That's from Jimmy Dore's show.
And this is from an important column by Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report):
The pathogen that kills Black people at two and a half times the rate of whites took the life of 46 year-old George Floyd , this week in Minneapolis. Floyd’s last words were, “I can’t breathe,” much like the desperate utterances of plague victim Eric Garner ,
struck down in 2014 in New York City. Unlike the still raging Covid-19
virus, which is virulent among Blacks of both sexes, the Blue Plague is
especially lethal to Black males of all ages. According to researchers
at Rutgers University and the University of Michigan, 1 in every 1,000 black boys and men will be fatally stricken by the Blue Plague at some point in their lifetimes – at ages ranging from 12 year-old Tamir Rice , snuffed out in Cleveland in 2014, to 50 year-old Walter Scott , who fell victim to the pestilence in North Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.
Covid-19 is categorized as a “novel,” or new, virus, having mutated recently from wild animals. But the Blue Plague is a serial killer that dates back to the slave patrols of the pre-Civil War South. Indeed, the first vector of the Blue Plague has been traced back to Charleston, South Carolina, which established a paramilitary force called the City Guard in 1783, primarily to “police” Black slaves – although the term police had not yet been invented. The City Guard helped suppress the Denmark Vesey slave rebellion in 1822 – a success that is believed to have led to the mutation of slave patrols into full-fledged vectors of Black death in cities across the nation, not just the South.
Researchers are hoping to find a vaccine for Covid-19, possibly within the year, but the Blue Plague only grows more deadly over time and enjoys a host of immunities. Although Black people had hoped that the historic expansion in the number of Black elected officials would create political antibodies to limit the spread of the Blue Plague, the opposite has happened. In 2014, just months before Michael Brown’s life was cut short by the Blue Plague, in Ferguson, Missouri, 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus voted to continue funneling billions of dollars in military weapons, gear and training to local infestations of the plague, despite ample evidence that such infusions have made the scourge even more toxic to Black life. Four years later, 75 percent of the Black Caucus voted to classify the Blue Plague as a “protected class,” further immunizing the disease from the possibility of cure. The Protect and Serve Act of 2018 was “superfluous, since cops are already the most protected ‘class’ in the nation.”
More radical thinkers, steeped in the struggle against social pathogens, argue that the virulence of the Blue Plague can be weakened, at least among concentrated Black populations, through Black Community Control of the disease. A number of plague control formulas have been put forward , but the Black Misleadership Class, deeply embedded in the Democratic Party, fiercely resists any curb on the blue contagion, and actively encourages the spread of the disease among the federal secret police. In March of this year, two thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus joined with a large majority of Democrats in support of the wildly misnamed USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, which has since passed the Senate , as well. Only 17 of the 50 full-voting Black members of the House voted against the law, which was supposed to expire this year along with other provisions of the infamous Patriot Act. As reported in The Verge , the Act allows the FBI “to collect ‘tangible things’ related to national security investigations without a warrant, requiring only approval from a secret court that has reportedly rubber-stamped many requests.” These tangible things include spying on targeted peoples’ web browsing “without having to demonstrate that those Americans have done anything wrong,” in the words of Oregon Sen. Wyden.
Covid-19 is categorized as a “novel,” or new, virus, having mutated recently from wild animals. But the Blue Plague is a serial killer that dates back to the slave patrols of the pre-Civil War South. Indeed, the first vector of the Blue Plague has been traced back to Charleston, South Carolina, which established a paramilitary force called the City Guard in 1783, primarily to “police” Black slaves – although the term police had not yet been invented. The City Guard helped suppress the Denmark Vesey slave rebellion in 1822 – a success that is believed to have led to the mutation of slave patrols into full-fledged vectors of Black death in cities across the nation, not just the South.
Researchers are hoping to find a vaccine for Covid-19, possibly within the year, but the Blue Plague only grows more deadly over time and enjoys a host of immunities. Although Black people had hoped that the historic expansion in the number of Black elected officials would create political antibodies to limit the spread of the Blue Plague, the opposite has happened. In 2014, just months before Michael Brown’s life was cut short by the Blue Plague, in Ferguson, Missouri, 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus voted to continue funneling billions of dollars in military weapons, gear and training to local infestations of the plague, despite ample evidence that such infusions have made the scourge even more toxic to Black life. Four years later, 75 percent of the Black Caucus voted to classify the Blue Plague as a “protected class,” further immunizing the disease from the possibility of cure. The Protect and Serve Act of 2018 was “superfluous, since cops are already the most protected ‘class’ in the nation.”
