Ann's Mega Dub: 1/16/22

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Call Me Kat

Call Me Kat airs Thursday nights on Fox. This was the third episode of the second season. I really didn't care for the episode. :(

The secondary story was okay. Max and Carter had to teach Phil to ride a bike and finally 'succeeded' via training wheels. There were some chuckles there and some gentle humor.

I did not care for the main story where Kat and Randi were at odds and insulting one another -- Randi more so than Kat. Their friendship is at the heart of the show and I just felt that the storyline was weak (rooming together has them on each other's nerves) and it was just a little too harsh.

And that was before the "bitch" term started being used. Which is a word and I'm not opposed to it in TV shows but it seemed all wrong being toseed around by Randi and Kat to one another -- in anger, not in humor.

That's the first episode I've never really been crazy about. I think there was too much drama and not enough comedy. Even when Lucy and Ethel fought, there was a reassuring quality to it. This was a little too raw and a little real for my comfort.

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

Friday, January 21, 2022. Joe Biden's report card is an embarrassment and a major attack is carried out by ISIS in Iraq.

Oh, look, Nate Silver thinks he's people. The statistician Tweeted:

The best way to understand Biden is not as a moderate or a liberal but as someone who, with a good deal of success, has always tried to position himself at the center of the Democratic Party. So as the Democratic Party has moved left, so has Biden.

1:29 PM · Jan 17, 2022

Stick to numbers, robot, it's really all you can deal with -- not understand, mind you. You can't understand numbers and your whole career has proven that -- though others did prop you and pretend when you were with THE NEW YORK TIMES. But after you predictions -- passsed off as facts -- for 2016 were so wrong, you really should stick to just adding and subtracting, maybe a little multiplication.

Peter Daou replies to Human Calculator Nate:

Like Pelosi, Biden is the ultimate protector of the status quo. He's no more "left" than you are a rabbit.

Basic reality like that leaves Nate highly confused.

In fact, we do have footage of Nate reacting to Peter's Tweet.

Reed Zeta Tweets to correct Nate:

When it came to the Iraq war, he was not in the center. He was in the Lieberman camp.

7:00 PM · Jan 19, 2022

And that's an accurate descritpion. Although it could be argued that there were issues that even Joe Lieberman wa more progressive on than Joe Biden was.

Yesterday, we noted Margaret Kimberley's latest column at BLACK AGENDA REPORT where she evaluated year one of Joe Biden's presidency. In the video below, she's addressing the same topic on FAULT LINES RADIO.

Margaret also addresses Biden and his presidency on BAM NECESSARY in the video below.

Also calling out Joe's first year as president is Howie Hawkins who, at COUNTERPUNCH, offers:

It is time for progressives to stop being passive spectators of the inside game that progressive members of Congress are playing, which has only led to negotiating concessions with conservative Democrats who hold the balance of power in a closely divided Congress. It is time for independent political action that focuses on organizing and mobilizing the majority support that already exists for many progressive reforms like the Green New Deal (63%), Medicare for All (72%), Medicare drug price negotiations (83%), tuition-free public college (63%), student debt forgiveness (66%), $15 minimum wage (64%), paid family leave (75%), and tax the rich (71%).

Independent political action means raising progressive demands in the streets and every public forum available without compromise or equivocation. It also means running Green Party candidates on these demands outside the two-party system of corporate rule. Without Green Party challengers from their left, progressive demands will continue to be dismissed by the Democratic leadership because progressive voters pose no threat of taking their votes elsewhere.

Progressives trapped inside the Democratic Party are powerless because the corporate Democrats who dominate the party take their votes for granted since the Republican Party is not an option for progressives. It is time for progressives to build the Green Party and give the voters a real alternative and leverage in the political system.

There is no time to waste. Climate breakdown is accelerating. Inequality is killing us – U.S. life expectancy has been declining since 2015, well before the covid pandemic. Military bloat and the new nuclear arms race are growing without challenge from within the two parties of corporate militarism. We need the Green Party now more than ever.

In the 2020 election, Freen Party member Howie ran against Joe. On Joe's watch, things are getting a lot worse. We'll again note that Veterans for Peace has issued its "Nuclear Posture Review" which concludes:

The world is a much more dangerous place with nuclear weapons, particularly given the current confrontations among nuclear-armed nations. The United States military seeks “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the government appears determined to be the preeminent global power, even in the face of diminishing economic power relative to a rising China. It is hard to imagine the US taking serious steps toward nuclear disarmament without a sea change in the thinking among its political elites and real change in its posture toward the rest of the world.
Activist efforts to restrain US militarism and intervention around the globe, to cut the military budget, and to encourage mutual respect and diplomacy among nations must therefore go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which went into effect January 22, 2021, is an historic and extremely important event. It expresses the clear desire of the peoples of the world to be free from nuclear weapons and the threat of a nuclear war that could end human civilization.
The Nuclear Ban Treaty is a valuable tool for education and organizing. Even though the US and other nuclear-armed states have yet to sign on to the TPNW, many cities in the USxxx have passed resolutions in support of signing. New York City is the latest to sign on to the ICAN Cities Appeal. The US states of California, Oregon, New Jersey and Maine have also passed resolutions in support of the TPNW. Veterans For Peace encourages all of our chapters, members, friends and allies to pursue similar support for the TPNW in their cities.
It is important to build an intersectional movement for peace at home and peace abroad. We are engaged in struggles for racial justice, for non-intervention in the affairs of other nations, and for redirecting funds from the military – and nuclear weapons – to healthcare, education and other human rights. We are making common cause with the burgeoning Climate Justice Movement, proclaiming that climate catastrophe and nuclear war are the twin threats to all life on earth.
Our VFP Nuclear Posture Review provides a stark contrast to the Nuclear Posture Review being prepared for President Biden by the Pentagon, which will continue to justify the discredited idea of nuclear deterrence, while feeding billions more dollars to nuclear weapons manufacturers. We are providing a well-researched and credible alternative that reflects the global desire for nuclear disarmament and peace. We hope that the VFP Nuclear Posture Review will be a guide, a useful tool and an inspiration for all who wish a peaceful future for our children, our grandchildren and generations to come.

At DISSIDENT VOICE, John Rachel speaks with former US House Rep and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney:

John Rachel: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all out war, probably nuclear holocaust. This is the closest it has ever been. Do you agree with this dire assessment?

Cynthia McKinney: While I don’t always agree with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, I have to acknowledge that for many people on the planet, it is already Doomsday; the U.S. is bombing or sanctioning dozens of countries around the world. U.S. bombs and U.S. sanctions have real consequences. As usual, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a very Eurocentric view of Doomsday: Iraq was pummeled with depleted uranium munitions. On a trip to that country three years ago, every member of my delegation arrived home sick after having been in Iraq just over one week. Depleted uranium used there has resulted in incalculable premature deaths, cancers, deformed babies, and untold general illnesses. Depleted uranium has been used in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq. I introduced legislation to prohibit the use of these munitions and was visited by the Pentagon; my Congressional office was event infiltrated by a young, hip-looking intern who was later found rifling through my office files and fired on the spot. I did not, however, hear a peep from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

JR: The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S. as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?

CM: The so-called Spanish Flu actually originated on a military base in Kansas; so, too, the situation with SARS-CoV-2, the so-called China virus, whose bioweapon spike protein originated in the U.S., created with U.S. tax dollars. No one who has lived inside the U.S. would ever seriously declare the U.S. “as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc.” Instead, those who know the U.S., know that the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still ring true today: that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Only Israel and apartheid South Africa could rival the U.S. in modern times. U.S. allies, the colonizing countries, are also responsible for unspeakable horrors in pre-modern times. Now, certain elements of the U.S. Deep State have declared war against the people of Russia, China, and the bloodstreams of the current global population. After all, it was the Project for a New American Century that wrote in Rebuilding America’s Defenses on page 60 the following: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” Every one of the signatories to this document put him- or herself in a position to make this statement become official U.S. policy. Hence, official circumvention of the moratorium on gain-of-function research in order to create the bioweapon spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA concoctions that are being portrayed as “vaccines.” In fact, the Spanish Flu became a global phenomenon helped along by a mass inoculation project of the Rockefeller Foundation. Parallels to today are staggering.

JR: Here’s a chicken-or-egg question: The U.S. accuses both Russia and China of rapidly expanding their military capabilities, claiming its own posturing and increase in weaponry is a response to its hostile adversaries, Russia and China. Both Russia and China claim they are merely responding to intimidation and military threats posed by the U.S. What’s your view? Do Russia and China have imperial ambitions or are they just trying to defend themselves against what they see as an increasingly aggressive U.S. military?

CM: Interesting. I have visited Malaysia many times; it has a vibrant population of people from India and China. Yet, I was in the audience when Tun Dr. Mahathir stated that Malaysians had less to fear from the Chinese than they did from the British. In fact, the U.S. and their cousin English colonizers are responsible for the trafficking of individual Indians and Chinese all over the world. Add to that, the annihilations by French conquerors and Spanish Conquistadores—and you’re talking about the murders and subjugation of untold millions of individuals. The U.S. allies were not the victims of the colonial atrocities of Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Holland. U.S. allies are the perpetrators of incalculable physical and psychological pain in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Interestingly, the friends to the colonized peoples were the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, which was divided as a result of U.S. hegemony over Taiwan and Britain’s sovereignty over Hong Kong. Neither Russia nor China, at their worst, can count the globally pervasive international crimes against humanity that are owned by the so-called West. Even worse, the U.S. has turned those reprehensible international behaviors onto the people of the U.S. Even going so far as testing potential bioweapons on the U.S. domestic population.

