentagon, many of whom say they were kept in the dark about the president’s motivations and had grown used to convention-flouting requests from the West Wing. One veteran budget official who raised questions about the legal justification was pushed aside.
It’s now obvious we need to hear from Pompeo, Bolton, Esper, and Mulvaney at the very minimum. This completely weakens the Trumpist Defense as outlined here in WAPO by Greg Sargent.
McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses, that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise.
That possibility is underscored by the Times report, a chronology of Trump’s decision to withhold aid to a vulnerable ally under assault while he and his henchmen extorted Ukraine into carrying out his corrupt designs.
The report demonstrates in striking detail that inside the administration, the consternation over the legality and propriety of the aid freeze — and confusion over Trump’s true motives — ran much deeper than previously known, implicating top Cabinet officials more deeply than we thought.
Among the story’s key points:
- As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.
- Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known. The Pentagon pushed for the money for months. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
- Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.” We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.
- Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.
- Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”
- Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.” (Some of this had already been reported, but in narrative context it becomes far more damning.)
It’s impossible to square all this with the lines from Trump’s defenders — that there was no pressure on Ukraine; that the money was withheld for reasonable policy purposes; and that there was no extortion because it was ultimately released. As the Times shows, that only came after the scheme was outed.
Capitol Hill is still empty due to the hols but we can be assured that talking points will be made available as soon as they come back. I cannot wait to see Mitch McConnell wiggle out of this one and one wild card continues to be Justice Roberts. How much of a sham trial will he allow?
Congressman and Civil Rights Legend John Lewis will be undergoing treatments for Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer. His office announced this over the weekend and it was reported on all news outlets including CNN.
Lewis, 79, said he was diagnosed following a routine medical visit with subsequent tests that reconfirmed the diagnosis. The long-time Georgia congressman will undergo treatment for the cancer.“I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” Lewis, who in March 1965 joined forces with Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a voting rights march out of Selma, Alabama, said in a statement.He continued later: “While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance.”
Let’s hope more people see this for the threat to our democracy that it is! Last time I posted, we reflected on the huge gender gap facing Trumpist candidates. Black Voters are not only anti Trump as a general rule, but it looks like turnout may be high this year.
https://twitter.com/DearAuntCrabby/status/1211686957572673536
Several hate crimes have been focused on the Jewish Community. We’ve seen anti-Semitic attacks many places but this one targeting the heart of New York’s Hasidic community was brutally carried out with a knife which is why the victims have survived. They’ve found more about the attacker who has now been labelled the Hanukah stabber. This is from TPM.
A Hanukkah party at the house of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi outside New York City on Saturday night was interrupted by a man with a machete.
Five were stabbed, though none fatally, and the suspect is now in custody. Two remained hospitalized on Sunday.
Here’s what we now know about the attack.
The alleged stabber, Grafton Thomas, had obscured his face with a scarf when he barged into the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg home in Monsey, New York. He immediately began attacking people inside the home, who’d gathered to celebrate the seventh night of Hanukkah.
“Nobody is going anywhere!” Thomas reportedly announced.
“Hey you, I’ll get you,” Josef Gluck, who attended the gathering, recalled Thomas telling him.
Thomas pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary in court Sunday
The motive still remains unclear but is the second stabbing attack on people of Jewish faith this year. The last one was on November 20th. The stabber’s family has detailed a long history of mental illness which may have been a contributing factor. You may read more at the link. It is just really fortunate that all are on the mend.
So, I won’t waste a lot of your Monday today. Just have a safe New Year’s Eve Tomorrow!
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Get ready for 2020! Out with the Olds!
Posted: December 27, 2019 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: 1984, IOWA is six weeks away!!!, mona eltahawy 29 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
It’s hard to believe we’re careening towards 2020. I’m reading for the year to get started in many ways because I really would like us to find a way to dump Trump. My New Year’s resolution is just plain “Out with the Olds”. However, I realize that it’s likely to be a brutal year because thugs never go quietly into the night no matter which way they’re turned out and that’s if he gets turned out at all.
We’re going to have to take the bad with the good and hope that the good outweighs the bad.
The political season will be brutal. I can only wonder what horrid lies and diatribes we’ll get at the State of the Union Address. There are a few early trends on what may be ahead.
First, it appears that 2020 is stacking up for a historical gender gap in voting. This comes via CNN. Women hate Trump. They really hate him and in increasing numbers.
