Here's Victoria on tape -- she didn't expect that to surface, right? For those who can't stream or audio doesn't work for, BBC provides a transcript:
Warning: This transcript contains swearing.
Voice thought to be Nuland's: What do you think?
- Jonathan Marcus: At the outset it should be clear that this is a fragment of what may well be a larger phone conversation. But the US has not denied its veracity and has been quick to point a finger at the Russian authorities for being behind its interception and leak.
Voice thought to be Pyatt's: I think we're in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here. Especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you've seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we're trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to him, which you'll need to make, I think that's the next phone call you want to set up, is exactly the one you made to Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk, another opposition leader]. And I'm glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario. And I'm very glad that he said what he said in response.
- Jonathan Marcus: The US says that it is working with all sides in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be and is striving to achieve these goals. Russian spokesmen have insisted that the US is meddling in Ukraine's affairs - no more than Moscow, the cynic might say - but Washington clearly has its own game-plan. The clear purpose in leaking this conversation is to embarrass Washington and for audiences susceptible to Moscow's message to portray the US as interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs.
Nuland: Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea.
Pyatt: Yeah. I guess... in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok, the other opposition leader] and his guys and I'm sure that's part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating on all this.
Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the... what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in... he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not going to work.
Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that's right. OK. Good. Do you want us to set up a call with him as the next step?
Nuland: My understanding from that call - but you tell me - was that the big three were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that context a... three-plus-one conversation or three-plus-two with you. Is that not how you understood it?
Pyatt: No. I think... I mean that's what he proposed but I think, just knowing the dynamic that's been with them where Klitschko has been the top dog, he's going to take a while to show up for whatever meeting they've got and he's probably talking to his guys at this point, so I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down and he explains why he doesn't like it.
Nuland: OK, good. I'm happy. Why don't you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or after.
Pyatt: OK, will do. Thanks.
Nuland: OK... one more wrinkle for you Geoff. [A click can be heard] I can't remember if I told you this, or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] this morning, he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry did I write you that this morning?
- Jonathan Marcus: An intriguing insight into the foreign policy process with work going on at a number of levels: Various officials attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition; efforts to get the UN to play an active role in bolstering a deal; and (as you can see below) the big guns waiting in the wings - US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate moment.
Pyatt: Yeah I saw that.
Nuland: OK. He's now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.
- Jonathan Marcus: Not for the first time in an international crisis, the US expresses frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow. It certainly cannot win a short-term battle for Ukraine's affections with Moscow - it just does not have the cash inducements available. The EU has sought to play a longer game; banking on its attraction over time. But the US clearly is determined to take a much more activist role.
Pyatt: No, exactly. And I think we've got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that this is out there right now, I'm still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there's a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now and I'm sure there's a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast. So let me work on Klitschko and if you can just keep... we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
Nuland: So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing.
Pyatt: OK. Great. Thanks.
Here's the late Robert Parry (CONSORTIUM NEWS):
As the Ukrainian army squares off against ultra-right and neo-Nazi militias in the west and violence against ethnic Russians continues in the east, the obvious folly of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy has come into focus even for many who tried to ignore the facts, or what you might call “the mess that Victoria Nuland made.”
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”
To sell this latest neocon-driven “regime change” to the American people, the ugliness of the coup-makers had to be systematically airbrushed, particularly the key role of neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists from the Right Sektor. For the U.S.-organized propaganda campaign to work, the coup-makers had to wear white hats, not brown shirts.
So, for nearly a year and a half, the West’s mainstream media, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, twisted their reporting into all kinds of contortions to avoid telling their readers that the new regime in Kiev was permeated by and dependent on neo-Nazi fighters and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who wanted a pure-blood Ukraine, without ethnic Russians.
Any mention of that sordid reality was deemed “Russian propaganda” and anyone who spoke this inconvenient truth was a “stooge of Moscow.” It wasn’t until July 7 that the Times admitted the importance of the neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists in waging war against ethnic Russian rebels in the east. The Times also reported that these far-right forces had been joined by Islamic militants. Some of those jihadists have been called “brothers” of the hyper-brutal Islamic State.
