Saturday, January 29, 2022

Call Me Kat

A very funny episode of Call Me Kat.  Kat met Oscar's mother which was the main story. 

She liked her despite Kat spilling wine and assorted other disasters.  She invited Kat out for the two of them and it started off fine.  She does like Kat but thinks Kat needs to break up with Oscar because Kat is 40 and Oscar is going to want children at some point so Kat is too old.  Kat pointed out that Halle Berry had two kids in her forties and the mother pointed out that Kat was not Halle Berry.  To which Kat said she knew and that she wasn't old and delusional.


She told Oscar what happened and he was upset about his mother.  He dismissed her Kat's concerns about aging and how she needed glasses for this and how her back and . . . "I love you," he told her.  "Wait, what did you say?"  He yelled, "I love you!"  She responded that she loved him too and then told Randi about it and how this was the first time he had said it and he said it first and how this was the first time and guy had said it.  


Sheila (Kat's mother) told Oscar he better warn his mother that no one hurts her baby.


 The secondary stories?

 

I loved Phil's story.  He had a nemesis -- a cat nemesis.  Cat Sajak.  He threw away Cat's toy and Cat was after him.  Cat scratched up Phil's apron and began doing things like knocking over the stack of clothes Phil had folded.  He told Randi, "I swear this cat is staring at me like I'm Bette Davis and he is Joan Crawford."  Of course, when Cat Sajack was adopted, Phil missed him.


The other secondary story was Max.  He's having a losing streak on the dating scene.  A woman showed up at the bar to bring him the sweat shirt he left at her home last night.  Carter exclaimed, "My man!"  Then, when Max said he could have picked it up when they went out next, she said that they weren't going to see each other again and Carter winced, "My man?"  The woman told Max that she was just wanting casual and it seemed like he wanted more.  And he did.  He wants a relationship like he used to have with the woman in France or like he could have had, he said this, with Kat.


He asked Carter if his breath stank (no), was it the clothes?  No, and Carter told him that you could bounce a quarter off his ass.  So what was it?  He was coming off desperate.  Carter took him over to Kat and Randi for an intervention and he said he was tired of dating and wanted to be in a relationship and Randi told him dating was rough (which Carter objected to -- he and Randi are dating) but "you have to slog through it."  Didn't help Max.  Then, at the bar, a woman was into him and he spoke to her and she was coming off as desperate as he had.  He asked Carter if that's what he sounded like?


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

 

 

Friday, Januay 28, 2022.  Wars continue and start anew because too many people refuse to use their voices.


Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Is there an e-mail campaign going on to this site?  Martha and Shirely counted 32 e-mails insisting that he'd made a fool of himself with his remarks on Anne Frank and that I must be embarrassed.

Nope.

I love him.  He's a friend.  And I didn't hear anything embarrassing in his remarks regarding Anne Frank.  Sorry.  If I'd spoken to him about it, I would've said, here's what you should have said as people tried to imp a fux controversy:

I want to offer my sincere apologies to the borther and sister of Anne Frank who my remarks may have offended -- Huh?  THey're dead?  Okay, to her parents -- Also dead?  It's a historical event.  Anyone can use to build a comparison.  Noting what was done to Anne Frank keeps her memory alive.  I am someone whose father and uncle were assassinated.  I've never tried to police the use of them for analogies.  I haven't thrown a public hissy.  Not even when a US Ambassador elected to mock the death of my uncle John F. Kennedy at an official State Dept event in a tasteless and embarrassing manner.  Didn't say a word.  I mentioned Anne Frank because she's someone I respect.  I know why I talked about her.  My question is why, after I spoke, some people decided to talk about her?  Seems it was less about Anne Frank and more about trying to smear the ideas that I was addressing.


He wouldn't have said that because he's a nicer person than I am. 

I'm not embartrassed by him at all.

He is a strong person who has been through a lot and he's come through it without losing his soul.  

He's used his time and name to address serious issues and done so repeatedly.  When he passes away, he will know his life was not wasted.  

I'm not so sure that his critics can say the same thing.  


The wasted? That would be the faux 'resistance.'  Where are they with Michael Avennati today?  He was their hero and holy savior and now he's on trial.  Do they still love him?  He was a disgusting con artist and, as Ruth noted, that was obvious from the very start.  I question the 'values' of those who rushed to slobber over the ambulance chaser.  But that's the least of their sins against humanity.  Aussie Oracle notes:


From Vaush to Richard Spencer to Rachel Maddow…all in lock step. All supporting war with Russia. All I can say is the CIA is really diverse…
4:31 PM · Jan 25, 2022


And John Stauber responds:

Of course.
@TheDemocrats
are united in their visceral hatred of #Russia, a bunch of warmongers since Truman.



Is that what the Maddow crowd's embrace of the neocons was really all about?  They knew they would whore for war so they forgave the other whores?  There was no accountability for the liars who took the country into war with Iraq.  None at all.  And don't bring up crap-ass media.  MOTHER JONES hired what blogger?  There were tons of antiw-ar and peace bloggers but they went with the hideous Kevin Drum who promoted the Iraq War.  That's MOTHER JONES.  A joke, I know.  But it wasn't always the big joke that it is today.  

