Ann's Mega Dub: 3/13/22

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Charmed

I used to cover Charmed (The CW) but stepped away near the end of last season (season three). Season four started last week.

I wasn't happy with Charmed last season for 2 reasons. First, Maggie is not that interesting and the dumpy, fat actress that plays her looked even worse after a bad perm. It looked like a really bad home perm. And she's too fat to do the action scenes. But they try tomake her the star of the series. It's supposed to be about 3 sisters. And yet they shoved fatty down our throats.

Second, Mel didn't get any action. Mel's a lesbian. The show got a lot of credit for having a lesbian in a main role. But season three had Mel being a nun basically. And when they had no more excuses for not letting her have love scenes, they made her pregnant via the future. That was really it for me. We had Mel being romanced by four or five men in season three and her older sister couldn't even get any on camera?

Maggie and Mel are still on. My favorite character was Macy. But that sister got killed off at the end of last season.

Now, as season four starts, they're looking for the other sister that they didn't know existed. The sisters are witches. They need to have ''the power of three'' to be the strongest they can. In the original, Shanna Dougherty was fired at the end of season three because Alyssa Milano demanded it. That's when, season four of the original, Rose McGowan showed up as the previously unknown sister Piper. Now the reboot

So this e. Mpisode was about introducing us to Kaela (short for Michaela) played by Lucy Barrett. She's the other sister that they didn't know about. She's been haunted by some visions and sketched them in her sketch book. When Mel and Maggie end up at the bus she's living in, they see that the bus has many paintings including one of the little charmed token. She's been sketching what she sees.

They're not sure she's their sister until they're attacked and because Kaela's with them, they have the power of three.

The other thing to note is that the episode opened with Mel in a bar with a woman. Maybe season four will find Mel being treated like an equal? I hope. I'll hang around a bit to see. If homophobia resurfaces, however, I'm out.

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

Friday, March 18, 2022. The selling of the latest war sure resembles the selling of the Iraq War.

Starting with Jackson Hinkle.

Jackson exposes the lies of THE OLD SQUIRTY DUKES Ana and Cenk. Their audience has gone. Tehir lies continue. Their friends are less and less and some have found out that they can longer propagandize the way they used to -- for example, TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES is not going to put up with you sneaking your propaganda when you're supposed to be discussing movies -- not only that, they made him actually spend a few bucks on suits so he doesn't look like such a slob. But Ana and Cenk continue plowing at the street corner. They're hoping someone's going to come along with a five or a ten who needs a ahlf-and-half or a hand job or something.

And it's good that they can fall back on that because they're lying has been exposed and they have no real power anymore.

They are Joe Biden, in the bathroom, standing at the sink, front of their boxers pulled out as they stare at the withered appendage and cray as they shriek, "Grow! Grow!"

It's just not happening.

And whilt ehy're paid to deliver the vote to the Democratic Party -- that's what the Katenzberg deal was all about, they're not going to be able to do that. First off, their audiences has shrivled -- again, like Joe's member. Secondly, they're not Bette Midler.

She's the idiot who Tweets photos of selective children to try to promote the war. She Tweets that she's willing to pay more for gas, et al, because she cares.

She doesn't give a s**t. This is the woman with ties to Jeffrey Epstein and, sadly, that's the least of her problems when it comes to her personal associates. Hollywood enever embraced Bette because she's gutter trash. The music industry out of New York and New Jersey, a roughter crowd, one with more ties to the mafia, embraced her. The mafia controlled the divers she perfomred in. Those are her roots. Do not mistake her for genteel. She's gutter trash and she always be.

But in the world of reality, people aren't thrilled to be paying for any war. Let alone a war that should not have been started, a war that involved no attack on the US. In the roundtable last night for the gina & krista round-robin, we had a person who can't drive due to vision issues explain how he's now -- this week -- paying two dollars more for each cab ride. Now Bettte may be overjoyed in her mob-palace by the ocean, but those people who worked for their money and didn't consort with organized crime? They don't have all the spare change Bette does.

And people are feeling it -- this war and Joe's impotence -- every where -- at the grocery store, at the gas pump. This is an election year.

The key question is always: ARe you better off now than you were before?

And, no, Americans are not. Fiancnially, they are not better off.

And the Anas and Cenks can lie all they want and try to portray Ukraine as a country populated with faireis and sprites, but the reality is that, in 2014, the US installed neo-nazis. That's who is being backed in this war. Some people have such a problem with the reality that the US government backed and empowered the Talbian.

But they did.

It was 'strategic.'

And it came back to bite the world in the ass after Jimmy Carter was out of office.

For 'stragey' that empowers thugs, you have to have whores who will sell it as 'humanity' and as 'human rights' and as 'a just cause.'

There is no just cause for the US in the issue of Ukraine.

Joe Biden is a failure as a president and Americans feel it every time they go to the gas pump or to the grocery store.

A far-away war is not going to make their lives better. Backing a neo-nzai group in Ukraine is not going to make life better for Ukrainians.

CBS -didn't punish Charlie D'Agata for his racist remarks on air because that was the talking poitn. They were all usupposed to sell the war to the American people and one of the talking points was, "They look just like us." That was supposed to help us identify with Ukraine. Charlie ran a little further with the talking poitn than some but he wasn't suspended or fired -- he should have been suspended -- for his remarks.

And then you get the Twitter brigade led by Bette and other incomptents. Ukraine is not a US issue and certainly not an issue worth pouring millions of US tax dollars into.