Though the Times sought to spin this remarkable military alliance neo-Nazi militias and Islamic jihadists as a positive, the reality had to be jarring for readers who had bought into the Western propaganda about noble “pro-democracy” forces resisting evil “Russian aggression.”
Perhaps the Times sensed that it could no longer keep the lid on the troubling truth in Ukraine. For weeks, the Right Sektor militias and the neo-Nazi Azov battalion have been warning the civilian government in Kiev that they might turn on it and create a new order more to their liking.
There's nothing good or noble in Victoria Nuland's past. Today, she was revealed as a cheap liar again.
Bad news for Chris Steele, Kathy Kavalec and especially Victoria Nuland
The IG report confirms at least one of you is lying about your meeting at the State Dept. in Oct 2016.
THREAD
- Nuland testified under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee that she was "not aware of" an Oct 2016 meeting with Steele at the State Dept. "until afterwards"
- (Of course that never made any sense because directly before that Nuland said she "actively chose not to be a part of the" Steele briefing. You can't actively not go to a meeting you don't know is happening....)
- Steele told the IG that Nuland *was meant to be at the meeting*, but he arrived late from the airport, and so Nuland departed before he got there
- Kavalec told the IG that Nuland specifically directed her to attend the meeting with Steele. Yep, the meeting Nuland said under oath she wasn't even aware of until afterwards, she specifically directed a subordinate to attend
- The IG report fails to clear up these mutually contradictory accounts and the IG appears not to have challenged Steele/Kavalec/Nuland about who was telling the truth about a key meeting right before the election And of course no criminal referrals for lying, heaven forbid /ENDS
Cheap liar. And "cheap" really is the best adjective when discussing Nuland.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, December 11, 2019. No Christmas tree in Baghdad Plaza this year and much more.
Starting in the United States where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues and War Hawk Joe Biden continues to stumble. Ella Nilsen (VOX) reports:
They are must win and we've talked about this (for weeks now). If Joe loses Iowa, it's a hit and his support dips. That's only more true if he were to lose Iowa and New Hampshire. And when we talk about that, we're talking about the support from voters.
However, money, money, money . . .
Money, money, money...
Money makes the trees come down
It makes mountains into molehills
Big money kicks the wide wide world around.
-- "This Place," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album SHINE
Money, money, money. Joe's making an effort in Iowa and it's cost him -- financially. If he loses Iowa watch some of his funding dry up. If he loses Iowa and New Hampshire, even more dries up. Can Joe's campaign stay afloat if he loses both?
"Joe Biden needs to grow up." So argues John Krull (GOSHEN NEWS) about the 77-year-old temper tantrum throwing Joe:
The former vice president and current candidate for president indulged in a temper tantrum with an Iowa voter the other day. The voter said Biden and his son Hunter had been “selling access” to the White House when the younger Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company.
Joe Biden flared.
“You’re a damn liar, man,” he said to the 83-year-old Iowa farmer.
Worse, the former vice president continued to defend his snappish response to the man long after his anger should have cooled. He kept telling interviewers the man was lying and that he was entitled to unload on an ordinary citizen who had the temerity to question him.
In the first place, the farmer may not have had every fact straight, but it’s unlikely that he was lying. He is a Democrat, one who said afterward that he was going to vote for whoever the party’s nominee is — even if it’s Biden.
But that is beside the point.
Biden’s little fit of pique demonstrated that he doesn’t grasp that a lot of people — many of them Democrats and independents — have a problem with his son’s work with Burisma. The fact that he was paid $50,000 per month to do not much work raises questions. That the younger Biden had scant qualifications other than his last name to fill such a position only makes things worse.