If President Donald Trump loses in 2020, it will be at the hands of women.
An examination of recent CNN polls reveal that we could be looking at a record gender gap in the 2020 presidential election. For simplicity’s sake, I’m comparing Former Vice President Joe Biden (the leader in the Democratic primary polls) to Trump. In general election matchups against all the leading Democratic candidates, a greater than 25-point gender gap existed.
Biden has held a 60% to 36% lead over Trump among women in an average of our last two (October and December) CNN/SSRS polls. The same polling put Trump up 52% to 42% among men voters. When you combine Biden’s 24-point lead among women and Trump’s 10 point lead among men, this makes for a 34-point gender gap.
Gender gaps have been getting larger in recent years. From 1952 to about 1980, there really wasn’t a gender gap in presidential elections. So this isn’t just about Trump.
Still, this 34-point gender gap would be a significant increase from what we saw in 2016. In that election, the gender gap was 25 points. This, itself, was a record gender gap for any presidential election dating back to 1952. In fact, no presidential election had previously featured a gender gap of even greater than 20 points.
The gender gap becoming larger would fit with what we’ve seen in the Trump era. There was a larger gender gap in the 2018 House midterm election (23 points) than in any previous midterm.
But what’s causing an escalation in the gender gap from even 2016 and 2018? It’s women turning even more against Trump than they were previously.
That’s some really good news right there except the Biden part. The Hill reports that it will be a “bloody primary” season and that no one candidate appears to have a lock on it as of right now.
Democrats are bracing for a long, drawn-out primary season.
With just six weeks until the Iowa caucuses, some Democrats say they don’t expect a likely nominee to emerge anytime soon after early-voting states hold their contests. Instead, they’re preparing for a bruising four-way match-up that could drag on for months as candidates compete for the chance to challenge President Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have consistently topped nationwide polls, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg remain key contenders who show no signs of slowing down.
“It’s going to be uglier than ugly,” one Democratic strategist said, pointing to surveys showing there is no clear winner across the first four states in the nominating process. “It’s going to be a bloody slugfest. And the thing a lot of us fear is that Trump will benefit from all of it.”
Democrats have focused their efforts on electability, making the case for rallying behind the kind of candidate who can topple Trump. Some Democrats say that while a progressive candidate can energize the party’s base and win in the primary, it would be much more difficult for that same White House hopeful to win the general election against Trump.
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, argued that because the top candidates each have strong pockets of support, the primary may even lead to a brokered convention in July.
“Although people always say that, this time it could be true,” Zelizer said. “Democrats are so desperate to defeat Trump they have very different visions of how to do this and won’t concede easily.”
The party’s top four candidates — two progressive candidates and two moderate candidates — are indicative of where the Democratic Party is right now, said Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo.
Maybe more of us need to adopt Mona’s policy . “I refuse to allow those who don’t recognize my full humanity to expect politeness of me,” she said.
Over time, she’s developed a reputation for telling the patriarchy and its footsoldiers—as she calls the white women who believe in polite feminism—to fuck off, literally. Cursing is a very important aspect of Eltahawy’s feminism; the third chapter in her latest book is titled “profanity.” On Twitter, where Eltahawy is known for telling people to “fuck off, kitten,” she’s amassed a following of over 300,000.
“I will not be civil to those who do not recognize my full humanity,” she explains.
But Eltahawy’s rhetoric is driven by more than shock value. It is rooted in her own horrific sexist experiences across the globe, and her commitment to eradicate them for herself and other women in the future. We spoke to Eltahawy about what the last decade taught her about feminism and what needs to happen in the next decade for a true feminist revolution.
VICE: Take me back to a decade ago. What did your feminism look like and what brought you there?
MONA ELTAHAWY: I always say I was traumatized into feminism. I go all the way back to when my family moved from Cairo to London, and then we moved from the U.K. to Saudi Arabia and what I learned on those journeys. Very quickly, what I learned in the U.K. was that very little was expected of Arab-looking women because my white teachers kept asking me, “What does your father do that brought you to London from Cairo?” They never bothered to ask what my mother does, and both my parents were on government scholarships to study for a PhD in medicine. It never occurred to my white teachers in London in the mid 70s that my mother could be studying her PhD. And then when we moved to Saudi Arabia, I saw what happened. My mother couldn’t drive anymore. We were utterly dependent on my father to take us everywhere. So those experiences in the U.K. and Saudi Arabia back to back were a reminder of how universal patriarchy is everywhere you go.