They are trying to enforce a lie. So they target others. That's what's going on with the trashing of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson.

They are trying to hit the two with a 2 v 4 to intimidate everyone.

Viewers of THE VIEW have to wonder what happened to free speech and The Constitution? I believe Whoopi ate them.

Funding the government of Ukraine and its wars does not beneift Americans. That's reality. And when politicians try to explain it, they fail.

They can't explain.

The selling of this war is not working. Has--beens like Bette Midler are failing at selling it, the media is failing at selling it, censors like Whoopi and Ana can't sell it, politicians can't sell it.

They've dumbe it down, they've shored it up. It won't play. It won't sell.

And as a defense -- the costs of Ukraine -- for Joe's ineptitude won't work as a cover. It has exposed Joe as not up for the job of president. A real president would have been making deals with the oil rich countries by now. Joe has a problem in the Middle East, doesn't he?

The way he betrayed the Kurds non-stop as Vice President may be news to Americans. It's not to the Middle Est. They followed it in real time. They know he betrayed his 'friends.' Why the hell would they trust him if he betrays even his own friends. The State Dept is workign voertime right not trying to cme up with deals and it's so hard for them because Joe is the president. Liar Joe.

Joe's not doing much better with people in the US.

The start of these misguided efforts? It's always their high point. They don't increase in popularity several weeks after. No, they decrease. And there is no strong support for what the US is doing. Poll after poll, if you dig into it, you'll see the support that there is soft support. And it's already waining.

Whoopi wants to inflict fear in people. That's why she invoked the Rosenbergs. That's how trashy and corrupt she is. Julis and Ethel Rosenberg woere executed. That's nothing for America to be proud of. That's a stain ont he country.

If Julius was guilty of passing information to the USSR -- if -- Ethel was not. And we saw an out of control US government charge her and use her to try to intimidate her husband. Railroad her and try to force him to do what they wanted. Mob behavior,

An innocent woman was put to her death because of hysteria, frenzy and a corrupt US government. And Whoopi wants to bring that back.

That is outrageous.

I don't believe Julius was guilty. But we can set that saide for a ,nger discussion. Ethel was not guilty. The US government used her as leverage. And she was assassinated by the US government.

That's nothing to be proud of. That's nothing to cheer for or to desire. But somehow, screwed up, uneducated Whoopi Goldberg went on TV, on the public airwaves, and made a call for that.

It's outrageous.

And it's outrageous to listen to those politicians trying to sell war. Nancy Pelosi wants you to know that Russia invaded Ukraine, that it could use chemical weapons, that . . .

The US invaded Iraq. Nancy damn well knows that. The US used chemical weapons on Iraq.

We could go on and on.

But Nancy Pelosi thinks she has some ethical ground to stand on. Every reason she cites -- true or false -- for the US being in this war only serves to remind Americans of what our governent did, a government Nancy is a part of. There is no push for helping the Iraqi children.

A burn pit may have caused Beau Biden's death. So Joe cares -- a little -- about burn pits. At least what they did to his son. Most of Joe's stands can be traced to Beau. Again, as I've said repeatedly here, I'm so shocked that Hunter hasn't used the truth to defend himself on personal issues. There is no defense for his corruption and unethical business dealings. However, I am surprised that a defense was not made regarding a personal issud. Some day someone's going to say it, going to out it. Won't be me today but Joe doesn't do anything, doesn't alter a previous opinion, unless it has to do with Beau.

Maybe if Beau could have fathered -- or maybe, later on, adopted -- an Iraqi child, Joe would care about the Iraqi children?

At any rate, the US government is no tnoble. It's deeply corrupt and it's become a threat to people around the world. Stealing Americans money to fund wars won't whitewash reality about that.

The US destroyed Iraq. It's in no position to lecture or finger point.

Today in Iraq, the violence continues. CGTN notes:

Four Katyusha rockets on Thursday struck the Balad Air Base, Iraq's largest military air base north of the capital Baghdad, a local security source has said.

The rockets landed at the Balad Air Base in Salahudin Province, some 90 kilometers north of Baghdad, causing no casualties, Xinhua reported citing the provincial police Colonel Mohammed al-Bazi.

Three of the rockets hit a building inside the base, causing minor damage, while the fourth landed in an empty area, al-Bazi said, adding that the rockets were fired from the neighboring province of Diyala.

As we wind down, an ethical note on Joe Biden.

That's Kit on HARD LENS MEDIA discussing Glenn Greenwald's latest report. Here's an excerpt:

This disinformation campaign about the Biden emails was then used by Big Tech to justify brute censorship of any reporting on or discussion of this story: easily the most severe case of pre-election censorship in modern American political history. Twitter locked The New York Post's Twitter account for close to two weeks due to its refusal to obey Twitter's orders to delete any reference to its reporting. The social media site also blocked any and all references to the reporting by all users; Twitter users were barred even from linking to the story in private chats with one another. Facebook, through its spokesman, the life-long DNC operative Andy Stone, announced that they would algorithmically suppress discussion of the reporting to ensure it did not spread, pending a “fact check[] by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners” which, needless to say, never came — precisely because the archive was indisputably authentic.