Joe's failures, of course, include his being unable/unwilling to address climate change in any real manner. The Green Party issued the following:

WASHINGTON, DC — The EcoAction Committee of the Green Party of the United States (Green Party US) condemns President Biden’s year of climate negligence and renews the call to pressure the president to declare a climate emergency and issue a comprehensive series of related Executive Orders, as described on ClimatePresident.org.

EcoAction Committee of Green Party of the United States
January 18, 2022

Biden and Congressional Democrats must also replace the ever-shrinking “Build Back Better” (BBB) social and climate spending bill with a public vote on robust Green New Deal legislation, without delay. The Green New Deal needs to be implemented immediately to address:

social and economic suffering
healthcare apartheid
existential threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, erosion of democracy, the nuclear threat and gross inequality

In the 2020 election, Green presidential nominee Howie Hawkins called for an annual $2.7 trillion investment in climate initiatives to reduce emissions to zero within a decade. Greens also sought an annual $1.4 trillion investment in an Economic Bill of Rights and COVID relief, focused on guaranteed living wage jobs, guaranteed income above poverty, expanded and improved Medicare-For-All, housing, and education.

The Green Party advocates for a Just Transition, ensuring good jobs and compensation for workers and others dependent on the present fossil fuel industry. Greens support directing a majority of this funding to low-income and communities of color, which face the worst consequences of climate change.

Quote From Green Party US EcoAction Committee Co-Chair Mark Dunlea:

“Biden and the Democrats have squandered the first year of what is likely to be only a two-year window where they have the majority votes in both Houses of Congress. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a ‘Code Red for the planet,’ saying the pledges made by elected officials since the Paris accords were far too little to avoid a climate collapse. It is long past time for Senator Schumer to make Senators take a public vote on whether they will sacrifice the well-being of their constituents and future generations in order to maintain the campaign donations and profits of fossil fuel companies.”

The Democrats’ failure to strip Senator Manchin, with his infamous coal investments, from his position as chair of the Senate Energy Committee is unconscionable. Legislators must find a way to halt the existing, excessive use and misuse of fossil fuels, including natural gas. And yet, while Biden promised to halt new fossil fuel permits on federal land if elected, he has done the opposite.

While the Democrats argue over the size of the ever-smaller (BBB) plan, they recently enacted the world’s largest military budget; the Green Party supports redirecting at least half of Pentagon spending to invest in a Green New Deal. A carbon fee-and-dividend program could make polluters pay for the massive damage they cause while raising revenues for climate action.

Quote From Green Party US EcoAction Committee Co-chair DawnMarie Cronen:

“During WWII, President Roosevelt took control of the American economy to respond to the emergency. He redirected the productive power of the country to build what was needed to protect the American people. I believe Biden needs to take a similar approach, redirecting our productive capacity today from building weapons for oil wars to defeating the urgent existential threat of climate change. We need public ownership and democratic control of our energy and economic systems to ensure that we build renewable energy not only quickly but in the locations that best meet the public needs to find ways to continue to provide heat, electricity and basic needs to our nation and for the sake of our planet.”

The Democrats’ plan to increase energy subsidies for private enterprises is both more expensive and far less effective at cutting greenhouse emissions than employing public works projects and democratic planning. The Green Party opposes Congressional support for false solutions such as nuclear, biomass, garbage incineration, and “carbon capture” technology designed to allow the continued burning of fossil fuels.

We urge Biden and Congress to invest instead in nature-based, climate solutions such as protecting forests, restoring wetlands, and promoting regenerative agriculture. We also support requiring homes to be more energy-efficient and carbon-free, reduce overconsumption and overproduction, and to promote mass transit and other greener transit approaches, such as bicycles and walkable communities.

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party EcoAction Committee Calls for Biden Executive Action on Climate
October 26, 2021

Green Party of the United States

www.gp.org
202-804-2758
Newsroom | Twitter: @GreenPartyUS

Green Party Platform
Green New Deal
Green candidate database and campaign information
Facebook page
YouTube
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Green Papers

Turning to Iraq where the vioence and the war never end, AP reports:

Gunmen from the Islamic State extremist group attacked an army barracks in a mountainous area north of Baghdad early Friday, killing 11 soldiers as they slept, the Iraqi military and security officials said.

The officials said the attack occurred in the Al-Azim district, an open area north of Baqouba in Diyala province. The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear, but two officials who spoke to The Associated Press said Islamic State group militants broke into the barracks at 3 a.m. local time and shot dead the soldiers.