But the years 2009 and 2010 brought me to a really pivotal moment in my life, and that was when the revolution in Egypt started. For me personally, the revolution led to the dying of the old Mona and this coming out of this new Mona because in November of 2011, almost exactly eight years ago, Egyptian riot police beat me and broke my left arm and my right hand and sexually assaulted me. I was detained for 12 hours. You very rarely get a before-and-after moment in your life where you can actually point to a moment and say, this is my moment. But that was my moment. The last decade was that moment when I survived. And I survived by the old Mona dying and this Mona coming to be.
And, this from Mashable, just about sums up the last decade: “2010s = 1984: The decade we finally understood Orwell” written by Chris Taylor.
Don’t call him Winston Smith. Call him Mr. 2019. Because it’s looking increasingly like we live in Oceania. That fictional state was basically the British Isles, North America, and South America. Now the leaders of the largest countries in each of those regions — Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro — are men who have learned to flood the zone with obvious lies, because their opponents simply don’t have the time or energy to deal them all.
As we enter 2020, all three of them look increasingly, sickeningly, like they’re going to get away with it. They are protected by Party members who will endure any humiliation to trumpet loyalty to the Great Leader (big shout-out once again to Sen. Lindsay Graham) and by a media environment that actively enables political lies (thanks, Facebook).
All the Winston Smiths of our world can see what the score really is. It doesn’t seem to make any difference. But hey, at least we’re all finally aware of the most important line in 1984, which is now also its most quote-tweeted:
Yes, Virginia, there is no impeachment! Huhn?
And as we approach New Year’s Eve and Day and the entire freaking year, let’s just think, out with the old, in with the new. That includes old white dudes like Trump, Biden, and Bernie. Out out OUT!!!
And I continue to debate the folks that say just vote for whoever looks bestest to beat Trump regardless of the fact that some one like Bernie has no plans, past history of accomplishment, or for that matter real grasp of anything beyond what the wobbles thought about way back when. OR, that Biden has actively written and passed legislation hurting women, the black community, and every one that’s ever incurred a debt. You want to trade one dotard for another?
So, here’s USA Today with a riff on the thought that just elect some one to Dump Trump. “Beating Donald Trump in the 2020 election isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”.
But there is also a warning in it: Few of the ideas being debated are getting much traction beyond Democratic true believers. And even many Democrats are ready to see some winnowing of the field in the early caucus and primary states.
This is a pretty good indication that the party’s voters should focus largely on one overriding issue: which of the candidates is best equipped to defeat Donald Trump next November.
In just a few short years, Trump has promoted the interests of U.S. foes, needlessly run up massive government debts, thwarted progress on climate change, done palpable harm to America’s health care system, and turned the once-proud party of Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan into an adulation cult.
Ridding the nation of his unfit leadership is far more important than who has the most extensive plan to hand out free money (we’re looking at you, Andrew Yang) or require everyone to get their health care through an expanded Medicare (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders).
The Democrats need a nominee who can go toe-to-toe with Trump, explain to the electorate why he is so wrong in so many ways, and build a consensus on taking the nation in a new direction.
But tell me, do we really know who that is at this point? Voters in Iowa sent Biden packing two times already? Are we supposed to wait for South Carolina to put his pasty ass first? I’m pretty sure neither Iowa or New Hampshire is going to do that.
But, any way, I digress, and I just want some peace and quiet a few days before the 2020 hell realm breaks lose. Meanwhile, point me to the wine cave for poor people.
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: You Learn Something every Day
Posted: December 23, 2019 Filed under: 2020 Elections, morning reads, Nancy Pelosi 38 Comments
Wandering Hotei, the happy Buddha monk, with his bag that never empties
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
It’s Monday and let’s hope it’s a good one for a change! I learned about two new yuletide critters this week and now I’m deep in thought about the universal idea of St Nick/Santa Claus/Hotei and all those pre christianity yule practices of a holy guy that walks around with a big ol bag with an endless supply of good stuff.