The archive's authenticity, as I documented in a video report from September, was clear from the start. Indeed, as I described in that report, I staked my career on its authenticity when I demanded that The Intercept publish my analysis of these revelations, and then resigned when its vehemently anti-Trump editors censored any discussion of those emails precisely because it was indisputable that the archive was authentic (The Intercept's former New York Times reporter James Risen was given the green light by these same editors to spread and endorse the CIA's lie, as he insisted that laptop should be ignored because “a group of former intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian disinformation.") I knew the archive was real because all the relevant journalistic metrics that one evaluates to verify large archives of this type — including the Snowden archive and the Brazil archive which I used to report a series of investigative exposés — left no doubt that it was genuine (that includes documented verification from third parties who were included in the email chains and who showed that the emails they had in their possession matched the ones in the archive word-for-word).

Any residual doubts that the Biden archive was genuine — and there should have been none — were shattered when a reporter from Politico, Ben Schreckinger, published a book last September, entitled "The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power," in which his new reporting proved that the key emails on which The New York Post relied were entirely authentic. Among other things, Schreckinger interviewed several people included in the email chains who provided confirmation that the emails in their possession matched the ones in the Post's archive word for word. He also obtained documents from the Swedish government that were identical to key documents in the archive. His own outlet, Politico, was one of the few to even acknowledge his book. While ignoring the fact that they were the first to spread the lie that the emails were "Russian disinformation,” Politico editors — under the headline “Double Trouble for Biden”— admitted that the book “finds evidence that some of the purported Hunter Biden laptop material is genuine, including two emails at the center of last October’s controversy.”

The vital revelations in Schreckinger's book were almost completely ignored by the very same corporate media outlets that published the CIA's now-debunked lies. They just pretended it never happened. Grappling with it would have forced them to acknowledge a fact quite devastating to whatever remaining credibility they have: namely, that they all ratified and spread a coordinated disinformation campaign in order to elect Joe Biden and defeat Donald Trump. With strength in numbers, and knowing that they speak only to and for liberals who are happy if they lie to help Democrats, they all joined hands in an implicit vow of silence and simply ignored the new proof in Schreckinger's book that, in the days leading up to the 2020 election, they all endorsed a disinformation campaign.

It will now be much harder to avoid confronting the reality of what they did, though it is highly likely that they will continue to do so. This morning, The New York Times published an article about the broad, ongoing FBI criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's international business and tax activities. Prior to the election, the Times, to their credit, was one of the few to apply skepticism to the CIA's pre-election lie, noting on October 22 that “no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation.” Because the activities of Hunter Biden now under FBI investigation directly pertain to the emails first revealed by The Post, the reporters needed to rely upon the laptop's archive to amplify and inform their reporting. That, in turn, required The New York Times to verify the authenticity of this laptop and its origins — exactly what, according to their reporters, they successfully did:

People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity. Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.

That this cache of emails was authentic was clear from the start. Any doubts were obliterated by publication of Schreckinger's book six months ago. Now the Paper of Record itself explicitly states not only that the emails “were authenticated” but also that the original story from The Post about how they obtained these materials — they “come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop” — “appears” to be true.

What this means is that, in the crucial days leading up to the 2020 presidential election, most of the corporate media spread an absolute lie about The New York Post's reporting in order to mislead and manipulate the American electorate. It means that Big Tech monopolies, along with Twitter, censored this story based on a lie from “the intelligence community.” It means that Facebook's promise from its DNC operative that it would suppress discussion of the reporting in order to conduct a "fact-check” of these documents was a fraud because if an honest one had been conducted, it would have proven that Facebook’s censorship decree was based on a lie. It means that millions of Americans were denied the ability to hear about reporting on the candidate leading all polls to become the next president, and instead were subjected to a barrage of lies about the provenance (Russia did it) and authenticity (disinformation!) of these documents.

The objections to noting all of this today are drearily predictable. Reporting on Hunter Biden is irrelevant since he was not himself a candidate (what made the reporting relevant was what it revealed about the involvement of Joe Biden in these deals). Given the war in Ukraine, now is not the time to discuss all of this (despite the fact that they are usually ignored, there are always horrific wars being waged even if the victims are not as sympathetic as European Ukrainians and the perpetrators are the film's Good Guys and not the Bad Guys). The real reason most liberals and their media allies do not want to hear about any of this is because they believe that the means they used (deliberately lying to the public with CIA disinformation) are justified by their noble ends (defeating Trump).

Whatever else is true, both the CIA/media disinformation campaign in the weeks before the 2020 election and the resulting regime of brute censorship imposed by Big Tech are of historic significance. Democrats and their new allies in the establishment wing of the Republican Party may be more excited by war in Ukraine than the subversion of their own election by the unholy trinity of the intelligence community, the corporate press, and Big Tech. But today's admission by The New York Times that this archive and the emails in it were real all along proves that a gigantic fraud was perpetrated by the country's most powerful institutions. What matters far more than the interest level of various partisan factions is the core truths about U.S. democracy revealed by this tawdry spectacle.

The following sites updated:

Thursday, March 17, 2022

Call Me Kat adds another potential love interest

New to the cast of Call Me Kat? Andy Favreau:

Andy Favreau is a male in the entertainment industry who has worked as an actor. Andy Favreau is known for his work in television on "1600 Penn," "2 Broke Girls," "A to Z," "Aquarius," "Bones," "NCIS," "Revenge," "Rosewood" and "Young & Hungry" and in film on "The Charnel House".

If you've seen him, you've probably seen him on Will & Grace. He was on one episode (I think season two of the three season return) where he played a young man at a coffee shop that was attracted Grace. She plans to see him. It's the one where she bumps into her old college professor that she once slept with and she's also trying to make it work with a guy her own age. All three men? Related. Favreau played the son of the man she was trying to make it work with and the college professor was the father of the man she was trying to make it work with.

