War Against Lab Leak Grinds On, Beyond Laughable Now

Fifty-one percent of Americans favori lab leak origins of
SARS-CoV-2 virus, causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19,
Morning Consult

The explanation SARS-CoV-2 virus, (causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19), originated through accidental release from a research laboratory became the majority view of Americans in February 2023, according to polls in Morning Consult.

Democrats lead the nation in believing Covid 19 naturally occurred, instead of spilling over from a virology research laboratory — with only some 42 percent of Democrats favoring lab leak origins, 51 percent of all Americans favoring lab leak origins, and 72 percent of Republicans favoring lab leak origins. Morning Consult

Democrats have been obstinate in their refusal to publicly acknowledge the proposition an engineered lab leak that caused Coronavirus disease COVID-19 as an origins explanation is not only plausible, but now is clear and convincing and climbing.

However, as government leaks continue, it is becoming less politically palatable for Joe Biden and the Democrats to continue the Big Lie that Covid 19 must have not have come from a lab. [For a continuing dose of evidence, reason and facts on SARS-CoV-2 origins, see Alex Washburne @Ayjchan @JamieMetzl, Nicholas Wade, DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19), and especially all the folks at BiosafetyNow who are embarrassing the deluded and dishonest.

Virologists, clumsy at politics, to this day often sound like dead-enders in the origins debate. And not just virologists.

Writes Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now, http://biosafetynow.org, "Not just virologists—public health experts and biosecurity experts too. Really seems like many in this extended science/policy community reflexively circle the wagons at any mention of a 'lab leak.'"

A recent exchange on social media exemplifies some public pronouncements and an unsettling ideology of many virologists, (noone is sure how many).

Marburg virus of 1967

The exchange concerns the infamous Marburg virus of 1967, one of the most famous lab leak tragedies, in which a deadly virus causing hemorrhagic fever leaked from lab workers to families and caregivers, resulting in 31 deaths.

One Krutika Kuppalli, a reputable bio-health expert, using perverse reasoning, voices her personal view that because a virus can infect human beings from animals, zoonoses, this virus capability disconfirms  possibility that researchers in a lab were studying that virus and that the virus subsequently could have leaked from the laboratory through lab workers, such as what happened in Marburg, Germany.

Writes Kuppalli on March 24, "If we can believe that #Marburg and many other infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Mpox etc) is the result of zoonotic transmission why is it so hard for us to believe that it was the same with COVID-19."

In reply to Kuppalli, Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now (http://biosafetynow.org, @BiosafetyNow) in muted, apparent disgust, writes, "Fun fact: Marburg virus is named after Marburg, Germany—where the virus does not naturally occur—because the first documented outbreak was caused by a lab leak at the Behringwerke industrial plant there. @BiosafetyNow."

In reply to Kinney's simple and, what one would guess, is an uncontroversial narrative of a historical fact of a lab leak comes the following exchange:

This is absolutely false and why on earth would you make that up?

— Gigi Gronvall (@ggronvall) March 26, 2023

The following exchanges take place that ought merit Kinney be given a Nobel Peace Price for his patience in dealing with utter stupidity.

What I wrote is true. I thought you’d know this history.

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

I’m astounded by the disdainful reaction of public health and biosecurity experts to my *accurately* calling the 1967 outbreak of Marburg virus a “lab leak”. Their reaction makes me even less inclined to believe what they say about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. https://t.co/cfC1HdJCgu

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

Lesson going forward is: If an anti-lab leak stooge speaks, he or she is lying.

These state-sponsored propagandists are so transparent & vile.

— Dana Parish (@danaparish) March 26, 2023

Marburg was not a lab leak? It was lab workers infected by monkeys. That's a lab leak. In 2019, a US biolab was shut down because necropsies were performed on monkeys and the door to the room wasn't closed, exposing lab techs outside who weren't wearing respiratory protection.

— Laurence (Larry) Boorstein (@LarryBoorstein) March 26, 2023

It’s more than semantics/insults, the scientific community (of which I am a member) is by and large treating the public like they are stupid children that need to be punished for questioning their authority. I feel it’s the scientific community that needs to be held accountable

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

>

It's troubling how many virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/KhuBSYFAiq

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 25, 2023

Yes, it is troubling that virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even more troubling are the facts that the Democrat Party is not concerned that bio-research might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Biden and the Democrats continue to block open investigations into the COVID-19 pandemic origins.

The attacks and lies will go on for a very long time.

It may seem subtle for people outside the field, but for anyone who's been paying attention throughout COVID, Dr. Gonsalves has been one of Dr. Fauci's attack dogs.

His attack on Dr. Redfield's far superior virological credentials is a transparently bad-faith defense of Fauci. https://t.co/WzdpWidaWk

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 26, 2023

Where, dolt, did Kinney suggest gain-of-function research was involved in the laboratory accidents with Marburg virus?

Why, dolt, do you limit the definition of "laboratory accident" to include only gain-of-function research?

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

“In over 1,000 years of evolutionary time, we see no evidence of a furin cleavage site in any SARS CoV, except for the SARS-CoV that emerged in Wuhan 1.5 years after researchers proposed to insert a furin cleavage site in a SARS CoV in Wuhan.” Mmmm… https://t.co/rz4B1K2JHP

— Frank Visser (@ReusVisser) March 26, 2023

Unsurprisingly, virologists want the public to believe up is down, wet is dry, day is night, and that they care about lab safety. That journalists keep pretending AR and cohorts are experts in anything other than misinformation peddling is a joke. https://t.co/aXLV3Nw5Ar

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

Kuppalli's statement, and similar statements over the last 24 hours by Eckerle, Gronvall, Rasmussen, and Pease are a public declaration of an inability to read, an inability to reason and/or a desire to deceive.

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

I want everyone to observe how confidently "science journalist" @Laurie_Garrett states something as epidemiological fact, pointing to her book

And then read @R_H_Ebright, an actual scientist.

