AS PART OF THE FACEBOOK CONSPIRACY THAT CREATED THE 'SPONTANEOUS' SUPPORT OF THE NOW CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O, ANGRY AND CLOSETED MARXIST SAM GRAHAM-FELSEN MOVED FROM SERVING AS PEACE RESISTER KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL'S MAID-ASSISTANT-AND-OR-BOY-TOY AND WENT TO WORK FOR BARRY O'S CAMPAIGN AS "THE OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN BLOGGER."
A GLORIFIED TITLE FOR WHAT WAS "SAMMY-THE-GIRL-FRIDAY." IN APRIL 2008, THE GROWN MAN WAS WETTING HIS PANTIES IN PUBLIC OVER THIS REPORT AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, HAVING SPOKEN TO HIS OLD FRIENDS WHO HAD SPILLED THE BEANS, WETTING HIS PANTIES OVER WHAT THE REPORTER MIGHT PUBLISH NEXT SINCE SHE KNEW EVERYTHING -- YES, SHE KNEW EVERYTHING.
SAMMY GRAHAMY-FELSEN THEN BEGAN SENDING MULTIPLE E-MAILS AND HAVING HIS FRIENDS SEND MULTIPLE E-MAILS TO THE REPORTER INSISTING THAT SHE WAS DESTROYING HIS LIFE AND HE WAS JUST WORKING ON A CAMPAIGN AND WASN'T EVEN REALLY A WRITER AND JUST WANTED TO BE LEFT ALONE AND WHINE, WHINE, WHINE.
SAMMY HAS SURFACED AGAIN. WHORING AS A WRITER WHO STILL CAN'T TELL THE TRUTH.
LEADING TO SO MANY QUESTIONS. SUCH AS: WILL THEIR BE A PART II TO THIS REPORT? WHAT ELSE DID SAMMY HIDE? WILL THE REAL BEHIND THE SCENE STORY OF THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN SURFACE? AND, JUST FOR FUN, WHEN PATSY KELLY SERVED AS TALLULAH BANKHEAD'S MAID, SHE HAD TO GIVE BANKHEAD VAGINAL MASSAGES, SO WHAT DID SAMMY HAVE TO GIVE KATRINA?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with peace news.
There's a chance peace will come in your life please buy one
For sometimes when I am feeling as a big as the land
With the velvet hills in the small of my back
And my hands are playing in the sand
And my feet are swimming in all of the waters
All of the rivers are givers to the ocean
According to plan, according to man.
-- "Peace Will Come (According To Plan)," written by Melanie (Safka) and first appears on her 1970 album Leftover Wine and her brand new album is Ever Since You Never Heard of Me
Thursday a protest held outside the White House (see Friday's snapshot). Friday, Elaine observed, "Don't come asking why there aren't more protests if, when there is a significant one, you don't bother to cover it as significant. A couple of hundred participated on a cold DC day, when it was snowing. That's a lot in my opinion and it's an important protest and a news worthy one." She noted the report by Brian Ward (US Socialist Worker) who concludes his piece with: "The energy of the D.C. protest was high, even though it was snowing and cold. Protesters saw the importance of a rebirth of the antiwar movement, especially since Obama has made the Afghanistan war 'his war.' We need to organize and fight to end the wars and occupations." The Party for Socialism and Liberation explains, "Organized by Veterans for Peace, March Forward!, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and several other organizations, the actions was the largest veterans-led civil disobedience since the wars began 10 years ago. Veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, World War II and other conflicts were among those arrested. Those arrested included Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition; Mike Prysner and Ryan Endicott, both Iraq War veterans and March Forward! organizers; Mike Ferner, president of Veterans for Peace; and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the famous Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War." Tim King (Salem-News) also reports on the protest and he notes journalist and author Chris Hedges' speech:
Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves.
Hope does not separate us from them.
Hope sees our enemy in our own face.
Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful, hope is what the corporate state which saturates our airwaves with lies hopes seeks obliterate.
Hope is what this corporate state is determined to crush. 'Be afraid' they tell us, 'surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror, don't resist, embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity, buy our products, without them you are worthless, become our brands, do not look up from your electronic hallucinations, no, above all do not think, obey'.
Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves.
Hope does not separate us from them.
Hope sees our enemy in our own face.
Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful, hope is what the corporate state which saturates our airwaves with lies hopes seeks obliterate.