He showed, Favreau, a real gift of timing on that episode.

On Call Me Kat this week, he played Nick. Nick's a new business owner on the block. He calls Kat "honey" and tries to give her things to do as though she works for him. He's selling beer without a license at his meat shop (he requires a sweven dollar tip for a bottle of beer), he's painted a curb yellow instead of going through the process of getting a section marked delivery, he's selling illegal cheese, etc, etc. He's also giving away free coffee (Kat's Cafe serves coffee) and doing other things to get under her skin.

Randi sees him as a problem and also advises Kat to let it go, she's giving him too much attention. But Max thinks the guy's great. The guy asks if she and Max are a couple. Later, when she's angry, she shows up to find Max and Oscar eating there. For Nick the surprise is that her boyfriend (Oscar) can be so close with her friend (Max) that she had something with.

Sylvia (Kat's mother) says the back and forth between her and Nick is about an attraction. Kat disagrees. But then he shows up to ask her for a date. And she turns him down but confesses, after he leaves, to a cat on the couch that, yeah, there was something there.

Then she wakes up in bed and he's there in bed next to her. Then she wakes up and it's Oscar asleep next to her.

That was a big twist -- Nick being introduced this episode, not the dream. They put Kat with Oscar but they have not spent any real time developing the relationship.

Kat belongs with Max. But she has more chemsitry with Nick than she has ever had with Oscar. Maybe Nick's going to be her rebound that helps get her to Max.

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

Thursday, March 17, 2022.. The rabid hate-fest that passes for public affairs programming in the US is something to ponder.

Starting with Sabby Sabs.

Whoopi can't get next to the table. Note that. It's not the double chins, it's the extreme girth that should alarm everyone. She's so fat she has to scoot her chair way, way back because her belly is too big for her to be close to the table.

She's ugly, yes. But she can be as ugly as she wants. She's been ugly for years. But she can't be that fat. Not when she's diabetic. She wants to talk about examples being set by others? Fatty is out of control with her diabetes. She's way too fat. If anyone really loved her in her life (no one does), they'd sit her down and say "Whoopi, you're going to lose a foot. You've got to get your weight under control."

Sabby is shocked that Joy said that Tucker wouldn't "be welcoed here for much longer" and she can't believe that she used to watch the show. Apparently not for that long. When Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House, when Joy was on the panel, THE VIEW did what it's doing now -- for the right wing. It's really easy for those losers to pretend otherwise but they condmened people left and right and that includes Joy. In fact, Joy was part of the 'hot topic' that went way off the rails one day. Barbara Walters was not on that show but had to come on the next day to straighten things up.

Joy and the other ladies (exepting Lisa Ling) trashed Jane Fonda who wasn't even part of the news cycle. They just started trashing her. They just started trashing her, ssaying she belonged behind bars, saying this and saying that. A FOX NEWS talk show could not have been as hateful to Jane as THE VIEW was. And Joy laughed with the hideous Meredith, at the end of the segment, about how Jane would never ask to come ont he show again.

Jane ask?

No, bitches, Jane doesn't ask to be on a show. A show asks her to be on.

Barbara Walters had to come on the next day and note that the conversation had gone too far and that what was said was wrong.

Barbara is not part of the show now (due to health) and there's n one who can come on and tell these out of control lunatics to STFU.

They're not qualified for anything but they speak on everything. And they are never wrong in their mind.

I decline to comment on everything because I can't know everything. But the less educated women of THE VIEW think they know everything -- which is why you'll notice the idiot Sunny is always reading off remarks. Love that unscripted but really scripted quality Sunny has because it's lets us know she's an idiot. She can't even formulate the froth she's spewing on her own.

It's really time for THE VIEW to end. And thta's going to depend upon the viewers saying enough. There are toher programs you can watch which don't have lunatics in front of the cameras screaming for this person to be arrested, this tried on treason, this kicked out of the country, this . . .

In other words, the women on other morning shows aren't as rabid 00 or, let's be honest, as ugly. More and more to be a member of THE VIEW, you really do have to be ugly.

So just say no to ugly, rabid people.

That's the only way that you're going to end this garbage. And it is garbage.

This is not it did have rules and follow them. That's not the case anymore. It's time for the show to go. The women who have inheretied it will just continue ta daytime talk show. Not one to be on a genearl entertainment network. The hosts are ignorant of events and even of basic necessities.

To note another incident, the ladies walked off during an interview because they didn't like what was being said. That was Whoopi, that was Joy. They walked out. They were sent back on stage because whore's don't want to lose money but, again, the next day Barbara had to show up to fix everyting. She had to explain the idea was that THE VIEW would engage, not that it would do that nonsense.

More to the point, hosts -- paid hosts -- do not have the right to walk out in the middle of an interview.

They know nothing about anything. They don't know the basics of hosting a talk show. They don't know the basics of what they're discussing.

This is not a show worth embracing and to keep watching these War Harpies is to embrace war. It's to embrace hate. Last month, Whoopi was distorting the Holocaust. She lied and she faux apologized and some of the left defended her. She lies all the time. She shouldn't be on air

She should be at a fat farm working every day to reduce her girth to a point where it is not endangering her health. She's not ten or thirty pounds overweight. She is grossly overweight. And she is diabetic.

When the health problems come along, no one should feel sorry for her. She's in con-compliance.

And maybe that's where the hate she's spewing comes from. And maybe she's poisoning her body intentionally. But I'm not going to feel sorry for her when she's the one destroying herself.