In the Buddhist paean, this would be Hotei, the Happy Monk, who is endlessly mistaken by hapless westerners as the Buddha. He’s a type of Buddha but not the one that god centric folks think is some god substitute. He isn’t. There’s no creator god anywhere in Buddhism. We, are in fact, all made of Buddha nature and headed that direction so at this point there are endless Buddhas. But, back to Hotei and his happiness and his sack that never empties out. I’m not sure how he eventually wound up to be the statue whose belly you rub for good luck or why leaving gifts of oranges and things on him at an altar is supposed to help your gambling luck or provide you with showers of gold coins but I’ll leave that to the folks that study that.
I was drawn to Hotei/Budai as a kid and even have the two small statues my mother had in a shadow box sitting on my bookshelf. I named one Zen and the other Buddha. Both still sport the child handwriting in blue pencil on the bottom with their names. I’m not exactly sure how I came up with those names at that age, but I did. There’s another Buddhist idea of a wish fulfilling jewel which is a lot like having your own personal wishing star that works.
I’m just amazed that many cultures have developed similar characters. Some of many gods, some have no gods. and some have one god. But, they all have the equivalent of a generous guy that travels around bestowing gifts. It’s a universal myth seeming to spontaneously develop in many places or travelling by story and winding up entering another mythos. American Santa Claus appears to be the latest emanation. I still have a partiality to Father Christmas or Pere Noel. But, that’s me!
Budai showed up around 916 a.d. and may be related to an actual wandering monk in China from around the period. Us Westerners are more familiar with St Nick who may have been the role model for the modern Santa. He was said to be Saint Nicholas of Bari who was an early Christian bishop in ancient Greece. He dates back to around 343. So, it appears the legends of generous wandering holy men took hold and started spreading. Many even connect the entire thing back to Saturn and some of the early Greek/Roman Gods.
I’m just thinking we all need somebody good to pin our hopes on but we also seem to need an offset. Sorta of a ying to Santa’s yang. I found out that in Sweden Santa trots around on a yule goat (Julbocken) which is actually a pagan symbol connected to Thor but now is connected to the Nordic/Germanic St Nick. So, a goat is Santa’s helper in Sweden. So, Santa may actually be based on Odin too and you may read that here.
And, thanks to Ann, I’ve discovered the Yule Cat of Iceland who has some connection to Krampus which has been my latest fascination with pagan yule festivities. So, enjoy these pictures of the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn) and be glad he didn’t visit your house this year. The Yule Cat appears to have shown up sometime during the 1600s and steals away children–like Krampus–if they’ve been horrid for that year. Ah, isn’t religion grand!
There are actually a lot of monsters associated with Christmas/Yule. Who knew? Go read about 8 of them at that link and turn your yule into scary story event!
I’m surprised the Yule Cat didn’t get to Mar a Lago this year. He’d have had a blast.
The death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi and the way the Trumpist regime has enabled it continue to stain our country’s reputation. Five men were sentenced to death in Saudia Arabia for his death but that’s not true justice. WAPO reports this today from Istanbul.
The verdicts came after a trial in Riyadh’s criminal court that lasted nearly a year and was largely shrouded in secrecy, with sessions closed to the general public. Human rights groups warned that the lack of transparency made the proceedings unfair, and increased the likelihood that senior officials could escape justice.
Diplomats from the United States, Turkey and several other countries were allowed to attend but told not to reveal details of the trial. Members of Khashoggi’s family also attended, according to Shalaan al-Shalaan, a spokesman for the Saudi public prosecutor.
In addition to the five people who received the death penalty, three more people were sentenced to jail terms totaling 24 years, Shalaan said. He did not name any of the convicted defendants. The death sentences must be confirmed by higher courts before they may be carried out, he said.
The CIA concluded last year that the crown prince had ordered Khashoggi’ s assassination, contradicting Saudi Arabia’s insistence that Mohammed had no knowledge of the plot. However, Saudi authorities said they were investigating the roles played by two senior aides to the crown prince in organizing and dispatching the team of agents who killed Khashoggi.
Shalaan said Monday that the two senior aides — Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Assiri — had been exonerated.
I’m thinking this may be a bit of agreement on Kushner and Trump’s part to let the Saudis go as long as they interfere in our elections. This Eli Clifton headline really got me thinking today: “Purged Saudi Government-backed Twitter Accounts Urged U.S.-Led Regime Change in Iran, Deflected Responsibility for Khashoggi Murder.” They seem to be joyously interfering a la the Russians in everything!