FAIR's a pretty big joke as well.  They act as media criticis but, as we've noted so many times before, when talking about people not being held accountable for promoting the Iraq War, they never want to call out MOTHER JONES -- or the PACIFICA reporter who went on air defending the Iraq War, calling it a success and insisting things were going great.  As I'm remembering it this was four months before Camp Casey kicked off in Crawford, Texas.  

A lot of whores were in so-called independent media.

The only one ever held accountable for reporting or commentary on Iraq was . . . Judith Miller.  And where did she get her start?  Oh, that's right:  THE PROGRESSIVE.  

The fakery continues as they're silent about the push for war on Russia.

Not everyone is silent, fortunately.  


The conflict that Washington is provoking with Russia over Ukraine threatens the globe with a catastrophe beyond measure. Driven by insoluble internal crisis and rapacious geopolitical ambition, US imperialism is recklessly marching to the brink of World War III.

The crisis over Ukraine has been manufactured by the United States and its NATO allies on the basis of lies. The Biden administration denounces Russia for the movement of troops within its own borders. The claim of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine is repeated endlessly by the White House and echoed unquestioningly by the mass media.

It is hysterical war propaganda. Russia has never threatened to invade Ukraine. Moscow has stated, however, that it cannot tolerate Ukraine becoming part of NATO.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a geographical alliance of “democratic” states but an imperialist cabal for war with Russia and other countries. Incorporating Ukraine would station NATO arms and forces on Russia’s immediate border and would bind the forces of US and Western European imperialism, under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, to go to war on behalf of the far-right regime in Kiev, tied to neo-Nazis and fascists, in the event it provoked a conflict with Moscow.

US officials have revealed plans to deploy up to 50,000 troops to the borders of Russia and Ukraine. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a statement spurning Moscow’s written request for guarantees that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO. The Biden administration is not negotiating. They do not seek to ease tensions but to goad Putin into armed conflict so that he can be presented as the aggressor.

While US and NATO troops are being mobilized, Washington has set into motion the apparatus of economic warfare. Biden and Blinken have both threatened “severe economic sanctions” against Moscow, and Russia is preparing for Washington to cut its access to the global SWIFT financial system for US-dollar transactions, which would exclude the country from much of the world economy.

The US has invaded countries all over the world, and Putin knows what defeat at its hands would entail for him. Manuel Noriega and Slobodan Milosevic died in prison, Muammar Gaddafi was brutally murdered, and Saddam Hussein was hanged. Washington wants Putin dead.

The Biden administration has created a situation that Putin and Russia must construe as an existential threat. There is no concession that Moscow can make that will prevent the advance of NATO forces, short of complete capitulation. It faces the choice of war now or war in the near future when NATO stands on its doorstep.

The White House is recklessly marching to war, yet no one is discussing the implications. No reporter asks Biden what the worst-case scenario might be, and not one has asked if it might entail the use of nuclear arms. Washington acts as if the conflict it is pursuing will be neatly contained in the eastern regions of Ukraine, sealed off in the Donbass.

The United States has waged a series of wars since 1991, and each has ended in catastrophe. Millions are dead, and entire societies in the Middle East and Central Asia have been reduced to dust and rubble. They were primitively armed. Washington now has the country holding the world’s second largest store of nuclear weapons in its sights.

If the US and NATO have convinced themselves that they can level an existential threat against Russia without raising the tremendous danger of nuclear war, they are deluding themselves. How can they exclude this possibility? If they do recognize the risk, their actions are mad.

All of the war propaganda of the US and NATO depicts Putin as a deranged criminal; all of their strategy relies upon his conduct being saner than their own. There is a deeply reactionary faction within the Russian ruling elite and military circles, many of whom are imbued with all sorts of fascistic conceptions.

War has an inexorable logic of its own; it does not abide by the tidy plots drawn up on the Resolute desk of the Oval Office. The logic of the military vortex that Washington is setting into motion will drag the great powers into a global conflict.

China confronts Washington’s demand that it abandon its Zero COVID policy and allow the pandemic to kill millions of its people. The US war drive in the Asia Pacific region, almost as advanced as that confronting Russia, presents Beijing with a similar existential threat. China sees in the US deployment of troops to Taiwan a direct parallel to the developments in Ukraine.

British imperialism, donning again the pith helmet, invents its own lies in service to the war drive. Washington pressures the German bourgeoisie, with the blood of 28 million Soviet citizens on its conscience, to again set its sights eastward.

The unleashing of a war with Russia would within weeks—if not days—drag in Iran, Israel, China and Taiwan. Japan and Australia would rapidly be caught up in the ever expanding fray. Military imperatives would take over. The world would be engulfed. The loss of life that is being prepared is incalculable.

The American ruling class has shown that it is impervious to mass death. Over 900,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 in less than two years, but the Biden White House does not even speak of it. The evening news anchor discusses the daily weather and not the daily dead. There is not a shred of a conscience that will prevent Washington from starting a catastrophic global war.


If you have a voice, why are you not using it to say no more wars?  

 





On THE CONVO COUCH (above), FIorella rightly called out what our 'indy' media is doing currently.