No doubt, DW is prepping another one of tehir articles where they misrepresent actual events and try to pass this off as a "political" divide involving the "losers" of the October 10th elections. But, in the real world, Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:

The attack was one of the deadliest carried out by the extremist group against Iraqi security forces in recent months.

The army's Diyala Operations Command sent reinforcements to the headquarters in Hawi Al Azim district and opened an investigation.

“The attack was carried out against members of the First Division in the Al Azim area that lies on the borders between Diyala and Salaheddin governorate,” Diyala Governor Muthanna Al Tamimi said in a statement.

Mr Al Tamimi said the army were unprepared for the attack.

So ISIS raided Iraqi military headquarters in the dead of night and killed 11 Iraqi service members. Besides "deadliest," I think the adjective "brazen" can also be used.

And this doesn't speak well of the Iraqi miliary. Equally true, this sort of result tends to really embolden ISIS.

And the attack in Iraq took place while ISIS was also carrying out a large-scale prsion break in Syria.

The following sites updated:

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Howie nails it

Joe Biden has failed the country. We needed someone to lead on climate change, to push for Medicare For All, and so much more. Instead, we got an old, dottering fool who is nothing but a slave for corporations. At CounterPunch, Howie Hawkins notes:

Progressive Democrats have been reality-challenged as well. Joe Biden, a lifelong neoliberal hawk, was always part of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party that has more votes in Congress than the progressive wing. But that did not stop Bernie Sanders from saying during the campaign that Biden would be the “most progressive president since FDR,” although the smart money on Wall Street didn’t buy that fantasy. Sanders co-opted progressive Democrats on to Sanders-Biden Unity Working Groups to develop Biden’s platform during the campaign, where Sanders’ progressive agenda began to be watered down.

After inauguration, progressive Democrats made concession after concession on the Build Back Better agenda in a vain attempt to gain the support of conservative corporate Democrats. In a final defeating concession, Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, agreed to delink the conservative Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill from joint passage with the more progressive and expansive Build Back Better bill, saying that she trusted Joe Biden’s word that he would deliver the votes of the conservative Democratic holdouts.

The only bipartisan “success” is a progressive nightmare. It is the passage of the military spending bill in which Congress gave the Pentagon $25 billion more than Biden asked for. Instead of emphasizing diplomacy and economic assistance to reduce conflicts around the world, the Biden administration with bipartisan support is saber-rattling, sanctioning, and escalating tensions with China, Russia, and a host of smaller countries that refuse to kowtow to U.S. dictates.

Meanwhile, progressive domestic priorities have been killed. The Green New Deal is off the table.

The ever-shrinking Build Back Better bill’s far more limited climate program is on life-support at best. Instead of declaring a climate emergency and taking available executive actions for climate protection, Biden is permitting oil and gas drilling and pipelines at a faster rate than Donald Trump.

Medicare for All is off the table when it is needed more than ever in the midst of the covid pandemic. Biden has protected Big Pharma monopoly profits at the expense of public health by failing to use his many authorities to socialize covid vaccine patents and end the “vaccine apartheid” that is enabling new covid variants to evolve as the virus runs wild among the world’s unvaccinated billions in the poorer nations.

Exactly.

Howie was the 2020 presidential candidate for the Green Party.

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

Thursday, January 20, 2022. Violence in many forms (including whoring for poltiicians) plagues us all.

Starting in the United States where the organization Veterans for Peace has issued its "Nuclear Posture Review" which concludes:

Nuclear weapons threaten the planet's very life. They aren't the only threats. There's pollution -- pysical pollution. There's the less noted mental pollution where we all enter into some form of a daying will wherein we agree to lie to ourselves that some worthless politician is going to save us. They're not even going to address our most basic needs so you have to lie pretty big to pretend they're actually going to save us.

At BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Margaret Kimberley notes the push to distort Joe Biden in order to carry his tired, corporate and corrupt ass into the White House:

“Biden came across as a plantation owner telling the field hands that they have a good life and ought to be grateful.”

This columnist wrote those words in December 2020 before Joe Biden was inaugurated. His meeting with a group designated as Black leaders was as bad as one could expect, complete with dismissal, rudeness, and outright disrespect. It was vintage Biden, a man who was never the brightest and is now elderly and not fully in command of his faculties.

But the real Biden was always an unreconstructed racist, bragging about the 1992 Crime Bill which he said would, “Do everything but hang people for jaywalking.” Barack Obama chose him as a running mate precisely because of his credentials among conservative, race baiting democrats. Having run as a fake progressive Obama needed someone decidedly in the conservative camp to balance the ticket.