More radical thinkers, steeped in the struggle against social pathogens, argue that the virulence of the Blue Plague can be weakened, at least among concentrated Black populations, through Black Community Control of the disease. A number of plague control formulas have been put forward , but the Black Misleadership Class, deeply embedded in the Democratic Party, fiercely resists any curb on the blue contagion, and actively encourages the spread of the disease among the federal secret police. In March of this year, two thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus joined with a large majority of Democrats in support of the wildly misnamed USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, which has since passed the Senate , as well. Only 17 of the 50 full-voting Black members of the House voted against the law, which was supposed to expire this year along with other provisions of the infamous Patriot Act. As reported in The Verge , the Act allows the FBI “to collect ‘tangible things’ related to national security investigations without a warrant, requiring only approval from a secret court that has reportedly rubber-stamped many requests.” These tangible things include spying on targeted peoples’ web browsing “without having to demonstrate that those Americans have done anything wrong,” in the words of Oregon Sen. Wyden.
And this is from ESPN:
Former NBA player Stephen Jackson spoke at a rally Friday afternoon in Minneapolis in remembrance of his friend George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody after pleading that he could not breathe.
"I'm here because they're not gonna demean the character of George Floyd, my twin," Jackson told supporters. "A lot of times, when police do things they know that's wrong, the first thing they try to do is cover it up, and bring up their background -- to make it seem like the bulls--- that they did was worthy. When was murder ever worthy? But if it's a black man, it's approved.
"You can't tell me, when that man has his knee on my brother's neck -- taking his life away, with his hand in his pocket -- that that smirk on his face didn't say, 'I'm protected.' You can't tell me that he didn't feel that it was his duty to murder my brother, and that he knew he was gonna get away with it. You can't tell me that wasn't the look on his face."
Jackson, a 14-year NBA veteran who became friends with Floyd while growing up in Texas, spoke along with actor Jamie Foxx and others at the rally, which was held at the Minneapolis City Hall Rotunda and also attended by Timberwolves players Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Okogie.
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of Floyd, was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said.
A person convicted of third-degree murder in Minnesota may be sentenced to imprisonment for a maximum of 25 years. Minnesota's sentencing guidelines recommend 12 1/2 years for a conviction on the murder count and four years on the manslaughter charge.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, May 29, 2020. ISIS remains active in Iraq (don't tell the Iraqi
government spokesperson), Tara Reade's allegation remains credible,
Michelle Goldberg sports classism and racism as though they are the new
colors for the summer, and much more.
In the US, attacks on Tara Reade continue. She is the woman who came forward to accuse Joe Biden of assault. It's no longer just that the assault is not the issue the corporate whores won't address, it's no longer just the embrace of rape culture, it is now the stereotypes that they are re-enforcing.
Meet the Ultimate Karen: Michelle Goldberg.
The whore for THE NEW YORK TIMES participated in a podcast for the paper this week and we don't link to rape culture. In that podcast, she put out a thought -- if you can call it that -- that is especially illuminating.
She's trying to run with pig boy Michael Tracey's attack which is that Tara Reade never should have been covered in the first place. Michelle wants you to know that the press didn't do their job when the covered her without vetting her.
This really isn't an avenue that she or anyone else should pursue.
First, their goal is to elect Joe Biden. All this argument does it remind everyone that blessed Beau Biden wasn't a saint either -- not even compared to hustler bro Hunter. All it reminds people of is Larry Sinclair. Larry claimed he did cocaine with Barack Obama, he claims they had sessions in limo where they performed oral sex. He even wrote about it in a book entitled LARRY SINCLAIR AND BARACK OBAMA: COCAINE, SEX, LIES AND MURDER?
Whether you believed Sinclair or not, he was suddenly becoming interesting to the press when all the sudden he got arrested. Why? Trumped up charges by Beau Biden, who was the Attorney General of Delaware at the time.
The charges fell apart but not before Sinclair was arrested in DC for charges in Delaware and the press ran away from the story.
I have no idea whether Sinclair was telling the truth or not. I didn't follow the story, it wasn't about assault or rape -- he was claiming a consensual relationship. But even not following it, it was clear that Beau was abusing his powers of office to stop the press from covering the story.