If you just read Garrett, your understanding of science would be wrong. https://t.co/4dqu1GfUzs pic.twitter.com/VCoG9RMVQc

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 27, 2023

We Need COVID 19-Origins Hearings, ala Kastenmeier Vietnam War Hearings

Madison, Wisconsin — March 8, 2023, a House Committee held an anticipated hearing on investigating the COVID-19 origins.

But House Democrats performed shamefully, exemplified by Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Maryland), a lightweight non-entity, who launched pathetic ad homium attacks again science writer and hearing witness, Nicholas Wade. 

Wade penned a brilliant piece on COVID-19 origins, reason and thought control, The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?, at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists some two years earlier.

But Wade's COVID-19 origins work never came up under questioning by Mfume.

Instead, Mfume spent his time trying to vilify Wade for writing A Troublesome Inheritance
Genes, Race and Human History (Penguin Random House, 2015) that has absolutely nothing to do with COVID-19 origins, the mission behind the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Mfume's ad homium offered no clarity beyond the fact Mfume did not read and is not equipped to understand Wade's thoughtful work.

Mfume and congressional Democrats wanted to subvert the hearing, and clearly millions dead did not weigh on this Party of liars and sheep.

Mfume does exemplify Democrat refusal among Congress and Joe Biden to probe what is almost certainly a lab leak origin of COVID 19 as the world is over three years into one of the most spectacular mass gas-lighting projects in U.S. history after the most deadly Pandemic in modern history.

In the face of U.S. government lying led by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, (NIAID), U.S. intelligence, censorship across the media,  (see Cleveland. Washburne. Leon. Hibbett and Grim. Taibbi. Greenwald,), it is time for citizens to bypass the media, Congress, Democrats and Biden and hold grassroots hearings on COVID-19 origin.

Robert W. Kastenmeier Vietnam War hearings

This COVID-19 origins hearing can be modeled on the Robert W. Kastenmeier Vietnam War hearings in 1966 when citizens replaced so-called leaders who refused to face facts in the midst of lies and death, and massive government duplicity.

Today, congressional Democrats and @POTUS will never accede to honest probes of #COVID19 origins. This is why we need the #COVID19 origins akin to Kastenmeier's.

Honest scientists, intellectuals and victims could testify. Citizens can offer statements on what lying about Covid 19 means to them.

Concerned folks such as @Ayjchan @JamieMetzl , Nicholas Wade, DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19), among those burdened only by a commitment to truth, can offer candid summaries of evidence, reason and facts.

Kweisi Mfume and his dependable Party of liars need not attend.

Even as Biden promises to release Covid 19 origins information, these is absolutely no reason to trust this president and his party to begin telling the truth now.

We citizens of the United States and world must lead against Democrats.

Anthony Fauci Lied about COVID 19 Orgins, U.S. House E-mails Reveal

"Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed," wrote the great journalist, I.F. Stone.

I first encountered I.F. Stone's admonition on a large wall poster in a hall some feet away from Erwin Knoll's office at The Progressive Magazine in 1985.

Stone's statement seemed both inspiring and obvious.

This week, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, (NIAID), is revealed as having self-consciously lied about how the Pandemic began. 

Emails released by members of a U.S. House committee reveal Anthony Fauci worked with virologists  and U.S. government officials in early 2020, musing on formulating strategy to examine COVID 19 origins, and the efficacy of ways of countering "voices of conspiracy" asserting the possibility of an accidental Chinese lab leak of the COVID 19 virus.

"Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy, with what seems to be growing momentum," read a Feb. 4, 2020 email from former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins to Fauci and other NIH officials.

The conspiracy theory is the contention that Chinese government scientists secretly bio-engineered a Coronavirus that subsequently was unintentionally released into the world to catastrophic consequences.

Help put down is the not the same as explain what the science says.

Currently, there are 312,173,462 confirmed cases and 5,501,000 deaths and climbing, according to the World Health Organization.

This is not to assert that public health advice and measures advocated by United States public health officials are not valid. We should, roughly: Get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask, and get tested.

The emails do reveal Fauci and public health officials disregarding the fact the Chinese government is a hyper-secret State that routinely acts destructively, brokering no dissent as it veers into totalitarianism, emitting routine lies. 

Further, the obvious plausibility of the lab leak hypothesis was acknowledged in the same emails in which Fauci and his colleagues decided to publicly dismiss what likely occurred in China.

Reports Maia Hibbett and Ryan Grim in The Intercept:

The [U.S. House Members] letter, signed by James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was followed by pages of notes on emails that were first obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by BuzzFeed News and the Washington Post, but were heavily redacted when published in June 2021. The redacted emails included the agenda for a February 1, 2020, telephone conference between National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci; his then-boss, former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins; and several of the world’s leading virologists. The communications contained extensive notes summarizing what was said during the call, but their substance was hidden at the time.

Oversight Committee staff were able to view the full emails 'in camera,' which means they could physically look at them and take notes but couldn’t take copies with them. The information released Tuesday for the first time reveals the content of notes taken on the February 1 call.

On that call, virologists Michael Farzan and Robert Garry told Fauci and Collins the virus might have leaked from the Wuhan lab. It might have been genetically engineered, the transcription of Garry’s notes suggests, but this now seems unlikely. Another possibility, put forward by Farzan, was that it could have been evolved in the lab through a process known as serial passage.

Work since Feb. 2020 by independent intellectuals and scientists around the globe on COIVD 19 origins devastates the Chinese-American government public consensus that natural, non-man-made explanations must account for the emergence of the Pandemic. (Vanity Fair; Origins of SARS-CoV-2; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

To disagree with the consensus is to engage in "conspiracy" talk, an elite U.S. research community now led by Fauci assures us in well-publicized statements in The Lancet (Feb 2020) and Nature (March 2020), an effort referenced in the emails released this week.

A May 5, 2021 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists feature, The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? by Nicholas Wade, suggests looking closer and considering the evidence, without apology to the moment's consensus, and Fauci's dismissal.

Writes Wade:

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: The political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.

Now, even Fauci tacitly admits publicly that dismissal and dishonest ridicule of the lab leak hypothesis is no longer a sustainable position, as Jack Brewster details in a chronology of Fauci statement in Forbes, published June 16, 2021.