Hope is what this corporate state is determined to crush. 'Be afraid' they tell us, 'surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror, don't resist, embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity, buy our products, without them you are worthless, become our brands, do not look up from your electronic hallucinations, no, above all do not think, obey'.
Click here for the OpEdNews page with video of Chris Hedges' speech and a full transcript.
Libbyliberal (Corrente) covered it this weekend and included fast-and-loose Dave Lindorff who swore on Saturday, "And yet, the protest event was completely blacked out by the corporate news media." Not knowing his history, Libbyliberal takes him at face value. But reality and Dave Lindorff are distant relations. From Thursday's snapshot:
Cameron Joseph (National Journal) reports that Daniel Ellsberg was at the White House today "chained to its snowy gates as part of a protest organized by Veterans for Peace [. . .] Ellsberg was one of dozens arrested, the Associated Press reported." David Jackson (USA Today) explains, "It's cold and snowy in Washington, D.C., but that didn't stop protestors from showing up at the White House today to demonstrate against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Police appeared to arrest an unknown number of protestors as they sought to chain themselves to the White House fence." UPI offers a photo essay of the protest by Kevin Dietsch. David Swanson's War Is A Crime offers video of the protest. Paul Courson (CNN) states 131 is the number of activists arrested and cites US Park Police spokesperson David Schlosser as the source for that number. At Stop These Wars (umbrella group for the various groups and individuals organizing the action) it's noted, "131 veterans and others were arrested December 16 in front of the White House. Preliminary gallery of photos here. More to come."
As we noted at Third, "So that's CNN, National Journal, USA Today, AP ad UPI. NPR would include it in hourly headlines." And they all covered it on Thursday while Dave Lindorff served up his (error filled) lecture on Saturday. Thursday on NPR's All Things Considered (link has audio and text), Mara Liasson would observe, "Polls show the Afghanistan War is now opposed by majorities in almost every country that sent troops, including the U.S. Dozens were arrested today outside the White House protesting the war. But Secretary [Robert] Gates made it clear the war is not about to end and that the decision to escalate a year ago was not revisited in the current review." If Dave Lindorff experienced a blackout, it wasn't a media one and maybe he shouldn't drink so much? And then there's Ray-Ray McGovern who shows up today to insist of Thursday's action: "What? You didn't hear about any of this, including the arrest of 135 veterans and other anti-war activists in front of the White House? Need I remind you of the Fawning Corporate Media and how its practioners have always downplayed or ignored protests, large or small, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
It was covered in the Media -- in the Corporate Media. It's too bad Ray McGovern fancies himself a media critic because that's just another failed task on his resume. I'm all for holding the media accountable -- but unlike Ray McGovern, I hold it all accountable, All Things Media Big and Small. And here's the reality. By refusing to cover it, Little Media (Panhandle Media) ensured that Big Media (Real Media) doesn't have to worry. The protest took place on Thursday. They covered it as much -- and often more -- than Panhandle Media. Ray-Ray doesn't know the first thing about the media and needs to sit his tired ass down. He loves to tell this one story about how NYT published the Pentagon Papers only because they were afraid others would cover it. Well, Ray-Ray, where was Democracy Now's live remote? What, they can bore us to tears with 10 hours of the DNC and 10 hours of the RNC conventions but Democracy Now can't cover the protest? Then there's no reason for Big Media to worry that they'll look foolish for not covering it. Why wasn't Leigh Ann Caldwell filing a report -- not a summary gleaned from AP but an actual damn report? She's FSRN's DC correspondent after all. Click here for Free Speech Radio News' embarrassing coverage. They didn't even give it 80 words and they air on Pacifica aka Peace Radio.
I'm sorry Ray-Ray showed up late to the party and forgot to put on pants, but he's responsible for his own self-embarrassment. Amy Goodman can drag her ass to Mexico for Cancun talks on climate -- that we all know aren't going to accomplish a damn thing -- but the dumbass can't get her ass to DC for this protest? Ray-Ray, Lindorff and the other fools need to stop blaming Corporate Media -- which did cover it -- and grasp that if Little Media was treating like a real story when it happened, it would have influenced coverage elsewhere. That's how it works. People like Ray-Ray don't know a damn thing about the media or how it works and would do well to find another topic to discuss. "Heat" generates coverage. Which is why we didn't scream about the Tea Party here. But The Nation and The Progressive and MSNBC's nightime line up refusing to shut up about the Tea Party gave it heat and it got coverage. If the same outlets had done the same with the protest, it would have dominated Friday morning's news cycle. Why is that?