And it makes no sense.   Being silent.  


You want to wait until everything's over.  An indymedia name did that, didn't she?  She can't sleep now.  I'm supposed to feel sorry for her because I've known her for years. 


A mutual friend called and said I should reach out.  


When hell freezes over.


She should feel awful.  Her husband stood for what he believed in.  And she did what?  Undercut him on Amy Goodman's hideous show.  Undercut him.  DIdn't use her position to flood the market with calling out Russia-gate.  Yeah, she published one guy who can't stop slobbering over her to this day.  But that was it.


And now her husband's dead.


Did she think she had time to make it up to him.  When she pulled the stunt on Amy Goodman's show, Elaine and I both called the husband who we'd also known for years and who we still spoke with -- while avodiing the woman.  He was so hurt by what she did.  Thats why Elaine went to town on the woman that night at her site.


Now her husband's dead and she's got guilt and she should.  


He was being brave and speaking truth and she tried to maintain her position by undermining him.  That's how he saw it -- from his mouth to my ear.  


So, no, I'm not reaching out to her and if she's in pain, good.  She should be.  She made a calculated choice.  And she gambled that she'd have time to make up for it.  Sorry, he passed away, you don't have any time to make up for it.


She knew better.  She's promoted herself as an expert on Russia for decades -- as laughable as her attempt to once claim -- in the WIKIPEDIA entry she had her intern write and police -- that she had won an award when she didn't win it, the magazine did.  


When you lie over something that minor, you really have issues.


We all know who I'm talking about, right?  The panty wetter Katy van van who kicked Elaine in the shin when she (Katty van van) was a child because Elaine noticed Katty had wet herself and asked if she needed to change?  That's Katty van van.


Am I too harsh on her?


Let's see, let's check out THE NATION.  


War on Russia is being pimped and where is Katty van van and THE NATION?  


Worthless articles on the front page about elections and candidates that pretend to be about something.


John Nichols tries.  At least?  Are we supposed to be saying that?  


Over 100 links to pieces of 'journalism' on the front page and only John's writing about Russia.  But look at the title:  "There Is No Military Solution Out of This Ukraine Crisis."


It's a crisis?  Hmm.  For who?


It's a matter that the people need to decide for themselves.    The US government and war mongers insist its a crisis.  How nice of John to use that framing?


He's worthless.


Call Katty van-van?  When hell freezes over.  She's haunted?  She should be.    She did something she knew was wrong and she made the calculation that it was the thing to do even though it meant betraying truth, betraying poeple and betraying her husband.  She hurt him very badly.  So she's getting what she deserves.  Actions have consequences.


I'm embarrassed for her and for what passes for her notion of social responsibility.  You'd think your mother killing herself in a really dramatic manner only a few years back would have taught Ktty that life was brief.  But she didn't like her mom and she didn't even know her.  Which is why she never found ______. 


If I was running THE NATION, it wouldn't be doing lifestyle pieces -- like Dave Zirin's latest -- how the Dem Party is antagnozing "young Jews."  I guess to 'sports' writer Dave, that's the most important topic in the world today.  




That's John Pilger speaking with Lee Camp about important topics: War on Russia, the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange, etc.   Two topics THE NATION refuses to lead on.  


I long ago grasped that we'd be one of a very small number of sites covering Iraq.  I rarely even bother to point that out any more.  It has to be an important anniversary for me to point to all the silence on Iraq.  That they walked away is clear.  

But they're apparently not even going to give one serious moment to war on Russia.  

Maybe that's better?  

I eman, I remember the editorial about Iraq and elections.  They ran the start of that editorial on the cover of the issue.  It was stating that they would not vote for anyone who had supported the Iraq War.  Then they promoted John Edwards and they promoted this and that person.  And it finally boiled down, to, "We won't vote for Joe Lieberman!  We'll vote for every other Dem that supported this war but we draw the line at Joe Lieberman!"

Such passed for bravery when Katrina and her buddy predator were interested in Iraq.  Hmm.  He went on my local PACIFICA and trashed me.  Is it finally time for me to tell the truth about him, the ugly truth about that horrible man and why he really hates me?  He called it a pass.  I called it an assault.  I wasn't his date.  I certainly wasn't his friend.  But he was all over me while I was screaming "No" and "Get off me" and kneeing him in the balls to get him off me.  That's why trashes me to this day.  


I trash him because he's a fake and a fraud.  And I don't base that upon attempted rape.  If you know me, you know I put myself last of the list.  I base him being a fake and a fraud upon the fact that he's a  fraud who sells out every time.  I gave to THE NATION -- up until he trashed me on my local PACIFICA -- and set aside what he'd done to me.  I stopped donating because it was obvious that THE NATION was a fraud that was never going to actually hold anyone accountable.  Remember when they had the chance to print storeis -- by Naomi Klein -- about how James Baker and Mad Maddy Albright were profiting from the Iraq War?  And they only printed the one on Republican Baker.  THE GUARDIAN prtined both reports.  Remember when the reporter did a lengthy investigtion into the corruption of Senator Dianne Feinstein and THE NATION paid him but refused to run it so he had to sell it to alternative weeklies?  Time and again, they betray.