So it's probably not a good idea to remind the American voters that the only member of the Biden family whose hands are considered clean are, in fact, probably dirty.
But for the media itself?
If you're a person of color and/or anyone who cares about fairness with regards to the treatment of all human people, then you do remember The Days Of The Missing Blonds. Matt Lauer was one of those who made a career out of that genre. To a lot of the country, it looked like every time a blond girl or woman went missing, the whole news industry came to a stop. It was the sole focus day after day after damn day. Now let a child of color go missing and it wouldn't make THE TODAY SHOW or GOOD MORNING AMERICA or . . .
The media has never owned up to what they did. They have never taken accountability for it or made a pledge to pursue fairness.
So it's telling that Michelle Goldberg is re-enforcing that classist and racist standard.
Tara Reade, she insists, was allowed to speak without being vetted.
Why does she need to be vetted? Because Joe Biden says so? When does he get vetted? His behaviors are well known -- even if Michelle's paper edits out a sentence on the Biden's campaign's behalf noting his history of harassing women. Yes, boys and girls, sniffing hair, groping from behind, kissing women you don't know -- all of that is harassment.
Tara Reade doesn't deserve to tell her story -- Michelle Goldberg wants you to know.
That is the mentality of the press that led to the never-ending Days Of The Missing Blonds coverage. Again, while they covered blond women and blond girls, they ignored children of color that went missing, African-American women that were killed. It was only a certain group that the media felt had a right to tell their story.
Tara Reade has made a credible accusation and has what we have always considered corroborating evidence (her mother's 1993 call to LARRY KING LIVE, the 1996 court documents where her husband notes her harassment, people who remember her telling them about it in real time when it happened as well as years and years ago). No one who has come forward to the people and the press has ever had that amount of corroborating evidence for a rape.
Those are the issues. And those are the issues that the media runs from because they want to protect Joe Biden. Good little whores, that's all they are.
Imagine that every awful thing that has been said about Tara is true. For one minute, let's pretend that's true.
So what?
She can't be raped because a landlord doesn't like her or someone who claims to have been her friend didn't get back a set of law books?
Michelle Goldberg is not a feminist. She's not about truth or journalism either. She's just a little whore who is going to smear a woman because it's the thing the Joe Biden campaign needs her to do. Twenty years from now, when she whispers, "I believe Tara Reade," people should throw food at her. She's useless and she's a whore.
If she truly believed the lies she repeats, that would only be more reason for her to defend Tara Reade and to try to educate people on how there is no perfect victim.
Michelle is not about feminism and never will be. She is the Ultimate Karen -- a white woman of a certain class (not a high class, mind you, she's still got dirty face pressed against the glass hoping to get in) looking down on everyone else as she pretends to be superior.
Fred Tippett (NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN) wonders if Joe Biden really wants to be elected president:
First of all, he gave voters a direct reason not to vote for him. Last week, in an MSNBC interview, Biden again denied Tara Reade’s, a Senate staffer for him in the 90s, allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, maintaining the stance his campaign has held since Reade’s accusation. But then, Biden kept talking.
The former Vice President said, “If they [voters] believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” and even went as far as to say, “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.” Now, first of all, I believe it was very honorable of Biden to acknowledge and state his understanding of the seriousness of this allegation to some voters. But from a political standpoint, this was a very strange choice. Reade’s allegation had already shaken Biden’s support from women and young people and Biden, rather than trying to win them back, opened the door for them to walk away. Not to say it would’ve been better for Biden to do the opposite and completely discredit Reade and those who believe her but … I don’t know — he just really put himself into a proper Catch 22 situation.
Secondly, there is, of course, the story of the week: Joe Biden’s interview with Charlamagne tha God on “The Breakfast Club.” On the show, as I’m sure you all know, Biden said, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black." The quote spread quickly, becoming the most viral comment from a bizarrely casual interview. Critique was swift but light. Most notably, Representative Clyburn of South Carolina said he cringed at Biden’s comment, while simultaneously reiterating his support of the former Vice President. It’s unclear how the comment will affect Biden’s support among Black voters, but I think it’s safe to say Biden will not get away with it without ruffling a few feathers.