Ray-Ray can't tell you because he's ignorant of the media. A) It would have provided "heat" to the story and B) the mid-terms. The honeymoon's over with the press. They're looking for stories that reflect that attitudes of America. Barack's honeymoon's over and the left protesting him -- not just penning articles but protesting him? -- that would have fed into the news cycle so quickly and so well -- and the media had already constructed the narrative for it. In fact, that's why it was covered by the outlets that did cover it.
This is the third snapshot we've covered the peace action in -- we've treated it seriously. On the articles now rushing out on the topic, Bradley Manning is innocent until proven guilty. We're not highlighting any article that can't grasp that. As Dalia Hashad notes on Law and Disorder Radio (WBAI today, throughout the country the rest of the week) of government charges in another case, "I don't like to get into the details of these cases because the narrative is controlled by the FBI." We're not linking to articles where the writer's doing the government's bidding by insisting Bradley Manning is guilty as charged -- and doing so when Bradley has never spoken publicly on the charges. Sunday Cheryl Biren (OpEdNews) files the most in-depth report I've seen so far and it has text and videos. We'll note this from it:
Firing up the crowd was March Forward's Michael Prysner. Prysner, who joined the Army at 17, took part in the initial invasion of Iraq. In an earlier report, he explained that he spent 12 months in Iraq doing everything from prisoner interrogations to home raids. He believed that he was going to Iraq to help liberate an oppressed people. He said that he soon realized that his purpose was to be the oppressor and to "clear the way for the U.S. Corporations with no regard for human life."
Now the national director of MarchForward.org, Prysner told OpEdNews, "The message is that it is crystal clear that this government is not going to end these wars, the wars that the vast majority of people want to end and the wars that have no purpose other than expanding the reach of Wall Street and oil giants and that is really the main function of US policy."
He concluded that "Because this government is incapable of ending these wars and will not end these wars, the people have to stand up and fight to force these wars to end."
When asked about the efficacy of such actions, Prysner replied, "We don't think we're going to end the war today. We know that. But, these things to do make a difference. We're sending a message to the government that we're not waiting for them to spill out more lies about the war and more falsehoods and we're going to stand up and fight and that we're going to disrupt business as usual." Prysner hopes to bring people into the movement as part of a growing force that he believes will be capable of ending the wars.
At the Indypendent, Ellen Davidson has a brief text report with links to many of her photos of the action. By the way, is it true that despite all Julian Assange's claims to be financially supporting Bradley's legal defense, that WikiLeaks has never given a penny to it? Yes, it is. From the Bradley Mannin Support Network:
Immediately following Bradley's arrest in late June 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks publicly solicited donations specifically for Bradley's legal defense expenses. In July 2010, WikiLeaks pledged to contribute "a substantial amount" towards Bradley's legal defense costs. Since Bradley's selection of David Coombs as his civilian defense attorney in August 2010, the Bradley Manning Support Network has unsuccessfully attempted to facilitate the pledged WikiLeaks contribution.
"We understand the difficult situation Wikileaks currently faces as the world's governments conspire to extinguish the whistle-blower website," explained Jeff Paterson, Bradley Manning Support Network steering committee member and project director of Courage to Resist (www.couragetoresist.org). "However, in order to meet Bradley Manning's legal defense needs, we're forced to clarify that Wikileaks has not yet made a contribution towards this effort. We certainly welcome any contribution from Wikileaks, but we need to inform our supporters that it may not be forthcoming and that their continued contributions and support are crucial."
Donations towards Bradley's defense can be made at www.bradleymanning.org -- to either the Support Network for both public education efforts and legal defense, or directly to Bradley's legal trust account.
So despite repeatedly and publicly stating he would be covering the defense cost, Julian Assange has provided not one penny? All these months later, not one penny? Support Bradley Manning notes Bradley has now been held a prisoner for 208 days without trial including December 17th which was his 23rd birthday. That's a lot to put on the shoulders of someone so very young.
Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements. Manning is now at Quantico in Virginia, under military lock and key and still not allowed to speak to the press. As Daniel Ellsberg reminded from the stage in Oakland last September, "We don't know all the facts." But we know, as Ellsberg pointed out, that the US military is attempting to prosecute Bradley. Paul Courson (CNN) notes Bradley is a suspect and, "He has not admitted guilt in either incident, his supporters say."
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