Friday, July 14, 2017

Look who just got paid off for services rendered

It's all about the greed.

Barack Obama was one of the greediest of all.

And he sucked up to Big Money in order to make sure they scratched his back.

Manya Brachear Pashman (Chicago Tribune) reports:


 Technology and energy corporations have joined the list of top donors to the Obama Foundation, which on Friday made public the names of more than 700 patrons from the last three months.
Exelon and Microsoft have given more than a million dollars to the foundation, which was founded in 2014 but boosted its fundraising efforts after President Barack Obama left the White House.
Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist known for creating LinkedIn who has himself given more than a million dollars to the foundation, sits on the board of Microsoft. William Von Hoene Jr., a senior vice executive president at Exelon, which pledged $10 million over the next five years, helps lead the foundation's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.

As Lily Tomlin says in 9 to 5, "Look who just got paid off for services rendered."

And if you're not getting how disgusting Barack really is, note this from James Petras (ICH):


Progressives provided the foot soldiers for the election and re-election of the warmongering ‘Peace Candidate’ Obama. After the election, Progressives rushed to join the lower echelons of his Administration. Black and white politicos joined hands in their heroic struggle to erase the last vestiges of the Progressives’ historical legacy.
Obama increased the number of Bush-era imperial wars to attacking seven weak nations under American’s ‘First Black’ President’s bombardment, while the Progressives ensured that the streets were quiet and empty.
When Obama provided trillions of dollars of public money to rescue Wall Street and the bankers, while sacrificing two million poor and middle class mortgage holders, the Progressives only criticized the bankers who received the bailout, but not Obama’s Presidential decision to protect and reward the mega-swindlers.
Under the Obama regime social inequalities within the United States grew at an unprecedented rate. The Police State Patriot Act was massively extended to give President Obama the power to order the assassination of US citizens abroad without judicial process. The Progressives did not resign when Obama’s ‘kill orders’ extended to the ‘mistaken’ murder of his target’s children and other family member, as well as unidentified bystanders. The icon carriers still paraded their banner of the ‘first black American President’ when tens of thousands of black Libyans and immigrant workers were slaughtered in his regime-change war against President Gadhafi.
Obama surpassed the record of all previous Republican office holders in terms of the massive numbers of immigrant workers arrested and expelled – 2 million. Progressives applauded the Latino protestors while supporting the policies of their ‘first black President’.
Progressive accepted that multiple wars, Wall Street bailouts and the extended police state were now the price they would pay to remain part of the “Democratic coalition’ (sic).
The deeper the Progressives swilled at the Democratic Party trough, the more they embraced the Obama’s free market agenda and the more they ignored the increasing impoverishment, exploitation and medical industry-led opioid addiction of American workers that was shortening their lives. Under Obama, the Progressives totally abandoned the historic American working class, accepting their degradation into what Madam Hillary Clinton curtly dismissed as the ‘deplorables’.


That's the real Barack.


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

 
Friday, July 14, 2017.   The Mosul Slog, officially over, continues.


 Day 269 of The Mosul Slog -- yes, it is still going.



  23h23 hours ago
People coming out of Mosul. I don't think we have any idea what a humanitarian tragedy this has been
157 replies4,261 retweets3,197 likes





And continues to be.



  19h19 hours ago
Replying to 
: Mass executions committed by |i forces in Western . Where are , and Western media?
45 replies309 retweets107 likes




War Crimes.

They haven't stopped and the US is aiding them.  This is in clear violation of the Leahy Amendment which demands the US pull all financial and military support for any country whose military does what is videotaped above.

Peter Beaumont (GUARDIAN) reports:


The Iraqi government has said it will investigate a graphic video that appears to show its soldiers killing an unarmed suspected Islamic State fighter by throwing him off a high ledge.
The video was reportedly filmed in the Mosul area where Iraqi troops have largely retaken a city once controlled by the extremist group, and comes amid mounting concern over claims of abuse committed by Iraqi soldiers and police in the battle for Mosul and in its aftermath.
[. . .]
The footage shows a man being held in a building and then dragged by soldiers across an open area to a ledge above a drop of at least 30ft where another body lies motionless.
It appeared alongside a second video that has also been circulating on social media which appears to show a man in Iraqi army fatigues gunning down an unarmed man kneeling in front of a car.