See also Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti in Breaking Points below:

---
The work of DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19), an independent group of itinerant intellectuals and scientists, instructs as an example of promoting rational examination of hypotheses on the origins of COIVD 19.

An outline follows.
---

SARS-COV-2 Laboratory Leak Hypothesis

Laboratory Hypothesis Leak Overview

Guest Post by Andrew Tuntable, Ph. D. atuntable@gmail.com @atuntable

DRASTIC and other groups have uncovered substantial evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic was caused by the leak of the virus from a laboratory in Wuhan.  This evidence together with many references is described in this paper:

SARS-COV-2 Laboratory Leak Hypothesis

In summary, the evidence is:-

    The bat coronavirus outbreak occurred in Wuhan, home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the world’s leading bat coronaviruses laboratory.  (Not proof, but certainly of interest.)
    Wuhan is over 1000 km from the relevant bats.  The bats were not traded in the Wuhan wet markets.
    The virus arose suddenly, fully functional, with no known human or animal precursors.  This is unlike SARS-1 and MERS.
    The virus is a chimera (a mixture) of two different viruses.  Chimera’s can arise naturally, but are also often engineered in laboratories.
    The virus also contains two different powerful adaptations at the same time, an effective spike protein and a furin cleavage site.  This is why it is the most infectious coronavirus in 100 years.
    The WIV and the Eco Health Alliance proudly published their earlier results on genetically engineering chimeras based on coronaviruses.  They have also submitted grant proposals to add furin cleavage sites to coronaviruses.
    It was discovered that in 2013 six bat guano miners became ill with a SARS-like virus, samples of which were sent to the WIV.  This could have been the precursor to SARS-COV-2.  The WIV had said the miners had a fungal infection.
    The WIV conducted coronavirus research at biosecurity levels 2 and 3, not high security BSL-4.  A US government report had raised concerns about their biosecurity practices in 2017.
    Lab leaks are not uncommon and have happened in many laboratories around the world.
    There is some evidence that workers at the WIV became ill in late 2019.
    More importantly, the Chinese government has removed data and has angrily thwarted any proper investigation.  They refuse to disclose whether the WIV was studying a SARS-COV-2 like virus.
    There does not appear to have been any attempt to trace the contacts of the earliest cases by looking for long lived antibodies.
    The Chinese government has still not found any natural precursor after an extensive search testing over 80,000 samples.
    There are no credible rebuttals.

The weight of this evidence shows that the virus escaped from the WIV beyond reasonable doubt.

This is important because this technology has become much more accessible to laboratories around the world, often with minimal oversight.  Advances in technology could enable future genetically engineered viruses to be far more infectious and virulent than SARS-COV-2.

(Permission to use this cartoon is granted with attribution.)

This is what must not be allowed to happen.  Students from existing laboratories setting up their own laboratories around the world and conducting dangerous Gain of Function research with inadequate safety precautions.

The next engineered virus could be even more infectious, have a longer incubation period, a higher mortality rate and, like HIV, attack the immune system.  It could be far more dangerous than SARS-COV-2.

Full Paper here.

Time to Ditch DNC-MSNBC Corruption — Boycott Propaganda System Now

Bernie Sanders continues to lead Trump.

Madison, Wisconsin — The 2019 campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination appears at a tipping point as major candidates call out the corrupt DNC-media system for its marginalization of progressive candidates and character assassinations spewed at a rate that makes Fox News blush.

"I don't know who the Democratic Party is. I just don't know who they are anymore," Terrance Warthen, co-chair of Our Wisconsin Revolution, (MSNBC), lamented in 2017.

It's worse now.

Progressive candidates — Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders — are alternately maligned and minimized in the corporate coverage though the three lead the field in championing the concerns of a solid majority of Americans.

Combat veteran Tulsi Gabbard v Chickhawk Hillary Clinton

It's almost funny to watch corporate democrats — led by Hillary Clinton, CNN and MSNBC's prime-time line-up — emit hysterics and abuse against Gabbard, Yang and Sanders

For example, Rep. Gabbard (D-Hawia), an Army combat veteran and sitting congresswoman, is continually defamed as a Russian agent or foreign dictator's supporter by Hillary Clinton and the corporate media because of Gabbard's opposition to catastrophic wars.

Gabbard has perhaps the most compelling personal story. She enlisted in the Army after 911 and was deployed downrange, (Iraq 2004-05; Kuwait, 2008-09), "serving in a base in the Sunni Triangle at the height of the war[.] Tulsi had the heart-wrenching daily responsibility of going through the list of every injury and casualty in the entire theatre of operations, looking to see if any soldiers in her unit were on the list, so she could ensure they received the care they needed and their families were notified."

The Democratic National Committee and corporate media has become so brazen in their enmity towards progressive candidates that Tusli Gabbard preemptively boycotted the next DNC debate to be held on Dec 19.

For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th "debate" — regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls. I instead choose to spend that precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) December 10, 2019

Several major candidates have already hit the DNC and its allied news network for their machinations in secretly choosing which polls decide who gets the free national air-time in the debates, and who gets blacked-out in continuing news coverage.

The DNC-media campaign against Andrew Yang is equally vicious and petty. See YouTube.

Drop MSNBC

As Andrew Yang has pointed out, the progressive candidates don't need the corporate news networks, if disaffected voters are sufficiently mobilized.

The #YangGang has taken the lead in dropping MSNBC, allied in effect with Tulsi and Bernie supporters.

There are brilliant political news, analyses and commentary available for continuing campaign coverage to replace the evening and prime-time line-up.

A partial list of news shows available on YouTube follows, (pls add more in comments):

• Rising, The Hill with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
• Jimmy Dore Show
• Secular Talk with Kyle Kulinski
• Rational National with David Doel
• The Young Turks
• The Grey Zone with Max Blumenthal
• The Humanist Report
• Joe Rogan Experience
• Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper
• Moderate Rebels
• Graham Elwood
• The Intercept
• Democracy Now
• Rebel HQ

Wisconsin State Journal Shielded Scott Walker and Republicans in Blocking-elections Scandal

The Wisconsin State Journal fronted
for Scott Walker and legislative
Republicans in its coverage of
the unprecedented effort by the
Wisconsin GOP to block elections.