The editorial board of AMERICAN MAGAZINE: THE JESUIT REVIEW argues:
Yet even if American voters do not have sufficient evidence to determine what Mr. Biden did or did not do in the past, there are standards by which the public can judge his present conduct. One such standard is whether Mr. Biden has made every effort to be transparent and to provide access to potentially relevant archival materials. Unlike in the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, when Senate Republicans chose to press ahead to a vote as close as possible to their original schedule, there is still sufficient time to resolve the question of whether any documents relevant to the present case exist and to do so well in advance of the election.
The former vice president has asked the National Archives to search for any relevant documents or other evidence, and he has made a similar request of the U.S. Senate. But he has thus far not allowed access to his personal papers at the University of Delaware, saying that those archives do not contain personnel records.
That may be true, but Mr. Biden should open those archives anyway. He could commission an impartial, professional archivist or archival firm to conduct a narrow search for any material related to Ms. Reade’s allegations. This would go a long way toward proving to a wary electorate that he is taking every possible step to be transparent.
In other Biden news, Jacob Crosse (WSWS) reports:
In an attempt to reassure the Democratic Party establishment, the Biden campaign, and the corporate bosses they represent that she is a “team player,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Biden rival, ended any pretense last week of championing reform to the US health care system should she become vice president in a Joe Biden administration.
During a May 19 Zoom meeting hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Warren fielded softball questions from students and the host for nearly an hour. Responding to a query regarding the “receptivity” of a “universal or hybrid” health care system posed by David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic Party consultant and former senior adviser to Barack Obama, Warren replied, “I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act.”
In dropping any mention of her signature campaign proposal known as “Medicare for All,” Warren is demonstrating that there is no “pushing” the Democratic party, the oldest capitalist party in the world, to the left, nor is there a constituency in the ruling class for any “reforms” that might impact the profits of insurance companies or drug manufacturers.
Warren’s campaign pledge, which was a copy of the legislation she had previously cosponsored with Bernie Sanders, had already been dialed back by the senator last year in the face of open hostility from corporate America. Within three weeks after the release of her “bold” plan during the fall primary, Warren released a “backup” plan that still preserved the private insurance market, while offering the “option” of Medicare for people under 65.
In dropping her (by now largely rhetorical) support for universal health care coverage, Warren showed impeccable timing, since nearly 40 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits in the US as a result of coronavirus-related layoffs, and millions of those have lost, or are on the verge of losing, their employer-based health care coverage. The objective necessity for a universal health care system could not be posed more clearly, yet according to Warren, “people” aren’t yet “comfortable” with that.
The opposition to providing health care to all as a basic right is not, of course, the reluctance of the “people” to embrace such a plan, as Warren suggests. It is the ferocious, last-ditch opposition of the insurance companies, drug monopolies and for-profit hospital and health care corporations, which would lose billions, and the overall opposition of Wall Street, which reviles all forms of social spending as a deduction from profit.
Warren went on to articulate the kind of proposal one can expect from a self-proclaimed “capitalist to the bone.” Remarking that the pandemic had revealed who is “essential” in society, Warren floated legislation for an “essential workers bill of rights,” so limited that it would guarantee “hand sanitizer” and “if they get sick, full health care coverage.”
This is an insult to workers and their families that would do nothing to protect them from COVID-19. What good is hand sanitizer to a meatpacker forced to work with a contaminated mask or without personal protective equipment? Warren declined to elaborate what “full health care coverage” entailed, or what workers would be expected to pay for it but, given her full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act, one can expect that the cost for workers will not be cheap.
Elizabeth Warren? Supposedly, she's the only thing that can save Joe now. Mike addressed that last night:
No, Joe's not getting the votes or providing any excitement. This is hilarious. The top of the ticket is not generating enough excitement and we're not screaming to replace him? Instead, we're trying to find the running mate that would provide 'excitement'? Tell me again about how electable Joe is. What a joke. Joe is a joke. He needs to be dumped before he takes down the whole ticket.
Give us anyone but Joe. Let us be excited and passionate. We can't get excited as we wait to see if his dentures are going to slip out again like they did in one debate or if a blood vessel in one eye is going to pop like happened in one debate. What exactly is Joe's slogan going to be? "I'm at death's door, vote for me"?
Dump him. He's not helping anyone but Donald Trump. We need a nominee that can serve a full term. One that could even run for a second term would be even better. We don't need Joe and we don't want Joe.
Can the DNC not buy a clue? He's a loser. We need better. If you want to stop Donald Trump from having a second term, you need to be calling for Biden to step aside.
He's not up to the job. He's senile. He's a habitual liar. He's a war monger. He's a rapist.