Joe's got a lot of negatives. One of them? He's reminding people of other candidates who didn't end up president. Tyler MacDonald (THE INQUISITR) reports:
Democratic presidential candidate and frontrunner Joe Biden recently released a campaign ad that attacks Donald Trump as “erratic” and “unstable,” painting the former vice president as someone offering the “strong,” “steady,” and “stable” leadership the United States needs. The ad was quickly derided by progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski, who suggested that it was following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid against Trump.
“It’s like the Biden campaign studied Hillary’s failed campaign and
said: ‘ok, lets try that again!’, it calls Trump ‘unstable’ and
‘erratic’, and Biden ‘experienced,'” he tweeted. “Hillary was
experienced and Trump was erratic & unstable in 2016 and he won.
‘Trump bad’ is a losing strategy!”
Kulinski continued to blast the ad’s focus on attacking Trump, suggesting that it isn’t “creative, interesting or inspiring.”
Ava and I noted this with Tom Steyer's ads -- you need to tell the people what you will do. Your obsession with Donald Trump just makes him stronger. What are you going to do to make the lives of Americans better? Instead, you make your ads all about Donald Trump, suggesting you're good at envy but not good at planning for the future.
Joe's being endorsed by Kate Miller. Not the actress. So who? A little speck from the center-world. Born in 1952, she is a bit young to be a Joe Biden supporter. But her lifetime of nonsense makes her the perfect foil. VOTE SMART notes of Kate, "Kate Miller refused to tell citizens where she stands on any of the issues addressed in the 2012 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart, national media, and prominent political leaders."
Meanwhile the Joe Clone, his mini-me, Tiny Pete continues to underwhelm despite the avalanche of easy press he's been receiving for two months now. Rebecca Morin (USA TODAY) notes:
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg hasn't seen his recent surge in early-state polls translate to national polls. He is at 9% in Tuesday's Quinnipiac Poll, but was in second place at 16% in last month's poll.
Tiny Pete and War Hawk Joe are two birds of a feather. Thankfully, there are alternatives. Sarah Lazare (IN THESE TIMES) reports:
Update:
Following publication of this piece, a Senate spokesperson for Elizabeth Warren contacted In These Times with the following comment: “I just saw your piece on the NDAA. She does not support this level of defense funding and does not plan to vote in favor of the NDAA.”
Warren then tweeted the following remarks: “The Pentagon’s budget has been too large for too long. I cannot support a defense bill that’s a $738 billion Christmas present to giant defense contractors & undermines our values and security.”
Earlier:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only 2020 presidential hopeful who has pledged to vote against—and loudly denounced—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020, a $738 billion military spending bill that would mark a $22 billion increase over last year. The other frontrunner in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is tasked with negotiating the contents of the bill, but has so far remained silent on how she will vote. None of the other Democratic presidential candidates in Congress—Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)—have indicated their voting intention, either.
The initial House version of the NDAA included certain restrictions on how military spending could be used, including measures prohibiting the allocation of funds to an unauthorized war with Iran and stopping U.S. military support for the war on Yemen. But a new compromise bill, released Monday, strips these out. While the compromise offers some concessions, such as paid parental leave for some federal workers, peace campaigners characterize it as a win for the Right. The House and Senate are expected to vote as soon as this week on the bill, which includes authorization for Trump’s proposed “space force” as part of the compromise.
On Bernie Sanders, Beatrice Adler-Bolton (JACOBIN) offers:
To live in the United States as a person with disabilities is to encounter daily acts of abuse and oppression. Working disabled people can legally be paid less than $1 an hour under federal law, an appalling exemption to already inadequate minimum-wage standards. Disabled people on Social Security Income (SSI) must report any income, including gifts, every month to maintain meager amounts of coverage, and can lose their benefits by marrying. We are more likely to be poor, and more likely to become homeless — more than 40 percent of homeless people are disabled.
For the first time in awhile, several of the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary have outlined proposals to address this. Last month, Julián Castro made a big splash by releasing a platform that, among other things, would scrap discriminatory wage laws and allow disabled SSI recipients to wed without penalty. Even Pete Buttigieg, in a long document brimming with 1990s-style Clintonite rhetoric, has laid out an agenda to take the disabled community on a glide path to equality.