GOP election-blocking spectacle tamped down in news coverage of Madison daily

Madison, Wisconsin—Press coverage of Scott Walker and state Republicans' scheme to block two elections reveals the Wisconsin State Journal misled readers in what amounted to a propaganda exercise covering for the Wisconsin governor with laudatory or vague headlines, an examination shows.

On March 24, two days after Dane County Judge Josann Reynolds, (Branch two), ordered Scott Walker to call two special elections, and one day after Republicans vowed to enact legislation blocking the judicial order, the Wisconsin State Journal ran a banner, 3/4-inch headline reading "State GOP seeks swift action" in its print edition.

This March 24 headline misleads readers with the undefined "seeks swift action," omitting the fact state Republicans scrambled to continue to block elections, (as the news piece reports).

The Republican effort to block elections was an unprecedented project that involved legislative Republicans, Walker, and the Republican Dept of Justice. Republicans demonized the judiciary and an entire Wisconsin county, Dane County.

On March 28, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Walker denied extra time," after Judge Richard Niess humiliated DoJ attorneys in open court and legislative Republicans plotted their next move.

On March 29, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Gov won't appeal ruling," after a third judge in a state appellate court rebuffed Walker, excoriating Walker's failure to perform his duty, and after Republicans abandoned their scheme to change the special elections statute in a new special session.

On March 30, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Walker: Two open seats to be filled," omitting that Walker blocked elections, was being ordered to call elections, and Walker's move is a reversal coming only after a third judicial defeat by three different judges, two of whom are Republican.
--
In objective journalism, headlines should be accurate summations of a news piece.

Headlines should inform readers about major occurrences in continuing coverage, especially in a spectacular and rapidly developing story such as Wisconsin Republicans blocking elections and fighting judicial orders mandating elections be held.

Readers often will scan only headlines.

The Wisconsin State Journal copy editor(s) know these facts and chose to abandon journalistic obligations in service to the Republican Party in an election year.

Hey Bernie Sanders, Keep Up the Fight

Update: California was in fact rigged for Clinton. Few saw this coming, Bill Clinton apparently knew. See How California Is Being Stolen for Sanders, (Palest), and  'It was just chaos': Broken machines, incomplete voter rolls leave some wondering whether their ballots will count, (Pearce, Los Angeles Times).
 ---
Many inducements will be offered to Bernie Sanders to give up the fight for social justice today.

No cause to allow Hillary Clinton and the corporate media to substitute neo-liberalism for social justice.

Clinton and her allies would not be so desperate to induce Bernie Sanders to abandon ship, were not Clinton's fragile candidacy manifest.

Fight on to Philly.

Bernie Sanders Vows to Fight, Clinton Toes Corporate Line

Bernie Sanders fights on, having denied Hillary Clinton
the requisite pledged delegates to clinch the
pre-convention nomination

The life-long social justice worker, Bernie Sanders and millions of Americans stopped the corporate media and the Democratic Party from installing Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee before the Democratic Convention.

That Clinton was halted from winning the requisite number of pledged delegates to clinch the nomination, (including the total from D.C. next week Clinton will have won less than 2,300 of the needed 2,382 pledged delegates), is a fact the corporate media avoids reporting.

That would be all of the corporate media and don't believe what you read, or hear on The Rachel Meadow Show, for example

Bernie Sanders and Clinton will vow for the votes of superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention the week of July 25. This is another fact you won't read or hear from the corporate media.

Some seven weeks is a long time in American politics, hence the desperate Clinton effort to be anointed as the presumptive nominee, while the FBI is investigating Clinton's Scott Walker-esque secret computer server, router and computers on which Clinton conducted official business while serving as Secretary of State, (2009-2013). A negative law enforcement report is difficult after the media confers presumptive nominee status.

The corporate media decided that although superdelegates are unpledged and can only cast their preference at the Convention, superdelegates will be polled and counted by the corporate media in anonymous journalistic conventions through secret contacts.

The corporate media is now the authority of establishing the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, not the Democratic National Committee, a practice this goes unchallenged and unquestioned in the corporate media.

"The nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders and donors whose identities the media organization – incredibly – conceals. The decisive edifice of superdelegates is itself anti-democratic and inherently corrupt: designed to prevent actual voters from making choices that the party establishment dislikes," notes Glenn Greenwald reporting facts that will also not be repeated by the corporate media, (The Intercept).

Sanders has vowed to fight on, as he should. "[W]e are going to take the fight for social, economic and racial justice to Philadelphia. We will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate," Sanders told 1,000s in Santa Monica last night.

Clinton, the Democratic Party's corporate establishment and the corporate media don't get it.

For Hillary Clinton, her lust for the nomination has been animated by a quest for power and ego which drove Clinton to support the segregationist Barry Goldwater, among other unsavory pursuits.

For Sanders, the nomination is simply a means to achieve the promise of social justice.

From the Sanders campaign:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – To chants of “Bernie or Bust,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a roaring crowd of supporters on Tuesday that he will carry his White House campaign and their fight for a political revolution to this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

“The struggle continues,” he declared to the loudest cheers of the night in the climax of the speech.

He said he would campaign in next Tuesday’s final primary in Washington, D.C., the last contest in the nationwide series of primaries and caucuses that began last winter in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“Then we are going to take the fight for social, economic and racial justice to Philadelphia,” he told the 3,300 people packed inside an airplane hangar. “We will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate.”

The late-night crowd was dominated by young people who have been a major key to the success of Sanders’ campaign. “I am enormously optimistic about the future of our country when so many young people have come on board and understand that our vision of social justice, economic justice, racial justice and environmental justice must be the future of America,” the senator from Vermont told the rally.

He spoke about the upcoming general election and defeating Donald Trump. “Our campaign from day one has understand that we will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government. And that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate,” Sanders said. “The American people in my view will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims and women and African Americans. We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States.”