In 2020 Obama and the rest of the party establishment decided to make Biden the nominee, ordering others out of the race and clearing the field for the candidate who had no constituency outside of the wealthy individuals and corporations that keep the democrats afloat. A combination of fundraising prowess and antipathy towards Donald Trump created a large voter turnout and Biden won the popular and electoral vote.

The democrats’ propaganda machine played no small role in dragging Biden over the finish line. They settled on the term “harm reduction” to convince the skeptical that they should put aside their concerns and vote for the man they didn’t want. Biden won with a record breaking number of votes, and in cities across the country democrats quite literally partied in the street when he won.

Biden was propelled by the same propaganda effort when his term began one year ago. We were told that he was “the most progressive president since FDR.” The democrats are still living off their reputation from Franklin Roosevelt’s Social Security Act and the creation of Medicaid and Medicare during the Lyndon Johnson administration. No democrat has created anything of the sort in the last 50 years but the memories lingers and scoundrels evoke the past in order to fool the people in the 21st century.

We were told that Biden’s stimulus plan and child tax credits would “cut child poverty in half.” Absent an increase in the federal minimum wage and lacking permanent legislation, it did no such thing. The child tax credit ended in 2021. Unemployment compensation ended three months ago, and republican led states refused to provide the additional payments that congress had authorized. They did so without push back from Biden or from democrats in congress.

Now Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted and it isn’t hard to understand why. Put simply, he lied in order to get votes. He said he would forgive student loan debt for those who attended public colleges and whose families met income guidelines. He could have done this without congressional approval but he hasn’t acted. It is clear that he never had any intention of raising the minimum wage, using the Senate Parliamentarian as an excuse to avoid doing what he promised voters he would do.

That politicians lie is not a new or novel observation but grasp this went beyond the candidate. A lot of whoring was involved in carrying Joe to the White House -- a lot of whores lied and knew they were lying. They're as deadly to the planet as any run off into our streams and rivers. They don't just lie for the candidate, they bully people trying to silence critics and trying to drum up votes.

They're dirty whores. They say things like -- you know who I mean here -- that right now, in 2021, there actually has been an increase in wages because if you look at the stimulus from 2020 . . .

You know the whore I'm talking about. You know him very well.

They can't stop whoring.

And, honestly, shame on the people who promote them.

When do we get the reckoning?

How about when do we get the truth about Tara Reade?

I believe her. Her accusations against Joe Biden are credible.

I don't know her and I'm actually glad I don't because Tara's lied to herself since she came forward. Shes pretended that certain people were going to help her and defnd her. That was Tie's Up, that was Ryan Grim and THE INTERCEPT, that awas so many people.

If we knew each other, we would not have had nice conversations.

I don't play. About the nicest thing I would've said was, "Can you drop the TAR-rah and just pronounce it Tara since this is the US and not the UK and we really don't need to combat charges of pretentious natures as well as everything else."

People were laughing at her, for example, at THE NEW YORK TIMES, over the pronuciation of her first name.

When I spoke to one NYT-er over the phone about how the paper was treating her, they made me first agree that she was asking for mockery with "TAR-ah."

That would've been our easisest converation. And she probably would've stuck with TAR-ah since that's how it's been her whole life.

But I wouldn't have played and pretended the way some did -- a lot of people around her just didn't know better but there were some who damn well should have known what was going on.

We noted that Time's Up didn't just refuse her case but they were actually working against her.

Actively. Not in the past but while the story was briefly being cov ered.

We noted that Alyssa Milano attacking Tara based on what Times Up told Alyssa was outrageous and unethical -- Times Up was not q clearinghouse devoted to attacking women -- that's not why it got money.

But Ryan Grim was not at all interested in that story. It was put to him. He didn't see the merit.

Of course, thanks to what happened with Cuomo, the whole world knows what a fake Times Up was. How it betrayed women and worked with powerful Democratic men to destroy women.

Ryan could have had that story but that would've required some actual work. A friend tried spoon feeding it to him but he was either too scared or too stupid to grasp what he was being handed.

At any rate, we called out the betrayers here.

And Tara trusted the wrong people.

SUch as "Mama's boy" who was never going to ride to her rescue because his Mommy was never going to let him -- please, it's only in the last five or so years that she's let him -- yes, let him -- be openly gay. Mommy was not going to let him go after Joe. No matter what Rose might have told Tara, Mama's boy was not riding to her rescue. (And he never did.)

But what has prevented the press in all the time since from re-examing what went down. Times Up, as we noted here in real time, was feeding NYT and other outlets smears against Tara. They were treated as trusted sources and got to be off the record.

I don't think that should have happened in real time which is why I called it out..