But there’s only one candidate with a comprehensive set of policies that would directly enhance the lives of disabled people in the United States: Senator Bernie Sanders.
Disability rights issues are woven directly into the proposals of almost every single policy document the campaign has released to date. The Sanders campaign clearly understands that disability is not simply a set of special interests to be siloed off, but a common aspect of everyday life affecting a key group of people that US policy routinely degrades, diminishes, and often oppresses.
Housing is a disability issue. Labor is a disability issue. Health care is a disability issue. Disabled people are on the front lines of climate change. And the agenda that Sanders is advancing not only recognizes that all of these issues greatly affect disabled people; it recognizes that no program or policy is good enough if it does not work for the most marginalized among us — the disabled very much included.
Read on for specifics (and note these are the same issues that Hilda was raising in last week and this week's HILDA'S MIX).
Turning to Iraq, Samya Kulab (AP) reports:
War Hawk Joe has still not been asked about the months of turmoil in Iraq by the press covering his campaign. Bonnie Kristian (REASON) points out:
After months of deadly, large-scale grassroots protests demanding reform in Baghdad, Iraqi, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced his intent to resign and the country's parliament approved his resignation. In the protests, about 400 demonstrators, mostly young and unarmed, have been killed by Iraqi security forces; another 8,000 have been injured; and about a dozen security forces have also died in clashes with a violent minority of protesters. Today, it is unsettled who will become the new head of government.
It is unlikely to be a question easily resolved. The demonstrators' complaints are extensive, including state corruption and incompetence, unemployment and economic stagnation, and a perception of foreign influence over domestic politics, notably from Iran. More important than these specific issues, however, is the protesters' overarching critique of the governance structure in Baghdad—a structure shaped by Washington's nation-building efforts after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. That dissatisfaction makes this political unrest a fresh and urgent impetus to end American military intervention in Iraq once and for all.
U.S. exit could signal a move toward meaningful reforms the Iraqi people want. It would also be a boon for the American people, bringing closure to a misguided military intervention that has proven costly and counterproductive to U.S. security.
It is commonplace in U.S. politics to hear of the "end" of the Iraq War under former President Obama, but it is an odd end to a war which leaves thousands of occupying troops in place. The Trump administration began this year with more than 5,000 boots on the ground in Iraq, and, since then, added to their number after reshuffling U.S. forces in Syria. It has been nearly three years since Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State—whose rise occasioned a growing U.S. footprint in Iraq beginning in 2014. In those years, Washington has ignored repeated Iraqi calls for withdrawal of all foreign militaries, as well as recent insistence from Baghdad that American forces relocated from Syria cannot stay.
Meanwhile Reporters Without Borders notes:
Muhanna was the third journalist to be murdered since a major wave of anti-government protests began in Iraq on 1 October. His death triggered an outcry on social networks.
The first journalist to be killed was Hisham Fares Al-Aadhami, a freelance photographer who was fatally shot in the chest by an irregular militia member while covering the protests in Al-Khilani Square on 4 October
The other fatal victim was Amjed Al-Dahamat, a writer and citizen-journalist who, according to the information obtained by RSF, was shot by unidentified gunmen near his home in the southeastern province of Maysan on 7 November.
“Rarely have Iraqi journalists been so exposed to danger and so vulnerable,” said Sabrina Bennoui, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “It is unacceptable that reporters in the field should be killed simply for having a camera or video camera. The Iraqi authorities must thoroughly investigate these clearly deliberate murders in order to identify those responsible.”
On the same day that Muhanna was murdered, another freelance photographer, Zaid Al-Khafaji, was kidnapped from his home on his return from covering the protests in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. CCTV camera footage show men entering his home prior to his disappearance.