Katty vann   refused to cover War Resisters.  Refused to support them.

Time and again, the rag demonstrated what their priorities are.

Rockets hit the BAghdad airport today -- six of them.  Some are wondering if the adjacent US military base was the target.  

The Iraq War never ended and a fucntioining Independent Media would have told you that.







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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Pedo prince

The pedo prince, Andrew, is now insisting that if he does go to trial for his actions, if, he must have a jury trial.

 

I'm sorry.  Is the phrase "trial by jury" not taught in England?

 

At any rate, he's an entitled idiot who thinks he will sway 12 jurors when the reality is that he's a pudgy, gray-skinned man who reeks of entitlement.  He's not the little cutie who dates Koo Stark.  The years have not been kind.  He's also -- check out that notorious BBC interview -- not able to charm.  He looks guilty and he's going to look that way in court.

 

I think he's expecting that a US court's going to show him deference the way a UK court would.  I don't see that happening.

 

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

 

 Wednesday, January 26, 2022.  Victoria and the other uglies are stirring unrest, explain to Jane Arraf that ISIS didn't creae anything (they're just taking advantage), and much more.


There's never too much war for the crooks and creeps in the US Congress.  Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


Despite warnings that a dangerous war with Russia could soon be unleashed if diplomatic efforts fail, House Democrats are reportedly looking to bypass typical procedures and fast-track a vote on legislation that would send $500 million in military aid to Ukraine—a move that critics say only adds fuel to the fire.

The Intercept reported Tuesday that "Democrats in the House of Representatives are planning to expedite a massive bill that would dramatically increase U.S. security assistance to Ukraine and lay the groundwork for substantial new sanctions on Russia—hastening a war-friendly posture without opportunity for dissent as concerns over a military invasion abound."

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told members on a caucus call Tuesday that she's looking to skip marking up the bill and move it straight to the House floor, setting up the possibility of a vote as soon as early next week," The Intercept revealed, citing two unnamed congressional sources.

Formally known as the Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022, the legislation is co-sponsored by 13 Democrats in the House and 41 in the Senate, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

News of the push for speedy passage of the bill comes just one day after President Joe Biden put 8,500 U.S. troops on standby to deploy to Eastern Europe and as anti-war voices increased their warnings against military action.

One senior Democratic aide told The Intercept that the House leadership's plan to rush a vote on the Ukraine measure "is how the space for nonmilitary options gets slowly closed off in Washington, without any real debate."


Yesterday, the always eager for war NEW YORK TIMES felt the need to spotlight propaganda on Ukraine . . . from the Russia end.  Hmm.  Have they ever seriously explored Victoria Nuland's efforts?  Even the BBC repoted on it back in 2014 -- you know, when Joe Biden was Vice President and Barack Obama was president.  Necon Victoria was noted in January of last year by Mark Episkopos (THE NATIONAL INTEREST):


President-elect Joe Biden plans to name Victoria Nuland to a top State Department post, sending the clearest signal yet on the president-elect’s likely policy approach to Russia and Ukraine.  

Earlier this month, Politico reported that the Biden-Harris transition team had decided on a new round of foreign policy and national security appointees. Biden is expected to nominate veteran diplomat Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs, according to sources familiar with the process. These sources also told reporters that the president-elect will tap Wendy Sherman, a veteran of the Obama and Clinton administrations, as the deputy secretary of state.

Nuland was the U.S. Ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2008. She served as State Department spokesperson under Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton before succeeding Philip Gordon as the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. More than simply an “Obama veteran,” Nuland played a central role in executing the Obama administration’s Ukraine policies during and after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution. She conveyed U.S. support for demonstrations in Kiev against the government of President Viktor Yanukovyvch, condemning efforts by local police to quell the protests. “It is still possible to save Ukraine’s European future, and that’s what we want to see the president lead. That’s going to require immediate security steps and getting back into a conversation with Europe and with the International Monetary Fund and bringing justice and human dignity to the people of Ukraine,” said Nuland in December 2013. She met with pro-EU protesters in Kiev on Dec. 11, distributing food in a symbolic gesture of solidarity with anti-government protesters; the move prompted widespread outrage in the Kremlin, which perceived Nuland’s outing as a brazen act of public interference in Ukraine’s domestic affairs. 

It was revealed in early 2014 that Nuland, along with then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, was intimately involved in ongoing U.S. efforts to curate and install a new government in Ukraine. “I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience,” said Nuland in a leaked phone conversation with Pyatt, referring to the installation of Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk to a top government post. Nuland likewise voiced her strong dispreference for opposition leader Vitali Klitschko: “I don’t think Klitsch [Klitschko] should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The phone call is best remembered for Nuland’s colorful reference to the European Union, which did not fully see eye-to-eye with Washington on key questions involving the fate of the Yanukovych government: “OK. He’s now gotten both [proposed UN mediation team member [Robert] 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, F*** the EU.” After widespread rebuke from high-placed EU officials, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki announced that Nuland “has been in contact with her EU counterparts and of course has apologized for these reported comments.”

She's a chicken hawk -- always using the lives of others to fight her petty wars and whore battles. 