A review of comprehensive data tied to nearly 6,000 Saudi-linked Twitter accounts has found a manipulation campaign targeting its English language messages at President Donald Trump, urging regime change in Iran, whitewashing Saudi human rights abuses in Yemen, and deflecting responsibility for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi away from the Saudi government.
Twitter announced on Friday that it had removed the accounts, saying they violated “platform manipulation policies.” Twitter also said the accounts were the “core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts engaged in spammy behaviour across a wide range of topics,” adding that “[r]igorous investigations by our Site Integrity team have allowed us to attribute these accounts to a significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia.”
The accounts, which produced and amplified more than 29 million tweets, were operated by Smaat, a social media marketing company based in Saudi Arabia. Twitter reported, “Our in-house technical indicators show that Smaat appears to have created, purchased, and/or managed these accounts on behalf of — but not necessarily with the knowledge of — their clients. We have permanently suspended Smaat’s access to our service as a result, as well as the Twitter accounts of Smaat’s senior executives. Smaat managed a range of Twitter accounts for high-profile individuals, as well as many government departments in Saudi Arabia.”
Smaat’s client list includes a number of Saudi government ministries and high-profile Saudi institutions, according to the company’s marketing materials. Smaat’s website was taken offline after Twitter made its announcement, but a promotional presentation, previously available on the website, listed as clients the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Investment, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic development program, the Saudi Ministry of Health, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Ministry of Finance, the Saudi General Entertainment Initiative, and Alwaleed Philanthropies, a charity overseen by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. Alwaleed was actually an early investor in Twitter and owns more than three percent of the company.
You can read the rest of the analysis at Responsible Statecraft. Marcy Wheeler has also been following the connection between George Nader and the Saudi Regime. His testimony may be damaging to both the Trumpist regime and the Saudi.
Brad Heath spotted this Beryl Howell opinion granting George Nader’s request to get a copy of his own grand jury transcript.
We can be sure it’s Nader because of the details she includes: Someone currently jailed for crime with significant mandatory minimums charged using evidence from a phone seized in the Mueller investigation, awaiting trial early next year. The person provided testimony with immunity on four occasions in February and March 2018.
That all fits Nader and only Nader.
In my continuing interest in tracking the dregs of the Mueller investigation, several details are of interest. Howell describes that his transcript is 900 pages long. Several of the redactions suggest Nader may need the transcripts to craft a defense in potential additional charges, which would more obviously raise a need to consult the transcript and the limits of his immunized testimony. And, the government claims that Nader was asked “questions regarding ongoing investigations.”
That’s not surprising in the least. Nader’s testimony touched on so many crimes it is unsurprising some of them remain active investigations (note the attached picture, which shows Nader with Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman.
The question is how he wants to use this transcript. It’s possible he needs it to argue that potentially pending charges against him are improperly based on immunized testimony (and as such wants to eliminate criminal exposure before making the best plea deal he can). Or it’s possible he wants the transcript to be able to explain the risks any cooperation he’d offer would pose to powerful people.
Good Question. And here’s some hope for the New Year!
I’m not sure you’ve been following this story but the Center for Public Integrity may have found a smoking gun. Key portions are blacked out which likely means someone in Congress or the Press will have to move on this.
To learn more, Public Integrity in late September petitioned the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department for copies of their communications about the aid halt. But the Justice Department so far – in two document releases on Dec. 12 and 20 — has chosen to conceal key passages in those documents. And the federal district court judge overseeing the case, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, on Dec. 18 set a schedule for reviewing Public Integrity’s appeal that makes a final determination of the request unlikely to occur before March.
According to some of those involved in the funding halt, officials were deeply worried from the outset that a delay even for a few weeks could make it hard to ensure all the money was spent by that Sept. 30 deadline. DOD Comptroller Elaine McCusker, for example, noted what she called “increasing risk of execution” in an email on Sept. 5 to the Pentagon’s top lawyer and policy officials, among others, meaning she was worried the money could not all be spent by the end of the month.
After robust internal discussions, she and other officials did their best to carry out the policy, temporarily, by ordering a series of short-term holdups in the funding, while affirming in writing that they still planned to disburse it soon.