  40m40 minutes ago
Iraq investigating horrific video of soldiers throwing tortured IS suspects from clifftop
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Bill Van Auken (WSWS) reports:


Gun battles continued to rage and air strikes sent plumes of smoke rising over Iraq’s devastated second largest city Wednesday, more than 36 hours after the country’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, proclaimed victory in the nine-month US-backed siege of Mosul.
The top US commander in the US interventions in Iraq and Syria, Gen. Stephen Townsend, told Pentagon reporters via a video call from Baghdad that fighting in the city could go on for weeks.
“Make no mistake, this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS, and there’s still tough fighting ahead,” Townsend said. “There are still pockets of resistance in Mosul, holdouts, and hidden IEDs that will take weeks to clear.”
He added that there remained “a lot of mopping up and back-clearing to be done.”
These terms are military euphemisms for a continuation of the killing and destruction that has left tens of thousands of civilians in Mosul either dead or wounded and driven over 900,000 from their homes.
There are growing indications that the “mopping up” being carried out by Iraqi security forces and sectarian militias operating with the aid and guidance of US Special Forces “advisers” involves a campaign of revenge assassinations and terror against anyone believed to have collaborated with ISIS during the three years it controlled Mosul, as well as against the families of suspected ISIS members and supporters.
Iraqi security forces have been dragging away men and boys seeking to escape the city. The Washington Post described a “screening station” set up in an old fairground on the eastern bank of the Tigris River where “dozens of men sat in rows last week and waited for judgment.” The article continued: “Military intelligence officers in balaclavas sporadically moved among them to pull out an evacuee accused of working with the militants.” Videos have surfaced of the brutal torture of such suspects, who have been beaten with hammers and run over with tanks.


The Mosul Slog may have been declared over but it slogs on.



  Jul 12

There was fighting in the Old City of Mosul today, 3 days after victory was declared. Not over yet. By
1 reply18 retweets9 likes










  1.   19h19 hours ago
These are the haunting images of Mosul's civilians, still fleeing the city despite Iraqi forces celebrating victory.
8 replies194 retweets85 likes





The Mosul Slog keeps slogging.  Tony Duheaume (AL ARABIYA) wonders what awaits Iraq

But as far as the acts of terror being committed by the Popular Mobilization Units are concerned, they cannot claim them to have just simply committed in the heat of battle, as their past history suggests otherwise. But considering some of these atrocities had taken place under the tenure of the more moderate Shiite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi what would the prospects for future peace efforts be, should Nouri Maliki return to power any time soon.
Because the next time around, Maliki would be implementing his divisive, and pernicious racial policies, using a military fully controlled by Popular Mobilisation Unit commanders, with an agenda of ridding Iraq of any form of Sunni control. All of this backed by the Iranian administration, who are desperate to see a Shiite Islamic republic in Iraq, modelled after their own, and fully controlled from Tehran by their Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Sadly, such a prospect might not be too far in the distant future as Maliki is now campaigning to get his old job back and running neck-and-neck with the present incumbent prime minister. Should Tehran’s man Maliki win, Iraq would most certainly be returning to the dark old days when rampant death squads roamed the streets, a time when badly mutilated bodies turned up in profusion, dumped in ditches after being tortured in the secret dungeons spread across Iraq, set up by National Intelligence Service.
So, the death squads that had caused so much havoc for coalition troops during their occupation of Iraq, have now found themselves fighting alongside Iraqi troops, not only hitting back at advancing ISIS forces, but also responsible for committing atrocities against the innocent Sunni population.

With these militias better armed than before, with more control than ever, they are no doubt readying themselves to once again be pitted against civilians in the role of death squads, should their revered leader Nouri al-Maliki once more become prime minister.



Now for this . . .


  35m35 minutes ago
Proud of who spent her 20th birthday with girls in Kurdistan / Iraq. Read more
0 replies2 retweets4 likes





It's the coward who visited Iraq only once during his eight year presidency.

Trying to grab some luster from a young woman's trip to Iraq.

She's a young woman.

Look what she's doing.

By contrast, Barack's floating around on David Geffen's yacht knobbing with Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen.

But he thinks he's in a place to Tweet about anything?

He oversaw the largest transfer of wealth in US history and the destruction of wages for the working class but he goes off to party on a yacht.  And then rushes in to Tweet about someone else doing what his candy ass should have been doing?




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