I also don't think we need to hear from anyone whose life is out of that control. She's like an addict who is active in her addiction. She's not someone to be a moderator as a result of that.

And before she worries next about what message Tucker or Tulsi is sending, she might want to grasp that she -- tugboat Whoopi -- is sending a message as well and it's that daibetics can be diagnosed and then get grossly overweight and it's nothing to worry about or be concerned about.

She wants to sti in judgment on everyone else in the world on every thing they do. But she doesn't want to apply the same eyes on and commentary about her own health.

Caitlin Johnstone (ICH) observes:

The only real anti-war position on the Ukraine conflict is support for de-escalation, diplomacy, and detente. Yelling “PUTIN BAD” and calling for escalations that could lead to a very fast, very radioactive WWIII are not anti-war, and indeed such sentiments are being exploited to prolong this war.

No efforts are being made toward diplomacy and peace, only toward escalations like building an insurgency and unprecedented economic warfare which fit perfectly into pre-existing US agendas against Russia. This is in the exact opposite direction of peace.

De-escalation is a skill we’re meant to start learning in kindergarten. These people act like they learned their de-escalation skills in the Minneapolis Police Department.

If you want to keep screaming that Putin is Adolf Hitler and even insignificant concessions like promising not to add Ukraine to NATO would be Chamberlainesque “appeasement” then go ahead, but don’t pretend you’re anti-war or pro-peace, because you’re not.

Wars end in one of two ways: with diplomacy and negotiation, or with mountains of corpses. If you’re opposed to any kind of negotiation with Moscow to bring about peace, then you want the latter. And if you do, you should get your bitch ass on a plane and join the front lines.

So let's tart a GoFundMe for the ladies of THE VIEW so they can put their tough girl asses on the line and use something more than their useless mouths as the crow and bray for more war.

Quick sidenote, THE VIEW is not the only embarrassment appearing on so called public affairs programs. A CNN friend called and played me a clip of US House Rep Maria Salazar revealing herself to be an idiot and an insulting one on Tucker Carlson's program. Tucker said "our boys" and I don't expect anything more from him. I don't consider him to be high at the top of the food chain or even the least bit aware of the world he lives in. But the elected US official began repeating it and running with it "our boys." SHe doesn't want to send "our boys" to Ukraine. Over and over.

The place of a woman like that is not in the House or the Senate. If she's not aware that women are part of the US military, that women are in combat, that women serve, she's too dumb to serve in Congress, hell, she's too dumb to greet you at the door of Sam's. Maybe she should meet with some US senators? She could speak with Tammi Duckworth, for example, who could speak about serving in Iraq, she could speak with Joni Ernst. She could speak with any number of women. By 2012 alone, 283,000 American women had deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan (or, in some cases, to both).

That an elected member of Congress could be so stupid is appalling. That the member is also a woman just adds further insult when she's erasing the service of other women.,

Turning to the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange, Marjorie Cohn (TRUTH OUT) notes:

The British judicial system has erected still another barrier to Julian Assange’s freedom. On March 14, the U.K. Supreme Court refused to hear Assange’s appeal of the U.K. High Court’s ruling ordering his extradition to the United States. If extradited to the U.S. for trial, Assange will face 17 charges under the Espionage Act and up to 175 years in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes.

With no explanation of its reasoning, the Supreme Court denied Assange “permission to appeal” the High Court’s decision, saying that Assange’s appeal did not “raise an arguable point of law.” The court remanded the case back to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, which is the same court that denied the U.S. extradition request on January 4, 2021.

In all likelihood, the magistrates’ court will refer the case to the British Home Office where Home Secretary Priti Patel will review it. Assange’s lawyers then have four weeks to submit materials for Patel’s consideration. If she orders Assange’s extradition — which is highly likely — his lawyers will file a cross-appeal in the High Court asking it to review the issues Assange lost in the magistrates’ court.

If the High Court refuses to review those additional issues, Assange can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. That could take years. Meanwhile, he languishes in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, in fragile mental and physical health. He suffered a mini-stroke as his extradition hearing began. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer wrote in a Twitter post that the “U.K. is literally torturing him to death.”

US President Joe Biden could end this nonsense at any time. He could drop the pursuit of Julian. He might if pressure were brought to bear. Julian's crime was journalism. Joe loathes him because Julian exposed US War Crimes. And if Joe gets away with it, the US government will begin punishing other foreign journalists operating outside of the US. It will demand that they be turned over to the US because their truthful reporting embarrassed the US government. Oscar Grenfell (WSWS) points out, "The British and US authorities are seeking to make an example of Assange, to intimidate widespread anti-war sentiment, and to create a precedent for further political persecutions targeting opposition to war and militarism. At the same time, the incessant media propaganda over Ukraine is being seized upon, to drown out other crucial issues, including Assange’s plight."

Craig Murray (ICH) notes:

With Julian still, for no rational reason, held in maximum security, the legal process around his extradition continues to meander its way through the overgrown bridlepaths of the UK’s legal system. Today the Supreme Court refused to hear Julian’s appeal, which was based on the grounds of his health and the effect upon it of incarceration in the conditions of the United States prison service. It stated his appeal had “no arguable legal grounds.”

This is a setback which is, most likely, going to keep Julian in jail for at least another year.

The legal grounds which the High Court had previously ruled to be arguable, were that the USA government should not have been permitted to give at appeal new (and highly conditional) diplomatic assurances about Assange’s treatment, which had not been offered at the court of first instance to be considered in the initial decision. One important argument that this should not be allowed, is that if given to the original court, the defence could argue about the value and conditionality of such assurances; evidence could be called and the matter weighed by the court.