He was the second journalist to be abducted in recent weeks. The first was Muhammad Al-Shamari, a member of the Iraqi Observatory for Press Freedoms, who was kidnapped on 17 November and was released the next day.
Iraq is ranked 156th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.
The following sites updated:
Starting in the United States where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues and War Hawk Joe Biden continues to stumble. Ella Nilsen (VOX) reports:
Joe Biden’s
2020 campaign is confident it can do the improbable: win the Democratic
nomination for president without winning Iowa and New Hampshire.
“We’ve long felt that one of our unique advantages is
that we have multiple paths to the nomination, and I’m not sure anybody
else can say that right now,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager Pete
Kavanaugh told Vox.
The path rests on winning the Obama coalition of nonwhite
voters; many older black voters in particular have so far signaled
their loyalty to Biden. Though they’ve been campaigning and organizing
in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former vice president’s
campaign says faltering there wouldn’t be a death knell. Their paths
hinge on strong showings in the more diverse early states of Nevada and
South Carolina, and riding that energy into delegate-rich Super Tuesday
on March 3. Pointing to the southern states of North Carolina, Florida,
Georgia, and Virginia, Kavanaugh said, “Places like that we think we
could have a really profound advantage.”
“We strongly believe — and have consistently said — that no single state is a must-win,” he added.
Political experts in the early states disagree, saying that taken together, Iowa and New Hampshire are indeed must-wins.
They are must win and we've talked about this (for weeks now). If Joe loses Iowa, it's a hit and his support dips. That's only more true if he were to lose Iowa and New Hampshire. And when we talk about that, we're talking about the support from voters.
However, money, money, money . . .
Money, money, money...
Money makes the trees come down
It makes mountains into molehills
Big money kicks the wide wide world around.
-- "This Place," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album SHINE
Money, money, money. Joe's making an effort in Iowa and it's cost him -- financially. If he loses Iowa watch some of his funding dry up. If he loses Iowa and New Hampshire, even more dries up. Can Joe's campaign stay afloat if he loses both?
"Joe Biden needs to grow up." So argues John Krull (GOSHEN NEWS) about the 77-year-old temper tantrum throwing Joe:
The former vice president and current candidate for president indulged in a temper tantrum with an Iowa voter the other day. The voter said Biden and his son Hunter had been “selling access” to the White House when the younger Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company.
Joe Biden flared.
“You’re a damn liar, man,” he said to the 83-year-old Iowa farmer.
Worse, the former vice president continued to defend his snappish response to the man long after his anger should have cooled. He kept telling interviewers the man was lying and that he was entitled to unload on an ordinary citizen who had the temerity to question him.
In the first place, the farmer may not have had every fact straight, but it’s unlikely that he was lying. He is a Democrat, one who said afterward that he was going to vote for whoever the party’s nominee is — even if it’s Biden.
But that is beside the point.
Biden’s little fit of pique demonstrated that he doesn’t grasp that a lot of people — many of them Democrats and independents — have a problem with his son’s work with Burisma. The fact that he was paid $50,000 per month to do not much work raises questions. That the younger Biden had scant qualifications other than his last name to fill such a position only makes things worse.
Joe's got a lot of negatives. One of them? He's reminding people of other candidates who didn't end up president. Tyler MacDonald (THE INQUISITR) reports:
Democratic presidential candidate and frontrunner Joe Biden recently released a campaign ad that attacks Donald Trump as “erratic” and “unstable,” painting the former vice president as someone offering the “strong,” “steady,” and “stable” leadership the United States needs. The ad was quickly derided by progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski, who suggested that it was following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid against Trump.
Kulinski continued to blast the ad’s focus on attacking Trump, suggesting that it isn’t “creative, interesting or inspiring.”
Ava and I noted this with Tom Steyer's ads -- you need to tell the people what you will do. Your obsession with Donald Trump just makes him stronger. What are you going to do to make the lives of Americans better? Instead, you make your ads all about Donald Trump, suggesting you're good at envy but not good at planning for the future.