But he said the grassroots campaign that gave him victories in 22 states has another goal.

“Our mission is more than just defeating Trump it is transforming our country,” Sanders said. That mission includes ending wealth and income inequality and junking the corrupt campaign finance system that props up a rigged economy. “Democracy is not about billionaires buying elections.” He said it includes reforming the criminal justice system, breaking up big bans, providing health care as a right to all citizens, reforming our broken immigration system and making the billionaires and profitable corporations pay their fair share in taxes.

“What this is about is millions of people from coast to coast knowing that we can do much, much better as a nation,” Sanders said. “Our fight is to transform this country and to understand that we are in this together, understand that all of what we believe is what the majority of American people believe and to understand that the struggle continues.”

Support Bernie Sanders, Hope Insider Dems Come to Their Senses

Hillary Clinton is hopelessly corrupt and out-of-touch

Now is the time to support Bernie Sanders and work up to the Democratic Convention, the week of July 25, to help super-delegates come to their senses. Super-delegates are unbound and cannot vote until the Convention.

The media has anointed Hillary Clinton after the corporate media conducted secret phone calls with Clinton super-delegates yesterday, which both the media and the super-delegates will not disclose in detail. Notes Gleen Greenwald:

Perfect End to Democratic Primary: Anonymous Superdelegates Declare Winner Through Media
Last night, Associated Press – on a day when nobody voted – surprised everyone by abruptly declaring the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The decree, issued the night before the California primary in which polls show Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a very close race, was based on the media organization’s survey of 'superdelegates': the Democratic Party’s 720 insiders, corporate donors and officials whose votes for the presidential nominee count the same as the actually elected delegates. AP claims that superdelegates who had not previously announced their intentions privately told AP reporters that they intend to vote for Clinton, bringing her over the threshold. AP is concealing the identity of the decisive superdelegates who said this.

...

This is the perfect symbolic ending to the Democratic Party primary: The nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders and donors whose identities the media organization – incredibly – conceals. The decisive edifice of superdelegates is itself anti-democratic and inherently corrupt: designed to prevent actual voters from making choices that the party establishment dislikes. But for a party run by insiders and funded by corporate interests, it’s only fitting that their nomination process ends with such an ignominious, awkward and undemocratic sputter.

Clinton accepted the latest attempt to impose a corporate-owned subsidiary onto the United States, after feigning surprise. Typical deceitful Hillary Clinton. You don't have to settle for a Clinton.

From the Bernie Sanders campaign:

Tuesday marks the largest set of primaries and caucuses in the Democratic nomination process with six states voting for president and 694 pledged delegates up for grabs.

Pundits and the political press want to call this race early before every last person votes. That threatens to suppress voter turnout in New Jersey, California, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico. But we’re not going to let that happen. On Tuesday, we’re going to defy the pundits once more and reach for the kind of high voter turnout that will again shock the establishment.

We won’t settle for the status quo. We won’t settle for a rigged economy held in place by a corrupt system of campaign finance. We won’t settle for a fossil fuel industry hell-bent on harming our planet to pad their profits. We won’t settle for a health system that doesn’t cover everyone. In California, a high voter turnout won’t just mean a victory for our movement.

With large numbers of young people hitting the polls, we’ll boost so many Democrats in major primaries that right-wing Republicans will be locked out of general election ballots for some of the most important House and Senate races of the fall.

Members of the media and political establishment may have anointed Secretary Clinton from day one, but we know that this race is going to carry on until the delegates cast ballots at the convention in Philadelphia.

We should let the voters decide who they want the Democratic nominee to be rather than having the media decide for them. I am asking you to continue to stand with Bernie in pushing for the political revolution.

Liars and Lunatics Define 2016 Campaign

The Big Con

Scamming Our Country

Updated: Bill Clinton called Bernie Sanders voters, "toast," this weekend, a stance Clinton offers to non-Clinton-donating Americans, (Yilek, The Hill).

The corporate media continues its Hillary Clinton-poised-to-win-[if-we-add-in-super-delegates] mantra prior to its declaration Hillary Clinton wins the nomination. In fact, super-delegates are unbound and cannot vote until the Convention.

After talking "politics" by phone with Bill Clinton last year, Donald Trump persists in his loosely staged wrestling match that Trump appears to be throwing with outrageous racial taunts against the fastest growing demographic in the electorate.

Bernie Sanders maintains defiance of the corporate-Hillary-DNC axis asking questions corporate media will not touch about American society and funneling wealth to the One Percent ... then to the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton laughs and refuses to answer queries asking
if Clinton will release transcripts of her paid talks to
Goldman Sachs. See the video of Hillary Clinton at The Intercept.

Some questions not being asked:

Why were Bill and Hillary Clinton talking politics with the leading birther, Donald Trump, last summer? Why would the Clintons even associate with a slime like Trump?

Why is the media including super-delegate totals, (since last year), in its reporting on the presidential primary? Why doesn't the media state the truism that super-delegates are unbound and cannot vote until the Convention?

What did Hillary Clinton say that compelled Goldman Sachs to pay her $Millions.

See

• Hillary Clinton Laughs When Asked if She Will Release Transcripts of Her Goldman Sachs Speeches (Fang, The Intercept)
• Hillary Clinton Again Declines to Disclose What She Told Big Banks in Her Paid Speeches (Fang, The Intercept)
• Hillary Clinton Won’t Say How Much Goldman Sachs CEO Invested With Her Son-in-Law (Fang, Moltke, The Intercept)

Why did the Clinton Foundation accept $Millions from human garbage in Saudi Arabia?

Canceling Our Wisconsin State Journal Subscription

South-central Wisconsin daily chooses ideology over facts and evidence

This household will receive its last hard copy issue of the Wisconsin State Journal this week. We are canceling our subscription. Our original subscription was for the Capital Times, and we were led to the State Journal kicking and screaming as it was the last resort of a print daily in Madison.