And she's aided by a whorish media that has bent every ethical rule int he world for her.  The whore's name first appears at this site in 2004 becauase back when John Kerry was running for US president  against Bully Boy Bush NPR felt the need to bring Robert Kagan on to 'evaluate' John Kerry..It never should have happened and what made it worse was the ombusperson for NPR weighed in and never mentioned the real problem with Kagan appearing.  This was October, during a presidential election, and NPR gave airtime to the husband of DIck Cheney's  girl Victoria Nuland.  


Everyone listening to the report deserved to now that the man speaking had a wife who worked for Dick Cheney.  But they weren't told that on air and, when the hideous Jeffrey Dvorkin weighed in, he also refused to supply that truth, that fact.


Dick's baby girl.  Now I'm not saying the two slept together, we all know Robert's the player in that marriage -- and, honestly, who could blame him, right?  I mean, you've seen her, right?


But the press has always whored for that family and continues to do so.  


Victoria doesn't need a government job, she needs a fumigation.


And she's working overtime for war.  The US government is ready to spend millions on Ukraine but not on Medicare For All.  They'll do anything for war.


The American people can and have suffered.  But they'll do anything for war.


There is no reason for anyone -- not a single person -- to be homeless in the United States but Congress won't fix that problem, will they?  The number skyrocketed in the 80s.  This is not a new problem and we see our inept and crooked Congress press do nothing over and over.  But for war?  They're always on board.  


Turmoil in Ukraine has been a longterm goal of the US government.  And they'll deny Americans basic rights, they'll refuse to address the needs of the American people, to push for it.  


There should be a prison for these people like Victoria Nuland who work to cause war and to send people to their deaths.  There should be a prison that they're kept in.  Instead, they wait for the administrations to change and then they pop back in with their petty wars and plans and start working them all over again.  

 

Let's move over to the ongoing disaster that Victoria and her family helped create: Iraq. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES maintains:


An audacious attack on a prison housing thousands of former ISIS fighters in Syria. A series of strikes against military forces in neighboring Iraq. And a horrific video harking back to the grimmest days of the insurgency that showed the beheading of an Iraqi police officer.

The evidence of a resurgence of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is mounting by the day, nearly three years after the militants lost the last patch of territory of their so-called caliphate, which once stretched across vast parts of the two countries. The fact that ISIS was able to mount these coordinated and sophisticated attacks in recent days shows that what had been believed to be disparate sleeper cells are re-emerging as a more serious threat.

“It’s a wake-up call for regional players, for national players, that ISIS is not over, that the fight is not over,” said Kawa Hassan, Middle East and North Africa director at the Stimson Center, a Washington research institute. “It shows the resilience of ISIS to strike back at the time and place of their choosing.”


It's a piece co-written by The Whore of Baghdad, Jane Arraf.  Never had a scoop her entire time in Iraq -- going back to the 90s when she did Saddam friendly propaganda for CNN (as Eason Jordan would admit after the start of the Iraq War in, where else?, THE NEW YORK TIMES).  She knows who signs her check and she can't do antying else.  She does these faux reports that offer nothing of value and don't pass for news so she has to make herself useful somehow.


Today, she joins Ben Hubbard to co-sign that nosnense.


ISIS?  It never left Iraq, it's never been defeated.  Our focus is not Syria at this website but it is true that Barack bacekd ISIS in Syria while maintaining the US was fighting them in Iraq. It's also true that to reclaim Mosul, the US government aided ISIS' escape/withdrawal to Syria from Mosul.  


But our focus isn't Syria.  Our focus is Iraq.


Is ISIS on the rise?


Not really.


It's a terrorist organization.  It's been active because it never left Iraq.  What's changed?


ISIS exists to grab any break they can to carry out fivolence and destruction.


So what's the big change in Iraq right now that would allow for this -- you know, the real issue, the thing that Jane and Ben refuse to explore, let alone lead with?


It's the lack of a government.


The US State Dept is rather surprised that US citiziens are bombarding it lately with questions about Iraq.  They should be more bothered that they have no official position and are not officially working on resolving the issue of the government formation.  They should be more worried that a number of American people are noting this.


The Whore of Baghdad wants US troops in Iraq.  If they leave, she'd have to.  And no one wants her in the US.  And she only has a career as an 'expert' on the Middle East.  To keep the money coming in, she needs US troops on the ground.  


It's that or being a greeter at Walmart for Jane where, every day, some assistant manager is cracking down on her and insisting, "Those bakery samples are for the customers!"


October 10th?  That's when elections were held.  When will the government be formed?


And on Arabic social media, what do you find?  Dismay as it appears that all the powerful positions will be filled by the same men who held them before the election took place.


ISIS doesn't create.  It watches and it takes advantage.  It's watching as the political stalemate continues and it sees opportunity.  


Katie Hearth (MNN) offers:

Iraq’s political turmoil reflects a broader battle for control in the Middle East.

“Three months ago, there was an election, and [Sadr’s] group won. This is not aligned with what [Iran wants]; they are not trying to do what Iran tells them to do,” Fadi Sharaiha with MENA Leadership Center says.