They specifically undertook an unusual maneuver, stopping the disbursements by adding a rare footnote to spending documents for Pentagon operations and maintenance efforts, which declared the Ukraine funding in particular was being held up for a week at a time. Then, over a period of about seven weeks, they tacked the footnote again and again onto eight such documents, each time as a temporary measure.
An unnamed lawyer at OMB, not wanting to participate in what appeared to be an illegal funding policy, decided to quit, as did another OMB official, according to congressional testimony by Mark Sandy, the office’s deputy associate director for national security and a 12-year veteran at the agency. OMB spokespeople have disputed the account, saying the resignations were not over the policy.
Bottom line for this comes from Chris Murphy of Connecticut. It kinda looks like a smoking gun to me!
I suppose the thing we should be very thankful for is that the entire remaining Trumpist players are not very bright but very very open and obvious. How’s this for saying it’s not a ‘smoking gun’ but a ‘confession’?
https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/1208557399549853697
So, yes Virginia! There is a Santa Claus! But, there are also Christmas monsters! It also appears that we can add the Mar a Lago Swamp Monster to the list!
So, my final read recommendation is this from the UK Guardian: “Nancy Pelosi: the woman who stood up to Trump”.
It was not how Pelosi, who once said Trump was “not worth” impeaching, had hoped to end a year that began with her historic, second ascension to the speakership. Pelosi, the first – and only – woman ever to serve as Speaker of the House, would rather be remembered for legislative accomplishments – the Affordable Care Act above all – than for impeachment. But Trump, Pelosi said, left her “no choice”. She quoted Thomas Paine: “The times have found us.”
In the wake of Trump’s impeachment, however, Democrats believe there was perhaps no leader better suited to the times.
“She is, thank God, the exact right person in the right place at the right time,” said Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director and a California native who’s known Pelosi for decades. “I’m not sure anybody else would have had the experience or capability to be able to do what she has done.”
“Donald Trump really has met his match with Nancy,” Panetta added.
Her grace under fire as speaker has earned comparisons to Sam Rayburn, the country’s longest-serving speaker, who died in 1961. One Democrat called her an “as good or better” legislative leader than Lyndon Johnson, who was a Senate majority leader before he was president.
And when the question is asked whether a female presidential candidate can beat Trump in 2020, the Democrats point to Pelosi, who “does it every single day”.
Even Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s fiercest defenders these days, is impressed. In an interview with CNN decrying the impeachment process, the South Carolina senator called it “quite a feat” that she was able to advance bipartisan legislation even as efforts to remove Trump cleaved the House – and the nation.
If there is a wish fulfilling jewel or a bag of endless gifts, I would like to ask it for one thing. Impeachment for Pence and Trump followed by the Speaker of the House taking the Oval Office. If I was really going to get greedy, I dream she goes back to her Speakership by resigning in favor of Hilary Clinton.
Isn’t great to have a dream during the longest night of the year?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Imagine!
Posted: December 20, 2019 Filed under: just because | Tags: Amy Klobucher, Drag Queen Story Hour, Elizabeth Warren, ICE Detention Centers, Pete Buttigieg 32 Comments
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
It’s that time of year where I play John Lennon’s “Imagine” over and over and hope that an upcoming New Year will see a United States more in keeping with the spirit of the song. We all look for places of refuge and peace. There is a group of Americans trapped in a cult of hate and we must deal with them. Impeachment may move forward. We may see change in 2020 but until we deal with this cult there will be no peace and no justice.
Our country’s biggest sin has always been connected to mass imprisonments, genocides, and enslavement. It seems an odd time of the year to have to reflect on our continuing participation in creating horror for other human beings but we must.
I have two stories with bylines here in New Orleans. My city is known for creating a uniquely American form of culture that includes joyful eating, celebrating, and making music. Yet, we cannot escape the blood on the ground. This is the headline from USA Today that disturbs me beyond any words I can conjure. “Deaths in custody. Sexual violence. Hunger strikes. What we uncovered inside ICE facilities across the US”. (TRIGGER WARNING GRAPHIC)
NEW ORLEANS – At 2:04 p.m. on Oct. 15, a guard at the Richwood Correctional Center noticed an odd smell coming from one of the isolation cells. He opened the door, stepped inside and found the lifeless body of Roylan Hernandez-Diaz hanging from a bedsheet.