The State Journal has increasingly nixed local coverage like many print dailies, but the State Journal stands out in this regard especially after it axed veteran writers Doug Moe and sports writers Andy Baggot and Dennis Semrau last June, deciding profits are more interesting than people and local policymaking (Lueders, Isthmus).

Unlike other dailies, the State Journal can't blame its dispensing with community coverage on corporate media consolidation, social media, and the Internet (Peck, Editor and Publisher and George, Mediashift).

The State Journal made its decision, and chose hard-right ideology over facts, evidence and analysis; stenography over investigation and reporting. This echoes the rest of the corporate press.

The lifeblood of print dailies, local coverage, appears a quaint memory today.

There is a group of talented reporters still at the State Journal but their copy is almost always slanted toward the Republican Party of Wisconsin by copy editors (they write the headlines), and the perverse conventions of modern journalism, refusing to note as fact the duplicity of political office holders and their paymasters during this period of unprecedented corruption and lawlessness.

As an aside, we note with appreciation the tenacity and outstanding performance of our newspaper carrier.

More important than the depletion of local coverage—a hole being filled in Dane County in part by Woodward Communications, Inc.'s Unified Newspaper Group based in Verona and the weekly Isthmus—is the undeniable fact the State Journal is and has been a propaganda sheet for the rightist Republican Party in its slanted news and disingenuous editorial page.

The State Journal has followed the crazed Republican Party of Wisconsin right off the cliff, damn the consequences for the state.

Its refusal to endorse Scott Walker last year was an act of self preservation, yet even this editorial omits the myriad scandals and economic, social, and environmental disasters that Walker has inflicted onto Wisconsin.

Instead in the milquetoast endorsement of Walker's opponent, Mary Burke, the State Journal describes Walker as divisive and his tenure in chairing his signature 'jobs' agency as sloppy and disappointing.

Corrupt, vindictive, spiteful, destructive and betraying of generations of Wisconsinites would have been more appropriate language in describing Scott Walker, as the editors of the State Journal are aware.

Our household is no longer prepared to support this Republican propaganda organ and the pamphleteers producing it. We'll pick up our free print edition of the local Capital Times, (delivered to subscribers on Wednesdays with the State Journal), at the Meadowridge library.

On a final note, the subscription price of the State Journal varies widely and depends on little known and seemingly arbitrary ways to sign up. Last year we found out that we paid nearly double of what others paid for the same service. This after paying that high fee for over 18 years. There have been many times since the Capital Times became a weekly that we have considered canceling our subscription to the State Journal, but now with all these factors piling up, it seems a wiser choice to get our local news from more locally minded sources, such as WKOW and WISC television.

NYT Still out to Get Hillary

Like 10s of millions of Americans, I would love to see Bernie Sanders as president.

Like 10s of millions of Americans, I am repulsed by the New York Times' treatment of Hillary Clinton and the Times' latest faux scandal.

"Email Controversy Begins to Weigh on Hillary Clinton’s Allies," reads today's Times' First Draft column.

What weighs on most Americans, including Clinton's allies, is not the story pushed by the disingenuous and out-of-touch corporate news media for five months.

"Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress ... ," notes Vox (Allen) on the mainstream media's obsession with vacuity when covering Clinton.

Hillary supporters know progressives and activists who love Bernie would vote for Hillary if she becomes the nominee, out of the same sense of outrage that propelled Bill Clinton to a 70 percent approval rating after the Republican impeachment nonsense (abetted by the same corporate media attacking Hillary today), and which launched MoveOn as a force in the American political culture.

As we watch Donald Trump offer more craziness in light of the working hypothesis that Trump might indeed be a Democratic plant in the GOP presidential primary, a contemporary variant of H.L. Mencken's observation of the American public is appropriate: 'No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence and craziness of the Republican Party's base.'

The same could be said of the corporate media's obsession, and one wonders if Hillary's allies fed the 'email scandal' story to the Times (Michael S. Schmidt (March 2, 2105)) in the first place, so Hillary later can put out the winning message: This garbage is what the media and Republicans think you care about; not your family, not jobs, not liberty, not equality, not opportunity, and not the future of this country.

Media's Impact on Democracy Focus of Forum

Pravda told Soviet readers news of the world

Journalists from several Madison media news outlets will meet in the Anderson Auditorium (Predolin Hall) at Edgewood College to discuss the changing face of journalism and journalism ethics in a public forum October 21 at 7 PM.

A vital topic indeed.

I read the hard copy of the Wisconsin State Journal every morning and the newspaper is emblematic of the problems in conventional journalism.

Here's some ideas:

Local coverage: Do some. Do more.

Used to be local coverage was the lifeblood of newspapers, but local coverage at least in the State Journal is more likely to be found in Doug Moe's column or the local crime coverage.

Speaking of local crime coverage, don't take police statements at face value, and stop running mug shots of the accused. Cooking police reports and testilying render police statements not credible, whatever crime and allegations the accused faces.

In the Leviathan that is American society (often for the wrong shade of people) too many wrongfully imprisoned individuals get trashed in the paper, with never an apology when proven innocent.

Editors need to understand the difference between neutrality and objectivity.

Neutrality is to take the statements of a Scott Walker, Iron County District Attorney Martin Lipske or a Ted Cruz and report them, uncritically.

Objectivity is to take the statement, hypothesis or spin of our lying politicians for example, and verify their hokum against empirical reality and report the results and draw conclusions. This way news will more closely approximate reality.

One reason politicians like Walker, Lipske and Cruz feel free to lie is they know they will not be held accountable in the news columns by conventional journalism and its stunning lack of standards in using facts, evidence and the imperative to measure stated positions of subjects against reality.

The results, from the 2003 Iraq War Invasion to Scott Walker's appointment of aides embezzling from military veterans, can range from the tragic to the outlandish, with no shame from the party-press  journalists crafting propaganda sheets delivering a make-believe world to its readers who do live in a democracy.

US Business Press Blew Meltdown Coverage

John Tomasic has a piece on how the press admits they blew coverage of the financial meltdown.

It's sort of a cross between the Chomsky-Hermann propaganda model of corporate journalism and the journalistic equivalent of administrative law capture theory, by implication.