This is our alternative to Donald Trump?
Even more ridiculous? The press reports that Joe plans to drag this out -- vp choice -- until August 1st. He has nothing else of interest to the press. This is the most embarrassing campaign in our lifetime.
Let's turn to Iraq . . .
Last yesterday, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon offered an essay at NBC NEWS regarding the coronavirus and the Islamic State:
"What you are witnessing these days are only signs of big changes in the region that’ll offer greater opportunities than we had previously in the past decade” read an online message on Thursday from new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, translated by Hassan Hassan, director of the Non-State Actors in Fragile Environments Program at the Center for Global Policy and a co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."
And that's why, in yesterday's snapshot, we were calling out the Iraqi military spokesperson Yahya Rasoul who was insisting that ISIS was "vanquished" and "no longer poses a threat to Iraq." The biggest security threat to Iraq right now might just be the stupidity of Yahya Rasoul.
The following sites updated:
In the US, attacks on Tara Reade continue. She is the woman who came forward to accuse Joe Biden of assault. It's no longer just that the assault is not the issue the corporate whores won't address, it's no longer just the embrace of rape culture, it is now the stereotypes that they are re-enforcing.
Meet the Ultimate Karen: Michelle Goldberg.
The whore for THE NEW YORK TIMES participated in a podcast for the paper this week and we don't link to rape culture. In that podcast, she put out a thought -- if you can call it that -- that is especially illuminating.
She's trying to run with pig boy Michael Tracey's attack which is that Tara Reade never should have been covered in the first place. Michelle wants you to know that the press didn't do their job when the covered her without vetting her.
This really isn't an avenue that she or anyone else should pursue.
First, their goal is to elect Joe Biden. All this argument does it remind everyone that blessed Beau Biden wasn't a saint either -- not even compared to hustler bro Hunter. All it reminds people of is Larry Sinclair. Larry claimed he did cocaine with Barack Obama, he claims they had sessions in limo where they performed oral sex. He even wrote about it in a book entitled LARRY SINCLAIR AND BARACK OBAMA: COCAINE, SEX, LIES AND MURDER?
Whether you believed Sinclair or not, he was suddenly becoming interesting to the press when all the sudden he got arrested. Why? Trumped up charges by Beau Biden, who was the Attorney General of Delaware at the time.
The charges fell apart but not before Sinclair was arrested in DC for charges in Delaware and the press ran away from the story.
I have no idea whether Sinclair was telling the truth or not. I didn't follow the story, it wasn't about assault or rape -- he was claiming a consensual relationship. But even not following it, it was clear that Beau was abusing his powers of office to stop the press from covering the story.
So it's probably not a good idea to remind the American voters that the only member of the Biden family whose hands are considered clean are, in fact, probably dirty.
But for the media itself?
If you're a person of color and/or anyone who cares about fairness with regards to the treatment of all human people, then you do remember The Days Of The Missing Blonds. Matt Lauer was one of those who made a career out of that genre. To a lot of the country, it looked like every time a blond girl or woman went missing, the whole news industry came to a stop. It was the sole focus day after day after damn day. Now let a child of color go missing and it wouldn't make THE TODAY SHOW or GOOD MORNING AMERICA or . . .
The media has never owned up to what they did. They have never taken accountability for it or made a pledge to pursue fairness.
So it's telling that Michelle Goldberg is re-enforcing that classist and racist standard.
Tara Reade, she insists, was allowed to speak without being vetted.
Why does she need to be vetted? Because Joe Biden says so? When does he get vetted? His behaviors are well known -- even if Michelle's paper edits out a sentence on the Biden's campaign's behalf noting his history of harassing women. Yes, boys and girls, sniffing hair, groping from behind, kissing women you don't know -- all of that is harassment.
Tara Reade doesn't deserve to tell her story -- Michelle Goldberg wants you to know.
That is the mentality of the press that led to the never-ending Days Of The Missing Blonds coverage. Again, while they covered blond women and blond girls, they ignored children of color that went missing, African-American women that were killed. It was only a certain group that the media felt had a right to tell their story.
Tara Reade has made a credible accusation and has what we have always considered corroborating evidence (her mother's 1993 call to LARRY KING LIVE, the 1996 court documents where her husband notes her harassment, people who remember her telling them about it in real time when it happened as well as years and years ago). No one who has come forward to the people and the press has ever had that amount of corroborating evidence for a rape.