But now that the world knows that Times Up lied about women who were assaulted, that Times Up lied to protect Andrew CUomo, isn't it past time that those outlets that shaped their coverage of Tara based on smears from Times Up had to go back and actually report?

Mama's Boy is Ronan for anyone who didn't grasp it. I'm not in the mood in this morning. I was there when Mia had her freakfest over Ronan wanting to be a girl. I was there when Mia had her freakfest over Ronan might be gay. I was there . . . I know what Ronan's allowed to do and what he isn't. I'm just glad Mommy's not hopping in the bed with him.

pekaing of which, Dylan whatever her name is now --Blaine, Liar, I don't know. What I do know is that her hugely inventive story doesnt hold up. And I never would have said that if she and Mia hadnt launched their attacks on others. Up until the Iraq War, I was Mia's friend of many years. I knew Woody before Mia but knew him largely through Mia. I did not like Woddy. I still don't. But when Mia conspired to create draama and attack others, she begged the world -- even her friends -- to question the lie she'd put forth for years.

Grasp that HBO has done no multi-part story on Tara Reade. She's accusing the President of the United States, the sitting president. And her story is credible.

Dylan's is not at all credible. You have family members who say "no."

You also have logic.

For the story to be true, Woody molested one child and only one child. That's not the profile of a pedophile.

More to the point, as that Bbad HBO mini-series made clear without realizing it, the story is that Woody molested her once. Once. That's a pedophile?

All the times they were together. Many times without Mia. And he only molests Dylan once? And he waits until after the media is abuz with the custody battle between Mia and Woody?

But that nosnense and that garbage is treated as reality by HBO while Tara accusing a sitting president of having assaulted her is ignored?

Dylan gets coverage because of favors and I'm damn sick of it. I've not just dropped a friend and stopped promoting her hear because of her rallying to Dylan late last year, I'm also preventing her from getting film roles. She was up for a comedy. I'm friends with the actor that's already cast in the role. I spent an evening with him and his wife reviewing how former-freind doesn't just bust up her own marriages but bust ups the marriages of her male co-stars. Did they really think her so-so talent -- and promise to reduce for a month at a fat farm if she got the role -- justified them risking their own marriage by letting her be his co-star? Nope. They didn't.

HBO allowed lies to be told about Woody -- and broke the law by using clips from his films without his autorization, he should have sued -- but Tara is not to be believed? Tara's story is not to be explored?

Joe and company lied about where the complaint would be and refussed to allow access to his papers. The phone call of Tara's mother to Larry King was turned up -- the clip of Tara's mother calling in to Larry King's CNN show. She has friends wh has told about this over the years.

And this gets ignored. But the adopted daughter of an acclaimed filmmaker and a celebrity claiming she grew up with a pedophile who molested her once and only once is treated newsworthy despite the fact that two investigations found nothing to support the claims Mia made and coaced Dylan on? Coached. We can use that term because that is what the findings suggested in the only actual investigations that took place.

A lot of whores worked the streets to discredit and attack Tara Reade. One of those? Times Up and we now know what they really were. So why isn't the public record being corrected?

There is not even the pretense of a funcitioning press in the US these days. In fact, refer to Jonathan Turley and the topic of the post is important but especially note things like:

Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor issued a rare joint public statement Wednesday to disclaim the bombshell NPR report by Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg on the unpopularity of Gorsuch among his colleagues and his alleged refusal to wear a mask despite a threat to the health of Sotomayor. The justices stated that Totenberg’s account on the mask controversy was false.

[. . .]

In one incident, NPR itself expressed regret that Totenberg did not reveal a close personal relationship with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg despite years of coverage.

[. . . ]

Chief Justice John Roberts also issued a statement that it was false, as claimed, that he asked any of colleagues to wear masks on the bench.

[. . .]

The controversy at NPR occurs after the publicly funded company changed its policy to allow its reporters to take active parts in protests for social justice — erasing a long-standing bright-line rule in journalism. The impact of such advocacy journalism is evident in every poll where the faith in the media has plummeted. Indeed, the “Let’s Go Brandon” movement is as much a criticism of the media as it is President Biden. The United States ranked dead last in media trust among 49 countries with just 29% saying that they trusted the media.

We will not be able to restore the trust in the media until these companies abandon reporting “in some form” and return to simple journalism.

Again, where is the functioning press?

VOLTAIRE RECORD maintains:

On 18 November 2021, US Representatives, Peter A. DeFazio (R-Oregon), Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) and Jamaal Bowman (D-New York), wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to specify on which constitutional basis he was bobming Syria and Iraq.

At the end of the two-month regulatory deadline, the White House has still not responded to them. The military actions perpetrated by the United States against these two countries are, therefore, not only violating their sovereignty, but also the US Constitution.