By introducing the assurances only at the appeal stage – which is only on points of law and had no fact-finding remit – the USA had avoided any scrutiny of their validity. The Home Office have always argued that diplomatic assurances must simply be accepted without question. The Home Office is keen on this stance because it makes extradition to countries with appalling human rights records much easier.

In saying there is no arguable point of law, the Supreme Court is accepting that diplomatic assurances are not tested and are to be taken at face value – which has been a major point of controversy in recent jurisprudence. It is now settled that we will send someone back to Saudi Arabia if the Saudis give us a piece of paper promising not to chop their head off.

It interested me in particular that the Supreme Court refused to hear Julian’s appeal on the basis there was “no arguable point of law”. When the Supreme Court refused to hear my own appeal against imprisonment, they rather stated their alternative formulation, there was “no arguable point of law of general public interest”. Meaning there was an arguable point of law, but it was merely an individual injustice, that did not matter to anybody except Craig Murray.

My own view is that, with the Tory government very open about their desire to clip the wings of judges and reduce the reach of the Supreme Court in particular, the Court is simply avoiding hot potatoes at present.

So the extradition now goes to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, to decide whether to extradite. The defence has four weeks to make representations to Patel, which she must hear. There are those on the libertarian right of the Tory party who oppose the extradition on freedom of speech grounds, but Patel has not a libertarian thought in her head and appears to revel in deportation, so personally I hold out no particular hope for this stage.

We'll wind down with this from Black Allaince for Peace:

For Immediate Release

Media Contact

press@blackallianceforpeace.com

202 643 1136

MARCH 15, 2022—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) declares its support for garment workers in Haiti and stands with the Haitian people who, migrating from the country for economic or political reasons, have faced racism, hostility, and terror abroad. We also condemn the neo-colonial political economic policies of the U.S. government, its international allies, and the multinational corporations who have created Haiti’s imperial crisis by continuing to undermine the sovereignty and independence of the Haitian people.

Early in the year, garment workers launched protests at the Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti’s northeast region. These protests have since spread to Port-au-Prince. The workers—mostly women—have demanded wage increases and decried the dehumanizing and demeaning sweatshops in which they are employed. Their demands have been blocked by the U.S. government and by those foreign corporations, including Hanes, New Balance, Champion, Gilden Activewear, Gap, and Walmart, which have profited from a decades-long history of Haitian labor exploitation and wage suppression. With wages at a criminally-low figure of under $5 per day, the workers are demanding an increase to $15 per day.

At the same time, thousands of Haitian people continue to abandon their homes and flee their country for economic and political reasons. Their journeys abroad are uncertain and perilous and their encounters with foreign governments have been punitive and hostile. Only last week, a boat carrying more than 300 Haitians capsized off the coast of Florida. In Mexico, Haitian migrants confront daily the racism of immigration agents and the National Guard and thousands of Haitians have been illegally incarcerated in Tapachula in what some have described as concentration camps. The Dominican Republic, with help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is militarizing its border with Haiti, beginning construction on a planned 164-kilometer long wall with 70 watchtowers and 41 access points. Dominican President Luis Abinader has called it an “intelligent fence”: It will use radars, drones, movement sensors, cameras and, of course, well-armed border patrol agents to prevent Haitian migration.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration deports Haitian asylum seekers at a record pace. Biden has continued the use of Trump-era policies including “Remain in Mexico” and “Title 42” to deny asylum seekers the right to due process and safety. More than 20,000 Haitians have been deported within Biden’s first year in office, a number greater than the record of the previous three presidents combined.

It goes without saying that the treatment of Haitian people provides a stark, racial contrast with that of Ukrainian refugees. While Biden has told Haitians, “Don't come over,” he has welcomed Ukrainians “with open arms.”

For the Black Alliance for Peace, imperialism is the root cause of both the protests of Haiti’s garment workers and the experiences of Haitian migrants. While multinational corporations have undermined Haiti’s workers, the U.S. government, alongside U.S.-led bodies like the Organization of American States (OAS) and the CORE Group, have decapitated the Haitian state. As Haitain wages have been suppressed, Haitian democracy has been throttled. And as Haitian immigrants are abused in and deported from foreign countries, it is foreign meddling that has created the conditions forcing Haitians to migrate.

Thus, as Jemima Pierre, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Committee Coordinator, reminds us, “Haiti’s domestic crises are crises of imperialism, generated by the policies of the United States and its allies.”

The Black Alliance for Peace reaffirms its solidarity with the Haitian people in their unremitting struggles for peace, independence, and self-determination against U.S./UN imperialism. We salute our sisters and brothers fighting for higher wages and better working conditions at home, and in their quest for a better life abroad.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on all organized labor to organize boycotts of Hanes, Levis, Fruit of the Loom and H&M in solidarity with Haitian workers.
BAP demands that the Biden regime stop its racist hypocrisy and end deportations of Haitian asylum seekers.
BAP demands that Haitian refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and elsewhere be treated with dignity and be afforded their legal rights under international law.
BAP calls on all organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America to issue denunciations of the OAS and United States and organize regular pickets outside of their headquarters and embassies.
BAP calls on all human rights organizations and members of the Black liberation movements to organize long term strategic solidarity campaigns to support self-determination for the Haitian people.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

###

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Two from Howie

Howie Hawkins was the 2020 candiate for US president put forward by the Green Party. Unlike so many previous nominees my party has had, he didn't then disappear. Immediately after the election, he began posting at least one discussion of Green issues a week to YouTube. This week he has two.