The 43-year-old Cuban man had spent five months in immigration detention waiting for a judge to hear his asylum claim. As his time at Richwood dragged on, he barely answered questions from security or medical staff, who noted his “withdrawn emotional state.” He refused to eat for four days.
The day after his death, 20 other detainees carried out what they say was a peaceful protest. They wrote “Justice for Roylan” on their white T-shirts, sat down in the cafeteria and refused to eat. Guards swooped in and attacked, beating one of them so severely he was taken to a hospital, according to letters written by 10 detainees that were obtained by the USA TODAY Network and interviews with two detainees’ relatives.
Before that day, detainees at Richwood had chronicled a pattern of alleged brutality in the Louisiana facility. Detainees complained of beatings, taunts from guards who called them “f—ing dogs” and of landing in isolation cells for minor violations.
You may continue to read the horrifying things happening in this and other ICE Detention Centers if you can stand it. It has a long list of reporters on the byline and they’ve all done their best work.
The White Evangelical Community appears to have some folks that have read the New Testament and are willing to speak up against the Pharisees in their Community. I used to occasionally see copies of Christianity Today floating around my churches or friends. I really had no idea of its history or connection to Billy Graham. We know Franklin Graham has been willing to sell just about anything for earthly gains which is why these headlines today shocked many. From CT: “Trump Should Be Removed from Office. It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was.” This came from the pen of Mark Galli.
But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.
The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.
Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.
You can read more at the link. Franklin Graham could not leave this alone of course. He posted to FACEBOOK. I assume he can still find a mirror to see if he has a reflection.
Trump also had his say as reported by the AP.
President Donald Trump blasted a prominent Christian magazine on Friday, a day after it published an editorial arguing that he should be removed from office because of his “blackened moral record.”
Trump tweeted that Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham, “would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.”
The magazine “has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years,” Trump wrote. Some of his strongest evangelical supporters, including Graham’s son, rallied to his side and against the publication. Their pushback underscored Trump’s hold on the evangelical voting bloc that helped propel him into office and suggested the editorial would likely do little to shake that group’s loyalty.
So, tomorrow I will walk a few blocks to my nice little–usually only noisy because of small children–library and do what is done daily at Women’s Clinics around the country. I will stand in a line, smile, and let the little children go hear story time at the library. If some angry white male feels the need to scream, then he can scream at those of us that can deal with it.
This also basically the same pattern. They don’t want anything but what they want for them, theirs, and the rest of us. It gets old.
My friend David Gladow has shared Drag Queen Story Time with his kids. Here are some details in an article from last year. I should also mention that Vanessa is a friend too.
In New Orleans, the story time is the main focus, with traditional children’s books being presented in a fun, engaging way.
The presenter changes from event to event, but is always fun, glittery and a part of the community already. And perhaps more in New Orleans than in most any other city, the concept has been embraced (over 150 people showed up for a recent story time).
In a town that enjoys dressing up more than any other, where costumes are a part of the experience from Mardi Gras to New Year’s and all points in between, having a storyteller wear a costume isn’t exactly a stretch from the daily routine.
The only real message that is stressed is “different is okay.” For the kids, it’s less about “drag” and more about “character.” They see characters in real life and it sparks their imaginations.
The event is about reading stories in a safe environment, having fun, and seeing the entertainers as normal people — but fancier.
Portrait of Felix Fénéon, Opus 217 ,1890, Paul Signac
The photo is of Vanessa and the Alvar Library in my neighborhood captured by the NYT. Come on! What little kid doesn’t like to play dress up and hear stories!
Edie Pasek, who organizes story hour events in and around Milwaukee, said her readings had been “protested like the dickens,” especially in smaller cities like Oak Creek, Wis., and Zion, Ill. But she said she and the performers tried to stay focused on the point of Drag Queen Story Hour.
“We want to teach the kids acceptance, not bullying, learning to make good choices, how to be nice to other people,” she said. “I have a 6-year-old daughter and whatever I think we need to teach her is what we bring to story hour.”
Ms. Pasek said her group holds about a third of its events in libraries and a third in churches, where dozens of children sometimes show up.
“In the Midwest, we do drag in churches,” she said. They also hold events in private venues, like a popular Milwaukee cat cafe. “Let me tell you, people really love cats and drag.”
But protesters tend to show up wherever they go. Sometimes the protests upset the children, who are usually too young to understand the banner and chants, Ms. Pasek said.