In a windowless room at the Westin Hotel in downtown Denver, leading business journalists and editors explained how the media 'blew it' in covering the economic meltdown. They admitted, on one hand, to falling under the sway of free-market ideology and celebrating risk-taking financial leaders and, on the other, to missing the complex story of the rupturing system by only reporting it in parts and to almost no effect for the past decade.

Although not planned as confession, the discussion, which kicked off the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW), quickly descended into an unburdening, with the panelists taking turns voicing their own explanations and excuses for the failure.

Since when does corporate journalism not blow coverage of a major event like government lies, war, recessions, the health care industry and that kind of stuff?

I think they have the low-down on how Brad and Angelina might not be getting along, with some hot fashion tips for Spring; but serious journalism?

Cockburn Skewers Geithner and Others

Update: John Judis ask in TNR "Are Banks Controlling Obama?" Sure seems that way. Let's call for an accounting of what went wrong, again. The culprits are greed, political complicity, and no safety net for the great mass of people who comprise our country.

Alexander Cockburn seems to blast everyone in this weekend's posting on CounterPunch (though Cockburn calling Paul Krugman or anyone else stylistically "pompous" is ridiculous).

Worthy of mention is the fact that CounterPunch is among the very few journals that tells the ugly truth about the global financial meltdown, and Cockburn points out that Krugman is almost uniquely positioned in the corporate media to offer ongoing analyses.

...In his official obituary for the bank bail-out scheme, published in the Times on (last) Monday – the same day as the scheme’s official birth -- Krugman announced somberly that 'This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.'

Yes, this does sound a bit pompous, even though Krugman is a crisp columnist. As connoisseurs of the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf and other prominent economic Cassandras down the decades know well, there’s nothing like a widely-read economics column to induce a tone of self-importance in the author. 'I’m concerned about Europe,' Krugman began a column grandly a few weeks ago.

By this week’s end Krugman was conclusive in judgement. 'I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.'

Far more acrid have been CounterPunch’s A-team of economic commentators – starring former assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Hudson, Pam Martens, Michael Whitney, Peter Morici and other contributors too numerous for individual mention.

Clueless Pundits

Mark Nickolas at Huffington has a great piece out on the foolishness of pundits, including UW-Madison alum Jeff Greenfield.

On this historic day, I thought it would be instructive to look back on just how wrong some of the pundits were when Barack Obama (D) launched his bid for the presidency two years ago, including the embarrassing remark by an esteemed member of the self-described 'Best Political Team on Television' (CNN):

'Illinois Senator Barack Obama's announcement this week that he's likely to enter the Presidential race adds a dash of glamour and excitement to the Democratic field. But all of his media attention doesn't change the basic truth of the 2008 primary contest: The race is between Hillary Rodham Clinton and everybody else.'
- The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, Jan. 18, 2007

'Ask yourself, is there any other major public figure who dresses the way [Obama] does? Why, yes. It is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, unlike most of his predecessors, seems to have skipped through enough copies of 'GQ' to find the jacket-and-no-tie look agreeable. And maybe that's not the comparison a possible presidential contender really wants to evoke... Now, it is one thing to have a last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful. But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the axis of evil, why, this could leave his presidential hopes hanging by a thread. Or is that threads?'
CNN Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield, 'The Situation Room,' CNN, Dec. 11, 2006

Misplaced Police Priorities

Amid the discordant political backdrop, recriminations abound about whether the murder of a 21-year-old UW-Madison woman could have been prevented.

Aside from proposed audits and spirited defenses of the Dane County 911 Communications Center and other Dane County officials, it's worth noting the priorities and policies of local law enforcement agencies here. [I hope not to read the word 'leadership' again; it doesn't exist on this matter.]

As the routine break-up of house parties and the pursuit by police of other frequent illegal college recreational pastimes continue apace here, one wonders if police officers foot-patrolling neighborhoods at night with the objective of protecting property and persons might be a better use of limited police resources vis-a-vis busting a 19-year-old for having a beer or smoking a joint on campus.

And one less parking meter boy (like that pathetic guy who wears the floppy safari hat), and one more officer walking on the street looking out for a female student walking home at night from the library would certainly do.

The culture of skepticism of callers' intent that pervades the 911 call center, '(s)hort-staffed almost always' (Isthmus), ought to draw the attention of the proposed audit, as well.

The imperatives of judgment, discretion, and priorities in public safety become clearer when tragedy strikes.

Local Media for Coverage of Brittany Zimmermann Fall-out

- Isthmus

- Uppity Wisconsin

- Dane County 101

- Capital Times

- Wisconsin State Journal

County/City Resources

- Madison Common Council: Alders

- Board of Supervisors - Dane County, Wisconsin

- Dane County 911 Communications Center

- Madison Police Department

- Dane County Executive

Capital Times' Coverage Lagging in UW-Madison Death

Update: Cap Times back on it: See - Falk apologizes to Zimmermann's family, fiance (Capital Times, May 6) and County Board chair wants answers on 911 problems (Cap Times, May 6).

- Falk apologizes to Zimmermann's family, fiance (Capital Times, May 6)

- Soglin: We all failed Brittany Zimmerman.

via MAL Contends

I was sorry to see the Capital Times hard copy newspaper go, but I told a friend its online iteration was an innovation that would see it stay on the bleeding edge of technology in bringing Dane County residents the news.

But Isthmus and the Wisconsin State Journal have been massacring the Capital Times in their coverage of the biggest local news story that has residents outraged—the Brittany Zimmermann murder and the failure of the Dane County 911 Center to send a police unit in time to save her life.

No doubt the Capital Times remains dedicated to bringing readers the news, but as measured by breaking coverage, general and investigative reporting, and incisive editorial comment, Isthmus and the Wisconsin State Journal are the go-to media for the latest on the Brittany Zimmermann murder and the Dane County 911 Center scandal.

The Capital Times has prided itself on its historical commitment to covering local issues of concern to readers.

But its start as an online medium as exemplified in its coverage on the Brittany Zimmermann murder-Dane County 911 Center story is inauspicious.