Howie's not perfect but he's done more to promote the Green Party in the last two years than anyone ever has. He continues to promote the party and address the issues. Give him some credit.

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

Wednesday, March 16, 2022. So many dangers in the world -- who knew the hideous hosts of THE VIEW would be part of that?

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute journalist Julian ASsange. For the 'crime' of reporting the truth, Joe wants Julian brought to the US and wants him to stand trial and, understand, the US can be trusted to be fair and to protect him while he is in their custody. Those laughable claims come as Kevin Reed (WSWS) reports:

A newly declassified 2008 document from the CIA’s inspector general reveals that one of the detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was used as a living prop at a black site in Afghanistan to teach trainees the infamous enhanced interrogation techniques adopted by the administration of George W. Bush.

Ammar al-Baluchi, a Kuwaiti citizen, was rendered into US detention in 2003 from Pakistani custody and taken to a CIA torture facility known as the Salt Pit north of Kabul. According to the declassified document, the CIA was aware that rendering al-Baluchi was illegal because he was no longer a terrorist threat.

Proving that the Bush-Cheney administration’s pseudo-legal justifications for torture were themselves a sham, Baluchi was initially subjected to two torture techniques that were not on the approved list. The first was the use of a stick behind the knees in a stress position, and the other involved leaning back while kneeling and dousing with ice water.

One of the approved torture techniques being taught by the CIA and used repeatedly on Baluchi was “walling.” The CIA inspector general’s report says the torture trainees lined up to take turns smashing Baluchi head against a plywood wall.

According to the results of an MRI of Baluchi’s head carried out in 2018, a neuropsychologist found “abnormalities indicating moderate to severe brain damage” in areas affecting memory formation and retrieval, as well as behavioral regulation. The analysis found that the “abnormalities observed were consistent with traumatic brain injury.”

The walling of Baluchi involved placing his heels against a specially designed plywood wall “which had flexibility to it” and putting a rolled up towel around his neck. The heavily redacted report states, “The interrogators would then grab the ends of the towel in front of and below the detainees face and shove [Baluchi] backwards into the wall, never letting go of the towel.” While Baluchi was “naked for the proceedings,” the goal of the interrogators was to “bounce” him off the wall.

While the report states that there was no time limit for the walling sessions, “typically a session did not last for more than two hours at a time,” they went for as long as necessary for training purposes.

The declassified report also says that the treatment of Baluchi was not to extract information from him because the trainees were only interested in completing an interrogation course and becoming certified. As a former trainee told the CIA investigators, “all the interrogation students lined up to ‘wall’ Ammar so that [the instructor] could certify them on their ability to use the technique.”

The US government tortured prisoners. Appalling enough. But these butchers don't even try to hide behind the nonsense of 'we ignored the law because we needed information' -- no, they did it because they wanted to be 'checked off' on having learned the torture and how to carry it out.

THis is the sort of thing that lands people in prisons in functioning governments. And should land people in prison in this dysfunctional government.

Why doesn't that happen here? Because despite Kevin's laughable invocation of Bully Boy Bush and Dick CHeney, the torture was bipartisan. By January 2007, the Congress -- both houses -- were controlled by the Democrats. By January 2009, Barack Obama was president. He came in promising he would close down the gulag at Guantanamo Bay and he never did. He had two terms to do it and he never did. Was one of the reasons he refused to shut it down because he was worried what the world would think when they learned how the government had tortured and traumatized?

This same government is now supposed to be entrusted with protecting Julian Assange if they get him in their clutches?

Thomas Scripps (WSWS) notes:

Julian Assange was shunted a step closer to his would-be executioners on Monday. The UK Supreme Court issued a one-line decision refusing to hear the WikiLeaks founder’s appeal against an earlier decision ordering his extradition to the United States.

The case will now be returned to the original court as a formality before being passed to the home secretary, Priti Patel, to give the final order. Once Patel receives the case, Assange could be on a plane to the US in just four weeks’ time, except for inevitable further appeals.

The Biden administration intends to prosecute Assange for charges under the Espionage Act with a potential sentence of 175 years in prison. This would be served in barbaric conditions that previous judgements acknowledged could drive him to suicide. His health has already been destroyed by years of incarceration in Britain’s maximum security Belmarsh prison.

Despite the immense danger faced by the most significant journalist of the 21st century, many major newspapers did not cover the Supreme Court decision. Those that did ran entirely perfunctory stories, largely without comment.

Britain’s leading liberal newspaper, the Guardian, did not write a single critical line in its cursory 350-word article, quoting just two sentences from his legal team. The US New York Times managed, “If Mr. Assange were extradited to the United States and faced a trial, the case could raise profound First Amendment issues. His prosecution has alarmed advocates of press freedom.”

These are publications which have spent the last weeks screaming about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s censorship and attacks on free speech and journalistic freedoms. When speaking out about democratic rights lines up with imperialist war aims, they are fervent advocates. In the case of Assange, who exposed the systematic crimes of US and British imperialism, the “democratic principles” they so fiercely defend in Russia whither on the vine.

The NATO-Russia war over Ukraine has not only accelerated Assange’s persecution, but intensified his long and deliberate isolation by the corporate media.

At a briefing with the Foreign Press Association last month, to introduce his new book The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution, UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer accused the mainstream media of failing in their duty as the “fourth estate” to hold governments to account. Melzer’s book is based on his three years of efforts to end the illegal mistreatment of the WikiLeaks founder.