She said her performers had developed “a little spiel” to explain all the ruckus to their young audience.
“Normally we say, ‘It’s O.K. to be the way you are, and the people outside are yelling because they don’t want us to be the way we are,’” Ms. Pasek said. “And the kids do the Mr. Rogers thing. They say, ‘We like you just the way you are.’”
Vanessa has already assured me that she will be there. This group has shown up before.
Lucians Strange Creatures – Aubrey Beardsley
So, last night I did watch the debate and had a chance to learn about “wine caves”. The Daily Beast has an interesting take on the exchange between Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttgieg and upscale fund-raisers. These are the kinds of events sworn off by Warren and also by Senator Kamala Harris whose campaign ran dry of funds. This is a discussion really of access to candidates and what that implies. I had no idea that this wine cave has a long history of granting access for Democrats wealthy donors.
The cave in question—more of a wine basement, if you want to get specific, built for storing and aging wine in barrels—has been a gathering place for Democratic politicians long before Warren pointed to it as evidence that Buttigieg is too close with wealthy donors to be able to deny them access, appointments and special favors down the road. Owned by Dallas billionaires Craig and Kathryn Hall, the cave’s fundraisers have benefitted at least a hundred Democrats over the years, in the estimation of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“That cave’s been used by Democrats all across the country for fundraising,” Newsom told reporters in the spin room following Thursday night’s debate. “Probably a hundred congressional representatives have benefited from the use of that.”
After Thursday’s debate, however, the wine cave is serving as an entirely different kind of fundraiser after the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) purchased the domain PetesWineCave.com, which now redirects to Sanders’ donation portal.
Asked if he himself had attended a fundraiser at the wine cave—which, as the Associated Press first reported, features a “Chandelier Room” drowning in crystals—Newsom was straightforward.
“Are you kidding?” Newsom, himself a former vintner, said. “I’m in the business, so I know that place well.”
Other politicians who have attended fundraisers, receptions, and meet-and-greets at the Halls’ wine cave include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as current and former Reps. Leon Panetta, Reps. Ami Bera of California, Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, and Patrick Murphy of Florida.
The long and lucrative political history of the cave and its owners bolsters Warren’s contention that big-dollar fundraisers have helped pave a path for wealthy financial backers to ask for favors—but also Buttigieg’s defense that everyone on the debate stage has benefited from these types of financial backers, including Warren herself.
I’m not sure what is worse. Self-funding billionaires getting access to debates or Big Bundlers like Kathryn Hall of Wine Cave fame buying access and an ambassadorship. This is surely one example of where we can say both sides do it.
The problem is we’ve lost the voices of many good candidates that should’ve been on that debate stage when donations and name recognition rules the early days of polling and money. The one thing I will say is the only candidate I wrote a check to because I wanted her on the stage is still there. This is from The Atlantic: “Amy Klobuchar Is Still Here. The senator from Minnesota has outlasted flashier candidates, and dominated in last night’s debate. But can she escape the shadow of her nemesis, Pete Buttigieg, who has seized her sensible-midwesterner mantle?”
I asked Klobuchar why she thinks she’s spent the year being overlooked. She joked that it’s because she’s 5 foot 4—James Madison’s height, she then immediately pointed out. “Some people have this image of what they want right now,” she said. “And it’s not necessarily what the American people want right now, what the pundits think people should want right now.”
Klobuchar’s case for being the nominee, aimed right at panic-attack Democrats, is that they’d “better not screw this up.” She warns that the wrong candidate will give voters permission to reelect Donald Trump. She’s directing her pitch at voters like Sandi McIntire, a 68-year-old retired nurse from Ankeny who’s skeptical about the size of the government-funded programs being promised by other candidates. “I don’t know that they should happen,” McIntire told me. “If you get everything for free, you don’t appreciate anything.”
Just a few other things you may want to check out:
ABV NEWS ANNOUNCES TWO-HOUR SPECIAL AND EIGHT-PART PODCAST ON JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND THE WOMEN WHO SURVIVED HIS CRIMES — “Truth and Lies: Jeffrey Epstein” Airs on Thursday, January 9 (9:00 – 11:00 p.m. ET) on ABC and the Podcast Debuts the Same Day
Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg:
The Decade Tech Turned DystopianTom Elliott / Grabien News:
Montage: 12 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2019
So, what are you imagining today?
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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