I hadn't heard of that letter and I'm not familiar with the outlet so I'm using "maintains." (The item was sent to the public e-mail account.)

Violence continues this morning in Iraq. AHLULBAYT NEWS AGENCY reports:

Iraqi media sources reported on Thursday morning that two horrific explosions took place in the southern province of Basra.

The blasts were caused by two improvised explosive devices, Shafaq News quoted security officials.

The first explosive device exploded near the Taiz company belonging to the security defense in the Manawi Basha district.

The second blast occurred near an Islamic bank on Esteghlal Street.

And we'll wind down with this from THE NEW ARAB:

An Iraqi man shot dead his daughter, his ex-wife and her mother and then committed suicide at the scene in Hillah city in the central province of Babil, the police said on Tuesday, in the latest deadly case of domestic violence in the country.

Security forces blocked the area off and moved the bodies for forensic examination, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister service, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

"The 19-year-old son of the killer was wounded in the attack, and the incident occurred in the killer's ex-wife's house in the Nader neighbourhood in downtown Hillah," Babil Bar Association member Ahmed Abdel Ghani Al-Fatlawi said.

"Initial investigations show the crime was planned by the man, who committed suicide immediately after killing the victims."

Iraq's High Commission for Human Rights previously said it had seen a clear increase in domestic violence crimes, saying that this type of crime disproportionately impacts women and children.

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Jizzy Pants Maxwell back in the news

Ghislaine Jizzy Pants Maxwell is back in the news.

Iguess the verdict shocked her and now she feels screw the rest of the crooks who left her out to hang dry.

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

Wednesday, January 19, 2022. We deal with a number of topics including how it's cute what the press dubs "political violence" and what it doesn't.

Germany's DW is ridiculous today. They report:

Over the past month, there has been an increase in political violence in Iraq again.

But, instead of the US bases or convoys that are often attacked, there were some less-usual targets. Last week, grenades were thrown at offices belonging to Sunni Muslim and Iraqi Kurdish political parties in Baghdad.

On Sunday, grenades were lobbed at two Kurdish-owned banks in the capital.

On Monday, the house of a Shiite Muslim cleric in Muthanna province was attacked by gunmen.

And, earlier in January, a senior member of a Shiite paramilitary group was apparently assassinated in southeastern Maysan province.

Has there been an increase in "political violence in Iraq"?

Not really. If you only count political parties being targeted as political violence, then, yes, there was an increase.

That requires you to ignore the last years of violence aimed at political protesters -- violence that has wounded them and killed them. Any two month period, Iraq has seen more injured and killed for protesting than they have since the October 10th election with violence aimed at candidates and parties.

But apparently, DEUTSCHE WELLE, like the Iraqi government, doesn't give a damn about the Iraqi civilians who were injured and killed for excersizing their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

You look at the western press like DW and have to wonder if they're supposed to be a news outlet or the society pages because they have no interest in the Iraqi people.

It's also cute what DW wants to argue was ''political violence:"

Over the past month, there has been an increase in political violence in Iraq again.

On Sunday, grenades were lobbed at two Kurdish-owned banks in the capital.

On Monday, the house of a Shiite Muslim cleric in Muthanna province was attacked by gunmen.

And, earlier in January, a senior member of a Shiite paramilitary group was apparently assassinated in southeastern Maysan province.

Oh no!!!! Kurdish owned banks targeted!!!! Stop the political violence!!!

There's no proof that the attack on the banks was political violence. As for the assassination of "a Shi'ite paramilitary group" member? That's violence. Not political violence. That's violence and I'm sorry DW is unaware of how often the militia members do get shot in Iraq. Strange because they include a Tweet noting that the attacsk on the militia members have been taking place "on a monthly basis since 2018." But I guess DW is too busy churning out nonsense to grasp that the Tweet they include undercuts their highly suspect argument.

They slide right by the attacks on US bases or convoys, don't they?

This despite the fact that, since Joe Biden said combat missions have ended for US troops in Iraq, there have been at least three attacks a week on either US bases or US convoys in Iraq.

What's going on with DW? They selected the narrative and then cherry picked -- poorly -- events to try to back it up. Events do not back it up.

Deutsche Welle is such a joke but then they all are these days. DW goes on to insist, "As varied as they are, these targets all have something in common. They all did something to offend the losers in last October's federal elections."

The lies never end when DW decides to take a course in creative writing.

Really? The targets had in common that they did "something to offend the losers in last October's federal elections"?

How did the militia members that were targeted do anything to offend the losers?

DW does grasp that the big losers were the militias, right? They were disenfranchised by not being allowed to vote in the early election which meant theyd have to vote on election day but couldn't do that unless the polls they were deployed to protect were also the polling station that they would vote in.

Who objected repeatedly and repeatedly challenged the results?