“Iranians lost their seat in the parliament, and they (Iran’s leaders) did not take this lightly. They are challenging this in the courts and the streets.”

Attacks on various political institutions in Iraq fill the headlines continuously. Shooters attacked a Kurdish leader last week, days after twin explosions rocked Kurdish-owned banks in Baghdad.

“This is a clear impact of the proxy war in Iraq, as it is happening in Yemen, Lebanon, and in Libya, unfortunately,” Sharaiha says.

He adds that the battlefields change, but most of the conflict traces its roots to one issue.


As the war in Iraq continues, Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.  Marjorie Cohn (TRUTH OUT) notes:


On January 24, 2022, the British High Court of Justice allowed WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to ask the U.K. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of the extradition order. In December 2021, the High Court had overturned U.K. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s January 2021 ruling denying the U.S. request for extradition.

Following a three-week evidentiary hearing, Baraitser concluded that if extradited to the United States for trial, Assange was very likely to commit suicide because of his mental state and the harsh conditions of confinement under which he would be held.

During that hearing, the Biden administration didn’t provide the judge with any assurances that Assange would not be held in near-isolation in U.S. prisons. It was only after Baraitser denied extradition that the U.S. government came forward with “assurances” that Assange wouldn’t be subject to special administrative measures (SAMs) or be held in the ADX supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. But those so-called assurances contained a loophole. They would be null and void if Assange were to commit a “future act” that “met the test” for the imposition of SAMs.

The late timing of the U.S. assurances precluded Assange’s defense from arguing that they were unreliable. Nevertheless, the High Court accepted the Biden administration’s 11th-hour assurances and ruled that Assange could be extradited to the United States.

Assange is facing 175 years in prison for charges under the Espionage Act that stem from the 2010 WikiLeaks publication of evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. The Obama administration considered charging Assange for those revelations but declined to do so for fear of running afoul of the First Amendment’s freedom of the press. Donald Trump did indict Assange, however. But instead of dismissing the case, Joe Biden is vigorously fighting to extradite Assange and pursue the charges that Trump filed.


At ANTIWAR.COM, Craig Murray notes:


Questions of the viability of assurances that, inter alia, make torture a future option, were ruled not to be arguable appeal points.

So the certified point, whether assurances can be submitted at the appeals stage, is not really just about timing and deadlines, it is about whether there should be scrutiny of the assurances or not.

However it does not look like a substantial point. It looks like just a technical point on timing and deadlines. This is very important, because it may be the screen behind which the British Establishment is sidling slowly towards the exit. Was Lord Burnett looking to get out of this case by one of the curtained doors at his back?

If any of the other points had been certified, there would have been detailed discussion in court of the United States’ penchant for torture, its dreadful prison conditions, and its long record of bad faith (it is an accepted point of law in the United States that domestic authorities are not bound by any assurance, commitment or even treaty given to foreign governments). For the Supreme Court to refuse Assange’s extradition on any of those grounds would be an official accusation against the United States’ integrity, and thus diplomatically difficult.

But the Supreme Court can refuse extradition on the one point now certified by the High Court, and it can be presented as nothing to do with anything bad about the USA and its governance, purely a technical matter of a missed deadline. Apologies all round, never mind old chap, and let’s get to the claret at Simpson’s.

Can there really be an end in sight for Julian? Is the British Establishment quietly sidling to the exit?


 

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Adele Borrows From Oasis" went up last night.  The following sites updated:






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Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Jussie

adele

 

That's  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Adele Borrows From Oasis."   Brand new, just went up tonight.


Now let's turn to Jussie Smollett, the fakester, the fraud.  The Chicago Sun Times notes:


Actor Jussie Smollett’s sentencing hearing has been set for March 10, according to defense attorney Tina Glandian.

Smollett was found guilty by a Cook County jury last month of five counts of disorderly conduct for lying about a racist and homophobic attack on himself in 2019 near his Streeterville neighborhood home. 


Fox 32 explains:


He was found guilty of telling a police officer he was a hate crime victim, telling an officer he was a battery victim, telling a detective he was a hate crime victim, telling a detective he was a battery victim and then telling a detective again he was battery victim. He was not found guilty on a sixth charge of telling a second detective he was an aggravated battery victim.


Curtis Lipscomb (Pride) observes:

Last month, Smollett was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false police reports after he staged a fake hate crime against himself in Chicago.  After much public press and scrutiny, it was found that Smollett reported to the Chicago Police Department a fake hate crime that he had staged earlier that morning to make himself appear the victim of an anti-gay, racist assault because he was unhappy with his salary on “Empire.” In January 2019, Smollett had planned the event with two Nigerian-American brothers who had worked with Smollett as extras on the set of the television drama.  

I have a job that assists victims of crime, so I take harm against victims seriously. But, Smollett’s incident was fabricated — a staged hoax meant for fame. 

Healing and Support Services is a domestic violence and sexual assault prevention program. Since 2017, LGBT Detroit has operated this program to provide free counseling and crisis intervention for survivors of intimate partnership abuse, sexual violence, stalking, harassment, trafficking and hate crimes. This is a confidential service open to LGBT+ adults or their loved ones who have experienced violent crime. 