Joe's being endorsed by Kate Miller. Not the actress. So who? A little speck from the center-world. Born in 1952, she is a bit young to be a Joe Biden supporter. But her lifetime of nonsense makes her the perfect foil. VOTE SMART notes of Kate, "Kate Miller refused to tell citizens where she stands on any of the issues addressed in the 2012 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart, national media, and prominent political leaders."
Meanwhile the Joe Clone, his mini-me, Tiny Pete continues to underwhelm despite the avalanche of easy press he's been receiving for two months now. Rebecca Morin (USA TODAY) notes:
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg hasn't seen his recent surge in early-state polls translate to national polls. He is at 9% in Tuesday's Quinnipiac Poll, but was in second place at 16% in last month's poll.
Tiny Pete and War Hawk Joe are two birds of a feather. Thankfully, there are alternatives. Sarah Lazare (IN THESE TIMES) reports:
Update:
Following publication of this piece, a Senate spokesperson for Elizabeth Warren contacted In These Times with the following comment: “I just saw your piece on the NDAA. She does not support this level of defense funding and does not plan to vote in favor of the NDAA.”
Warren then tweeted the following remarks: “The Pentagon’s budget has been too large for too long. I cannot support a defense bill that’s a $738 billion Christmas present to giant defense contractors & undermines our values and security.”
Earlier:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only 2020 presidential hopeful who has pledged to vote against—and loudly denounced—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020, a $738 billion military spending bill that would mark a $22 billion increase over last year. The other frontrunner in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is tasked with negotiating the contents of the bill, but has so far remained silent on how she will vote. None of the other Democratic presidential candidates in Congress—Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)—have indicated their voting intention, either.
The initial House version of the NDAA included certain restrictions on how military spending could be used, including measures prohibiting the allocation of funds to an unauthorized war with Iran and stopping U.S. military support for the war on Yemen. But a new compromise bill, released Monday, strips these out. While the compromise offers some concessions, such as paid parental leave for some federal workers, peace campaigners characterize it as a win for the Right. The House and Senate are expected to vote as soon as this week on the bill, which includes authorization for Trump’s proposed “space force” as part of the compromise.
On Bernie Sanders, Beatrice Adler-Bolton (JACOBIN) offers:
To live in the United States as a person with disabilities is to encounter daily acts of abuse and oppression. Working disabled people can legally be paid less than $1 an hour under federal law, an appalling exemption to already inadequate minimum-wage standards. Disabled people on Social Security Income (SSI) must report any income, including gifts, every month to maintain meager amounts of coverage, and can lose their benefits by marrying. We are more likely to be poor, and more likely to become homeless — more than 40 percent of homeless people are disabled.
For the first time in awhile, several of the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary have outlined proposals to address this. Last month, Julián Castro made a big splash by releasing a platform that, among other things, would scrap discriminatory wage laws and allow disabled SSI recipients to wed without penalty. Even Pete Buttigieg, in a long document brimming with 1990s-style Clintonite rhetoric, has laid out an agenda to take the disabled community on a glide path to equality.
But there’s only one candidate with a comprehensive set of policies that would directly enhance the lives of disabled people in the United States: Senator Bernie Sanders.
Disability rights issues are woven directly into the proposals of almost every single policy document the campaign has released to date. The Sanders campaign clearly understands that disability is not simply a set of special interests to be siloed off, but a common aspect of everyday life affecting a key group of people that US policy routinely degrades, diminishes, and often oppresses.
Housing is a disability issue. Labor is a disability issue. Health care is a disability issue. Disabled people are on the front lines of climate change. And the agenda that Sanders is advancing not only recognizes that all of these issues greatly affect disabled people; it recognizes that no program or policy is good enough if it does not work for the most marginalized among us — the disabled very much included.
Read on for specifics (and note these are the same issues that Hilda was raising in last week and this week's HILDA'S MIX).