Those are the issues. And those are the issues that the media runs from because they want to protect Joe Biden. Good little whores, that's all they are.
Imagine that every awful thing that has been said about Tara is true. For one minute, let's pretend that's true.
So what?
She can't be raped because a landlord doesn't like her or someone who claims to have been her friend didn't get back a set of law books?
Michelle Goldberg is not a feminist. She's not about truth or journalism either. She's just a little whore who is going to smear a woman because it's the thing the Joe Biden campaign needs her to do. Twenty years from now, when she whispers, "I believe Tara Reade," people should throw food at her. She's useless and she's a whore.
If she truly believed the lies she repeats, that would only be more reason for her to defend Tara Reade and to try to educate people on how there is no perfect victim.
Michelle is not about feminism and never will be. She is the Ultimate Karen -- a white woman of a certain class (not a high class, mind you, she's still got dirty face pressed against the glass hoping to get in) looking down on everyone else as she pretends to be superior.
Fred Tippett (NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN) wonders if Joe Biden really wants to be elected president:
First of all, he gave voters a direct reason not to vote for him. Last week, in an MSNBC interview, Biden again denied Tara Reade’s, a Senate staffer for him in the 90s, allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, maintaining the stance his campaign has held since Reade’s accusation. But then, Biden kept talking.
The former Vice President said, “If they [voters] believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” and even went as far as to say, “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.” Now, first of all, I believe it was very honorable of Biden to acknowledge and state his understanding of the seriousness of this allegation to some voters. But from a political standpoint, this was a very strange choice. Reade’s allegation had already shaken Biden’s support from women and young people and Biden, rather than trying to win them back, opened the door for them to walk away. Not to say it would’ve been better for Biden to do the opposite and completely discredit Reade and those who believe her but … I don’t know — he just really put himself into a proper Catch 22 situation.
Secondly, there is, of course, the story of the week: Joe Biden’s interview with Charlamagne tha God on “The Breakfast Club.” On the show, as I’m sure you all know, Biden said, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black." The quote spread quickly, becoming the most viral comment from a bizarrely casual interview. Critique was swift but light. Most notably, Representative Clyburn of South Carolina said he cringed at Biden’s comment, while simultaneously reiterating his support of the former Vice President. It’s unclear how the comment will affect Biden’s support among Black voters, but I think it’s safe to say Biden will not get away with it without ruffling a few feathers.
The editorial board of AMERICAN MAGAZINE: THE JESUIT REVIEW argues:
Yet even if American voters do not have sufficient evidence to determine what Mr. Biden did or did not do in the past, there are standards by which the public can judge his present conduct. One such standard is whether Mr. Biden has made every effort to be transparent and to provide access to potentially relevant archival materials. Unlike in the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, when Senate Republicans chose to press ahead to a vote as close as possible to their original schedule, there is still sufficient time to resolve the question of whether any documents relevant to the present case exist and to do so well in advance of the election.
The former vice president has asked the National Archives to search for any relevant documents or other evidence, and he has made a similar request of the U.S. Senate. But he has thus far not allowed access to his personal papers at the University of Delaware, saying that those archives do not contain personnel records.
That may be true, but Mr. Biden should open those archives anyway. He could commission an impartial, professional archivist or archival firm to conduct a narrow search for any material related to Ms. Reade’s allegations. This would go a long way toward proving to a wary electorate that he is taking every possible step to be transparent.
In other Biden news, Jacob Crosse (WSWS) reports:
In an attempt to reassure the Democratic Party establishment, the Biden campaign, and the corporate bosses they represent that she is a “team player,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Biden rival, ended any pretense last week of championing reform to the US health care system should she become vice president in a Joe Biden administration.
During a May 19 Zoom meeting hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Warren fielded softball questions from students and the host for nearly an hour. Responding to a query regarding the “receptivity” of a “universal or hybrid” health care system posed by David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic Party consultant and former senior adviser to Barack Obama, Warren replied, “I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act.”
In dropping any mention of her signature campaign proposal known as “Medicare for All,” Warren is demonstrating that there is no “pushing” the Democratic party, the oldest capitalist party in the world, to the left, nor is there a constituency in the ruling class for any “reforms” that might impact the profits of insurance companies or drug manufacturers.