What makes Smollett’s case even worse is its negative cultural and racial impact. Bias against African American persons are the highest reported incidents of hate crimes, according to the FBI. And reported violence of homosexuals (male) are listed as the fourth highest category. Hate crime violence is a serious accusation, to say the least.



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


Tuesday, January 25, 2022.  Jen Psaki insists that Joe Biden respects the press -- this as he calls a reporter "a son of a bitch" for asking a question about inflation.






That's Stella Morris speaking of the court ruling that Julian Assange can appeal the previous finding that he can be extradicted to the United States.  Stella Morris is an attorney and the partner of Julian Assange.  They have two children together -- Max and Gabrial.  Julian?  He's the publisher of WIKILEAKS and he's being persecuted by US President Joe Biden for the 'crime' of journalism.  

The Australian citizen is responsible for releasing the truth about several War Crimes.  He's also 'guilty' of exposing corrupting at the top of the Democratic Party.  A point that arose at yesterday's White House press briefing.  Before we get to that, lets again note the statement from Reporters Without Borders:
 

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes the High Court’s decision to allow Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange to appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking review of his extradition case, but limited to one narrow ground. The Supreme Court will be asked to consider matters related to the US government’s provision of diplomatic assurances regarding Assange’s treatment if extradited.

On 24 January, the High Court granted Julian Assange the right to appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking review of the decision that could allow for his extradition to the US. Assange’s legal team now has 14 days to file an application with the Supreme Court, which could take several months to decide whether it will accept the case for review. 


If accepted, the Supreme Court would consider matters related to the US government’s provision of diplomatic assurances regarding Assange’s treatment, which were filed only prior to the appeal stage of proceedings, meaning the assurances were not scrutinised in the evidentiary portion of the extradition hearing. The High Court granted permission for Assange to file an application on this ground due to the lateness of the US government’s provision of these diplomatic assurances.


“We welcome the High Court’s decision to allow Julian Assange the right to appeal his extradition case to the Supreme Court. This case will have enormous implications for journalism and press freedom around the world, and could be hugely precedent-setting. It deserves consideration by the highest court in the land. We very much hope that the Supreme Court will indeed accept the case for review,” said RSF’s Director of International Campaigns Rebecca Vincent, who was present in court for the hearing.


This decision follows the High Court’s ruling of 10 December 2021 by the same judges, overturning the District Judge’s decision of 4 January 2021 barring extradition on mental health grounds. The High Court had ruled in favour of the US government’s appeal, on the basis of the diplomatic assurances provided regarding Assange’s treatment if extradited.


RSF believes that Assange has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, as Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified documents in 2010 informed extensive public interest reporting around the world, exposing war crimes and human rights violations that have never been prosecuted. If he faces trial in the US, Assange would not be able to argue a public interest defence, as the Espionage Act lacks such a provision. Assange’s prosecution would set a dangerous precedent that would have lasting implications for journalism and press freedom around the world.


RSF is also gravely concerned by the state of Assange’s mental and physical health, which remain at great risk in conditions of prolonged detention in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison – risks that would be severely exacerbated if the US succeeds in securing his extradition. In December it was revealed that he had suffered a mini-stroke in prison during the appellate hearing, and in January it was reported that Covid infections were again on the rise in Belmarsh prison.


The UK and US are respectively ranked 33rd and 44th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.



Julian was a brief topic at yesterday's White House press briefing moderated by spokesperson Jen Psaki.







Q    And then, quickly: A UK court is now allowing Julian Assange to appeal his extradition to the United States.  The Justice Department, as you know, isn’t commenting.  But what about the President?  He says press freedom is critical for democracy, so why is he continuing to pursue this case?  Is the reason that he’s pursuing this Trump-era case because Julian Assange embarrassed the Democratic Party in 2016?

MS. PSAKI:  Again, this is under the purview of the dem- — the Department of Justice, so I don’t have any comment from here.

Go ahead.

Q    Thank you.  On the Palin-New York Times case — I know you can’t maybe speak specifically to the case, but does the White House have any concerns about threats to press freedoms, to press access, to the limits of the First Amendment protection?

MS. PSAKI:  I obviously can’t speak to the case, so I appreciate you saying that at the top. 

I will say that I think the President has shown that he respects the value of the freedom of the press.  He obviously took a step earlier this year to ensure there couldn’t be a replication of actions that had been taken over prior administrations, as it related to journalists.  So, I think that speaks to his commitment, but I don’t have any more comments on the case.



We've go to touch on the second question.  Freedom of the press?  There is no freedom to intentionally lie about osmeone -- that's why the press that's why there are laws against slander and liberl.  Palin is, of course, Sarah Palin and the edtiorial board of THE NEW YORK TIMES deliberately lied about her.  This is not a ;press freedom' case no matter how much some idiot at a White House press briefing might wish it were.

This is an accountability issue -- press accountability.  Libel and slander have been on the books for years.  This is not new territory.  We haven't noted the case so let's not Jonathan Turley who has analyzed it repeatedly and this is from his most recent analysis:

We previously discussed a major ruling restoring the defamation lawsuit of Sarah Palin against the New York Times over a false claim related to the shooting of former United States Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Now, the New York Times is trying to introduce footage of Palin on “The Masked Singer.” The effort to introduce the video would seem to have no probative value and clearly is meant to ridicule Palin.