That's right the militias.

So, again, DW, explain to me how they -- militia members -- did "something to offend the losers in last Octobers federal elections" when these targeted militia members were the losers in the October 10th election?

Do we just make up any lie and stick it out there?

Apparently, the wester press does.

Today, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:

Iraq’s top court on Wednesday adjourned the session to review the cases filed against the first parliamentary meeting to January 25.

The Federal Court decided to adjourn the hearing after the plaintiff claimed MP Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who was chairing the first parliamentary session on January 9, was assaulted before being evacuated from the parliamentary hall.

However, the plaintiff failed to provide a medical report at court.

The Iraqi parliament held its first session earlier this month, almost three months after October’s early election.

And his article also notes that Iraq has until February 8th to elect the president. (They can't do a prime minister-designate until they have a president.) So that's about 20 days from now. And -- maybe DW should focus on this? -- they aren't any closer to moving forward politically.

The most interesting thing about the DW article may be its outlandish headline, "Hope for democracy in Iraq as political violence escalates."

There is no democracy in Iraq.

Actions have consequences -- unless it's the US government's actions and then the press wants to ignore the consequences. If you were an Iraqi who went to the polls in 2010 and, like most did, voted to send Nouri packing and eight months later the US government overturned your vote, why would you believe in voting? Why would you ever believe your vote mattered?

Some of us -- a handful -- called this b.s. out in real time. Some of us noted the longterm effects from this move. Others, like Patrick Cockburn, just lied like a whore. To this day, Paddy and his burning pee-wee has never once written of The Erbil Agreement. Because that's what whores do. Historians have not been silent and it's already part of the historical record. And we'll make sure that part of the record is that Patrick Cockburn never told the truth about The Erbil Agreement, he was just a cheap liar who lied repeatedly.

It matters.

History matters.

You can see the fall off in voting after the votes were overturned by the US government in 2010. The Iraqi people began to stop voting culminating in October's disasterous turnout that was much worse than the press ran with. It was noted, before the election, that they were going to count turnout differently -- and it was noted that was because they expected the turnout to be low.

The press needs tos top lying. It's not helping anyone.

In other news, Human Rights Watch notes:

On December 31, Iraqi security forces killed 20 people from a single family in a raid on a home in Jableh district in Babil governorate, south of Baghdad. Security forces carried out the raid after reportedly receiving false information about a suspect purportedly living there. While the Iraqi government swiftly opened an investigation, the authorities should examine how security forces often appear to rely on unsubstantiated, questionable, and/or false information to target suspects, especially alleged ISIS members.

On January 3, the Iraqi judiciary charged 13 people – including 9 state security personnel for their involvement in the Jableh operation and killings. Iraq’s High Judicial Council said in a statement that a relative of one of the victims provided “false information as a result of family disputes.” Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi also subsequently dismissed senior officers in Babil, including the police chief in Babil governorate and intelligence chiefs in Jableh and Babil, and formed a committee of senior security officials to investigate the massacre.

The Iraqi government’s quick and high-profile actions are a positive response to these killings. But the authorities have previously formed committees to investigate human rights violations while failing to publicly disclose any findings. There has been little transparency on any measures to sanction those responsible, nor have there been any structural changes to address the root causes of these abuses. The committee should directly address how unsubstantiated information is often used to justify targeting and arresting suspects.

Human Rights Watch has long documented the misuse and abuse of Iraq’s anti-terrorism laws and policies. Iraqi authorities, for instance, continue to rely on unverified information provided to them by secret informants about former ISIS members and sympathizers. Media and Human Rights Watch reporting has shown that some residents and families have exploited security forces’ reliance on often unsubstantiated accusations from informants to settle personal and family disputes.

Reports indicate that in this case, the informant who provided the false information was a police officer himself, raising still more concern about the perversion of anti-terrorism laws and policies among those tasked with enforcing them.

The Jableh massacre is a tragedy. It will be even more devastating if the authorities who claim they intend to prevent another like it fail to address the structural issues that helped facilitate these killings.

In sports news, we'll note this press release from the Kurdistan Presiden Barzani's office:

President Nechirvan Barzani receives medalists in women’s weightlifting

Erbil, Kurdistan Region, January 19, 2022

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani received eight women athletes who won medals in the Arab Weightlifting Championship, in Erbil on Wednesday.

All the medalists are from the Kurdistan Region, representing the Iraqi team in the tournament which was held December 26-31 in Erbil last year, taking home several gold, silver and bronze medals.

The President lauded the medalists and said that their achievements had made their families and him proud and happy. The President also expressed his full support for the contestants and wished them continued success.

The medalists expressed their appreciation and delight over the meeting with the President, and said that they were motived further by the President’s great encouragement and support.