Turning to Iraq, Samya Kulab (AP) reports:
The Christmas tree
in the middle of a central Baghdad plaza occupied by anti-government
protesters is bare, save for portraits of those killed under fire from
security forces. A tribute, the demonstrators explained, to a recent
decision by Iraq’s Christians to call off seasonal festivities to honor
the losses.
Leaders
of Iraq’s Christians unanimously cancelled Christmas-related
celebrations in solidarity with the protest movement — but the aims of
their stance go deeper than tinsel and fairy lights. Slogans of a united
Iraq free of sectarianism resonate deeply within the community, which
since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein has fearfully observed its
diminishing influence amid growing Shiite-dominated politics shaping
state affairs. The Christians have also left Iraq in huge numbers over
the years, after being targeted by militant Sunni groups such as
al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.War Hawk Joe has still not been asked about the months of turmoil in Iraq by the press covering his campaign. Bonnie Kristian (REASON) points out:
After months of deadly, large-scale grassroots protests demanding reform in Baghdad, Iraqi, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced his intent to resign and the country's parliament approved his resignation. In the protests, about 400 demonstrators, mostly young and unarmed, have been killed by Iraqi security forces; another 8,000 have been injured; and about a dozen security forces have also died in clashes with a violent minority of protesters. Today, it is unsettled who will become the new head of government.
It is unlikely to be a question easily resolved. The demonstrators' complaints are extensive, including state corruption and incompetence, unemployment and economic stagnation, and a perception of foreign influence over domestic politics, notably from Iran. More important than these specific issues, however, is the protesters' overarching critique of the governance structure in Baghdad—a structure shaped by Washington's nation-building efforts after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. That dissatisfaction makes this political unrest a fresh and urgent impetus to end American military intervention in Iraq once and for all.
U.S. exit could signal a move toward meaningful reforms the Iraqi people want. It would also be a boon for the American people, bringing closure to a misguided military intervention that has proven costly and counterproductive to U.S. security.
It is commonplace in U.S. politics to hear of the "end" of the Iraq War under former President Obama, but it is an odd end to a war which leaves thousands of occupying troops in place. The Trump administration began this year with more than 5,000 boots on the ground in Iraq, and, since then, added to their number after reshuffling U.S. forces in Syria. It has been nearly three years since Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State—whose rise occasioned a growing U.S. footprint in Iraq beginning in 2014. In those years, Washington has ignored repeated Iraqi calls for withdrawal of all foreign militaries, as well as recent insistence from Baghdad that American forces relocated from Syria cannot stay.
Meanwhile Reporters Without Borders notes:
Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed by the growing dangers for journalists
in Iraq, where the latest fatal victim was Ahmad Muhanna, a
photographer who was shot in the back by unidentified gunmen while
covering protests in Baghdad’s Al-Khilani Square on 6 December.
Muhanna was the third journalist to be murdered since a major wave of anti-government protests began in Iraq on 1 October. His death triggered an outcry on social networks.
The first journalist to be killed was Hisham Fares Al-Aadhami, a freelance photographer who was fatally shot in the chest by an irregular militia member while covering the protests in Al-Khilani Square on 4 October
The other fatal victim was Amjed Al-Dahamat, a writer and citizen-journalist who, according to the information obtained by RSF, was shot by unidentified gunmen near his home in the southeastern province of Maysan on 7 November.
“Rarely have Iraqi journalists been so exposed to danger and so vulnerable,” said Sabrina Bennoui, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “It is unacceptable that reporters in the field should be killed simply for having a camera or video camera. The Iraqi authorities must thoroughly investigate these clearly deliberate murders in order to identify those responsible.”
On the same day that Muhanna was murdered, another freelance photographer, Zaid Al-Khafaji, was kidnapped from his home on his return from covering the protests in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. CCTV camera footage show men entering his home prior to his disappearance.
He was the second journalist to be abducted in recent weeks. The first was Muhammad Al-Shamari, a member of the Iraqi Observatory for Press Freedoms, who was kidnapped on 17 November and was released the next day.
Iraq is ranked 156th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.
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