The case concerns an editorial by the New York Times where it sought to paint Palin and other Republicans as inciting the earlier shooting. The editorial was on the shooting of GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and other members of Congress by James T. Hodgkinson, of Illinois, 66, a liberal activist and Sanders supporter.  The Times awkwardly sought to shift the focus back on conservatives. It stated that SarahPAC had posted a graphic that put Giffords in crosshairs before she was shot. It was false but it was enough for the intended spin: “Though there’s no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack, liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standard of decency that they ask of the right.”

The editorial was grossly unfair and falsely worded. Indeed, the earlier opinion began with a bang: “Gov. Palin brings this action to hold James Bennet and The Times accountable for defaming her by falsely asserting what they knew to be false: that Gov. Palin was clearly and directly responsible for inciting a mass shooting at a political event in January 2011.”


That is not about press freedom, it is about accountability.  You can read on to see just how desperate NYT is over this case.  They should be, they are not on strong ground, the law is against them.

Jen Psaki uses the cae case to insist that Joe Biden is all about press freedom.  She states, "I will say that I think the President has shown that he respects the value of the freedom of the press."

She thought that, she insisted.  She thought that on the same day Joe Biden was in the news for sharing his thoughts on a reporter.  Courtney Subramanian (USA TODAY) reports:


Fox News' Peter Doocy asked the president whether he thought inflation would be a "political liability" ahead of November's midterm elections. Biden's reaction was caught on a hot mic. 

"That's a great asset, more inflation," Biden said. "What a stupid son of a b----."

Moments before, Biden groused about fielding questions on the deepening crisis in Ukraine instead of being asked about the White House Competition Council meeting, which focused on the administration's efforts to promote economic competition and drive down prices for consumers.


Anyone remember this from Joe Biden:




No mocking, no bullying?  Hmm.

Guess that was just more 'repsect' for the freedom of the press, eh, Jen?


The same 'respect' he shows Julian by persecuting him.  Julian didn't commit War Crimes.  He's not the one to punish.  Unless you're trying to intimidate the press and silence it.  Jen Psaki needs to put some make up on her face (I'm recovering from COVID as well, Jen, and I don't go inf ront of people looking chalky) and she needs to grasp how ridiculous her statements are.

At WSWS, JD Palmer notes the CBC's coverage of Julian which, like so many outlets, has been biased:

Having laid bare the US empire as a never-ceasing conveyor belt of war crimes, Assange exposed Washington’s lies of “nation building” in Afghanistan and Iraq as a vast “money laundering” operation.

And yet, as his legal case progressed, it was clear that the Wikileaks founder’s heroism was resulting in his slow murder via multi-state judicial corruption. In response to this remarkable case, in one of many examples of journalistic malfeasance, Chris Brown, in his report for the CBC’s flagship news program “The National,” falsely asserts that Assange “leaked” the cables that contained the infamous Collateral Murder video. Brown, a long-time CBC correspondent, can presumably distinguish between publishing and leaking. Determined to confuse the viewer, Brown fails to mention the role of whistleblower Chelsea Manning (Assange’s source) and through conflation taints the journalistic credentials of the man who exposed torture at Guantanamo.

Brown knows quite well that publishing leaks is the backbone of national security journalism with the quotidian apparatus of “legacy” newspapers like the New York Times, providing potential whistleblowers with technical instructions on their websites for evading detection. That’s why, as CBC fails to inform the viewer, the Obama administration chose not to prosecute Assange (a decision later reversed by Trump’s Department of Justice or DOJ). Due to what it deemed the “ New York Times problem,” such a precedent, Obama’s DOJ concluded, could be used against fellow elites.

Now in the hands of Biden’s DOJ, this clear case of selective prosecution by the US and its colluding vassal state, the UK, has been denounced by legal experts, a swath of trade unions and activists. And while one can reliably count on Canada’s public broadcaster to ignore grassroots campaigns, what’s remarkable is that the CBC’s reporting on this historic case sinks below even the corporate media’s degraded standards.



Turning to Iraq . . . 



When tens of thousands of young people took to the streets of Baghdad and towns and cities across southern and central Iraq in late 2019, one core demand resonated louder than any other — employment opportunities.

The country, which had only recently emerged from decades of tyranny, siege, war and insurgency, had delivered precious little for the generation of young Iraqis who came of age in the years after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Two years on from those protests, which fizzled out with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, and under the brutal heel of repression meted out by Iraq’s powerful militias, young Iraqis say nothing has changed.

“If anything we’re worse than when we started,” Rashid Mansour, a hairdresser from west Baghdad, told Arab News. “Neither me nor my cousins can afford to stay here. We all work part time. Just like the country, we’re all just getting by.”


Nothing's changed.  And it doesn't appear anything will change anytime soon.  There's talk that Iraq's prime minister will remain the same -- despite the October 10th elections.  The PUK is isnisting that the president of Iraq remain the same person and already the previous leader of Parliament has again been named Speaker.

What was the point of even holding elections?


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