***Note*** Contributions in memory of Ms. Zimmermann may be sent to:

The “Dollars for Brittany” scholarship fund
Care of the Brittany Zimmermann Memorial Fund
Marshfield Medical Center Credit Union
P.O. Box 279
Marshfield, WI 54449

Clinton's Unchallenged Spin

Update: See Getting Real and Assessing Strength in Swing States (NYT, April 24, 2008).

This morning, Hillary Clinton and her surrogates keep on with the desperate and ludicrous spin that winning big states in the Democratic primary points to winning these states in the general election, hence Hillary is the stronger candidate.

Losing in national popular vote total, number of states won, number of pledged delegates won, and high negative voter impressions, the Clinton campaign's contention is posited to the likes of Wolf Blitzer and network know-nothings who let Clinton's ridiculous proposition go on in silence, without laughing it off the air.

To impart any substance into Clinton's assertion, one has to believe that Clinton's winning California and New York in the primary means that Obama as nominee would not win these states in a general election. Ridiculous.

And as Hillary likes to appeal to history, one must believe that Bill Clinton's losing most of New England in the 1992 primary would suggest that Bill would perform there badly in the general election. [It didn't happen.]

And to take Hillary's thesis and apply it to the swing states like Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin (where Obama won in this primary), one must, by Clinton's logic, argue that Obama and not Clinton would win these vital states in the general election.

In fact, one can apply this logic of the 30-plus states won by Obama (at this primary's end) and conclude that Obama, and only Obama, would win these states in the general election.

Preposterous, yet the network airheads let this crap go on unchallenged.

Russ Feingold's Opponents Ought to be 'Apologetic'

In Jonathan Weisman's page one, well-disguised hit piece on Barack Obama in today's Washington Post (GOP Doubts, Fears 'Post-Partisan' Obama), Weisman makes numerous references to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.

Writes Weisman: " ... In contrast, the American Conservative Union ranked (Obama) at 8 percent, the same figure awarded to Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), two unapologetic liberals. (italics mine)"

Why the suggestion that Feingold (and Boxer) have something for which they need be apologetic?

Was it Feingold's vote against the Iraq War? The discredited Patriot Act? The Bush tax cuts for the super-rich? Feingold's authorship of ethics reform? Feingold's fight for the Fourth Amendment?

Of the eight Republican rightwingers quoted in the piece, none of the names are accompanied by "unapologetic" adjectives, though an objective observer would conclude that in domestic and foreign policy, rightwing politics have been disastrous to the United States and the world.

###

Lying Administration and Go-along Liberal Pundits Getting Old

Update: Excerpt from a nice e-mail from a reader regarding the rabid pro-invade-everywhere advocate, Shane Hensinger.

To understand Shane Hensinger, you need to keep in mind that he (I think it's a "he," anyway) is what is sometimes called a Zionofascist. The Zionofascists are concerned that any criticism of the Iraq invasion *at the current historical juncture* could pose an impediment to their dream of an Iran invasion. I think that was the reason for the extreme reaction to your DK piece. Not only the Zionofascists and the Neocons, but even a large segment of the Democratic Party are now getting seriously involved in pushing for an invasion of Iran. Hensinger did use some extreme language in his comments on my pieces, but he never resorted to obscenities, as he has in his comments on your piece. I think that shows the level of his/their desperation. They really really really want an Iran invasion now, and won't tolerate anyone or anything that stands in their way.

The REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER show on August 24, 2007 this summer features Tim Robbins and Michel Martin, a media talking head, who manages to say almost nothing perfectly, something of a younger David Broder.

Michel Martin's performance on Maher's show and on NPR lays bare the banality and refusal of American journalists to critically analyse American foreign policy, no matter how blatant the deadly policy and how obvious the lies supporting the criminal enterprise that is the Iraq War.

The following exchange is instructive:

ROBBINS: [overlapping] The reason why they don’t want to take any responsibility for this (the Iraq War) is because of the incredible disaster it’s resulted in. And that might mean you might have to take some moral responsibility for an awful lot of death.

MARTIN: But how do you – why – why is it so invested in the idea that it was a lie, as opposed to a mistake? I guess what I’m just curious about is why.

ROBBINS: Because it was—

MARTIN: It has to be deliberate falsehood as opposed to wrong, just mistaken and wrong?

ROBBINS: That’s an awful lot of fuck-up. [laughter] [applause] I’m sorry. [cheers] On many different levels. Many different levels.

So even approaching five years after the illegal war was thrust upon the world based on obvious and discredited lies, a journalist like Martin can say with a straight face that the Bush administration did not lie, but was simply mistaken and wrong.

Now, we have the continuing ahistorical effort to portray the U.S. as carrying out the will of the United Nations in a noble "occupation" upholding international law. The Iraqi War that is no longer a war. Amazing.

"The Security Council, at the request of the recognized Iraqi government, has authorized the presence of US and coalition forces in Iraq on a yearly basis," says a liberal blogger, Shane Hensinger.

Martin, like many liberals of Hensinger's caliber, will not concede simple facts and acknowledge the lies put forth in support of the illegal American invasion that most of the rest of the world sees clearly:

- Today, we see an attempt to assert that the illegal invasion is made legal after the fact.
- The Charter of the United Nations, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and Westphalia convention do apply in Iraq.
- That there is no functioning sovereign Iraqi government representing the Iraqi people, as millions have been displaced from their generations-old homes and 100,000s live in segregated neighborhoods. The Iraqi government is a fiction.

- That foreign fighters mostly come from American allies.

- That the U.S. has driven out two Iraqi heads of state.

One could go on.

To disparage the neocon's intentions, achieving democracy vis a vis a client oil state, is off-the-charts for many liberals in the blogging community as well as in the outer reaches of the liberal mainstream press.

Despite the resurrection of the propaganda program that the Iraq War is a noble attempt to establish democracy parroted by Martin and liberal bloggers, fortunately, most Americans have come to the conclusion that this war, whatever the liberals and neocons may now call it, is simply not worth the costs.

###