Warren’s campaign pledge, which was a copy of the legislation she had previously cosponsored with Bernie Sanders, had already been dialed back by the senator last year in the face of open hostility from corporate America. Within three weeks after the release of her “bold” plan during the fall primary, Warren released a “backup” plan that still preserved the private insurance market, while offering the “option” of Medicare for people under 65.
In dropping her (by now largely rhetorical) support for universal health care coverage, Warren showed impeccable timing, since nearly 40 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits in the US as a result of coronavirus-related layoffs, and millions of those have lost, or are on the verge of losing, their employer-based health care coverage. The objective necessity for a universal health care system could not be posed more clearly, yet according to Warren, “people” aren’t yet “comfortable” with that.
The opposition to providing health care to all as a basic right is not, of course, the reluctance of the “people” to embrace such a plan, as Warren suggests. It is the ferocious, last-ditch opposition of the insurance companies, drug monopolies and for-profit hospital and health care corporations, which would lose billions, and the overall opposition of Wall Street, which reviles all forms of social spending as a deduction from profit.
Warren went on to articulate the kind of proposal one can expect from a self-proclaimed “capitalist to the bone.” Remarking that the pandemic had revealed who is “essential” in society, Warren floated legislation for an “essential workers bill of rights,” so limited that it would guarantee “hand sanitizer” and “if they get sick, full health care coverage.”
This is an insult to workers and their families that would do nothing to protect them from COVID-19. What good is hand sanitizer to a meatpacker forced to work with a contaminated mask or without personal protective equipment? Warren declined to elaborate what “full health care coverage” entailed, or what workers would be expected to pay for it but, given her full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act, one can expect that the cost for workers will not be cheap.
Elizabeth Warren? Supposedly, she's the only thing that can save Joe now. Mike addressed that last night:
No, Joe's not getting the votes or providing any excitement. This is hilarious. The top of the ticket is not generating enough excitement and we're not screaming to replace him? Instead, we're trying to find the running mate that would provide 'excitement'? Tell me again about how electable Joe is. What a joke. Joe is a joke. He needs to be dumped before he takes down the whole ticket.
Give us anyone but Joe. Let us be excited and passionate. We can't get excited as we wait to see if his dentures are going to slip out again like they did in one debate or if a blood vessel in one eye is going to pop like happened in one debate. What exactly is Joe's slogan going to be? "I'm at death's door, vote for me"?
Dump him. He's not helping anyone but Donald Trump. We need a nominee that can serve a full term. One that could even run for a second term would be even better. We don't need Joe and we don't want Joe.
Can the DNC not buy a clue? He's a loser. We need better. If you want to stop Donald Trump from having a second term, you need to be calling for Biden to step aside.
He's not up to the job. He's senile. He's a habitual liar. He's a war monger. He's a rapist.
This is our alternative to Donald Trump?
Even more ridiculous? The press reports that Joe plans to drag this out -- vp choice -- until August 1st. He has nothing else of interest to the press. This is the most embarrassing campaign in our lifetime.
Let's turn to Iraq . . .
Last yesterday, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon offered an essay at NBC NEWS regarding the coronavirus and the Islamic State:
"What you are witnessing these days are only signs of big changes in the region that’ll offer greater opportunities than we had previously in the past decade” read an online message on Thursday from new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, translated by Hassan Hassan, director of the Non-State Actors in Fragile Environments Program at the Center for Global Policy and a co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."
The
message comes as those who have been fighting ISIS for more than a
half-decade have spoken publicly and in plain terms about the group‘s
increasing strength.
“The Islamic State
group has been moving the fighting from Syria to Iraq ... (and) is
strengthening, both financially and militarily,” said Lt. Col. Stein Grongstad,
head of Norway’s forces in Iraq, there to advise and assist the Iraqi
military. He called it a “paradox” that just as COVID-19 was weakening
nations, ISIS was regaining strength.
And that's why, in yesterday's snapshot, we were calling out the Iraqi military spokesperson Yahya Rasoul who was insisting that ISIS was "vanquished" and "no longer poses a threat to Iraq." The biggest security threat to Iraq right now might just be the stupidity of Yahya Rasoul.
The following sites updated:
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Featured Panelists: May 29, 20203 hours ago
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D Smoke: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert3 hours ago
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General Michael Flynn12 hours ago
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Gaga12 hours ago
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No, we're not all in this together13 hours ago
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Michelle Goldbert attacks Tara Reade again13 hours ago
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Joe Biden and his racism13 hours ago
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