In it, he criticises the “too little, too late”, “tame and lame” reporting of the British, American and American press, exposing their cynical pseudo-support for Assange:

“A handful of half-hearted opinion pieces in the Guardian and the New York Times rejecting Assange’s extradition are not bold enough, and so fail to convince. While both papers have timidly declared that convicting Assange of espionage would endanger press freedom, not a single mainstream media outlet protests the blatant violations of due process, human dignity and the rule of law that pervade the entire trial. None holds the involved governments to account for their crimes and corruption; none has the courage to confront political leaders with uncomfortable questions; none feels dutybound to inform and empower the people—a mere shadow of what was once the ‘fourth estate’.”

Joe Bidens going to protect Julian? Joe had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and yet he didn't do that as Guantanamo Bay makes very clear. He was a US senator and he knew what was going on and elected to look the other way. He didn't even muster faux tears the way a certain Illinois senator loves to do. Joe didn't protect anyone then and he won't protect them now. The UK turning Julian over to the US is turning him over to torture and that's very clear to everyone paying attention at this point.

Andrea Germanos writes:

The case has sparked global concern from press freedom and human rights groups who warn that prosecution of Assange would have far-reaching impacts on journalists and publishers who dare to challenge powerful governments by exposing their most closely-guarded secrets.

In a statement, Assange’s solicitors lamented that the request for appeal was denied, saying that “the court had found that there was a real risk of prohibited treatment in the event of his onward extradition.”

The legal team also said that they would be able to submit documents to Patel’s office for the next four weeks ahead of her decision and that Assange could still appeal on other grounds.

The high court ruled in December that Assange can be extradited, overturning an earlier ruling by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court that found extradition would endanger Assange’s life.

In a January statement, Committee to Protect Journalists deputy executive director Robert Mahoney warned that “the prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder in the United States would set a deeply harmful legal precedent that would allow the prosecution of reporters for news gathering activities and must be stopped.”

Mahoney, like other defenders of free speech and journalism, additionally called on the U.S. Justice Department to stop the extradition proceedings and drop its charges against Assange.

He exposed the War Crimes of the United States -- War Crimes carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan. In what world is it plausible to then turn him over to the government that carried out the War Crimes?

Richard Medhurst addressed the latest developments on his YOUTUBE program.

Richard Medhurst attempts to accomplish something. I have no idea what THE VIW attemtps to do thse days but broadcast an hour of hate speech with a bunch of overweight and under educated women braying incessently.

Ana Navarro came to this country as a young child but apparently never bothered to learn the Constitution -- she was apparently using her entire school day to go through the lunch line repeatedly which would explain the gifth. The right-wing zealot loves US empire because her disgusting father wouldn't have had wealth without the US empire and she loathed those who argued for equality. That's how she ended up in the US. How she ended up on TV is another issue. She's unattractive and her voice annoys. She shouldn't be on TV or radi o for those reasons alone. But there she is as Whoopi Goldberg's wingman. You now Whoopi, the failed actress. Won an Academy Award and couldn't doa d amn thing with it because she never had the taste or sense to tell what qualified as drama resulting in one bad film after another.

She's undereducated, obviously. You can tell that when she speaks, you can tell that when she 'writes' (that laughable ghost0written bio). She's not informed and she's not a thinker despite all the gas baggery she puts over the airwaves.

She's an ugly person with an even uglier soul and in the '00s we called her out at THIRD for her embrace of torture -- no one else seemed too concerned about that. Maybe they're still not concerned about what she's doing?

Here's RISING.

i really wish that RISING was a left show. It's not.

A left show might be calling out Whoopi for her comments -- especially when she starts with, "They used to arrest people for doing stuff like this. . . .'' She's speaking of journalist Tucker Carlson and former Congress member Tulsi Gabbard. But she's speaking of two other people as well.

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg.

They were executed.

Why is she speaking of them? She didn't get enough of a backlash for antisemitism last month?

Because she's a blood thristy whore who uses the public airwaves to celebrate witch hutns and executions?

Her remarks are appalling. You'd expect that sort of crap fro m the ghost of William F. Buckley but not from a so-called fun show broadcast by DISNEY. It's outrageous. It's offensive.

She's lamenting the end of the Red Scare and she's calling for a new one while explaining that nothing cheers her on like the execution of Ethel and Julius?

Unifnormed and uneducated minds do not belong on the ariwaves as hosts for political discussions. Anything beyond food and bitchy is clearly beyond the hosts.

Barbara Walters had a vision. She deserves credit for that. But what THE VIEW is today is not what she envisioned and it's appalling to watch this garbage. (I don't. I've included RISIN because that's where I saw Whoopi and Ana frothing at the mouth.)

It's outrageous and its shameful and it's so far beyond celebrating humanity that we really ned to rethink Whoopi Goldberg. She's no longer just an idiot who manages to pull off a comedy line somebody else wrote, she's not a rabid person addicted to hate who wants to invoke the executions of the Rosenbergs as a good thing and something that our country is missing.

In Iraq, the political stalemate continues. THE NEW ARAB notes:

The Iraqi parliament on Tuesday scheduled a March 26 session for deputies to hold a delayed vote on the country's president.

Parliament also released a final list of 40 candidates for the post, a largely ceremonial role reserved for the Kurds.

Among the frontrunners are Barham Saleh, the incumbent and member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Rebar Ahmed of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the PUK's rival.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated: